Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The old-stork woman is on vacation


Lately, infertilities among married couples are on steep rise.  Every now and then, I come across with couples that have been trying for years to conceive by various means, but many to no avail.  It is quite heart-breaking to see them keep getting disappointed month after month, year after year…  It seems as though the Samsin-halmoni (the old Stork-woman in Korean folklore) has gone onto long-holidays…

While there are still many couples who are easy to get pregnant, or scare of getting pregnant, but for increasing number of couples, conception without paying some dues first, either financially or mentally or physically, becoming difficult and rather common scenes nowadays.  Some are due to their infertilities while many are told by doctors that they are perfectly normal.  Thus the- so-called-no-problem couples keep trying…So many fertility treatment clinics are flourishing business these days.  Eventually many give up…but not without big holes in the hearts and finance.   Which is really sad.

As much as each childless couple’s story differs from one another, so are the ways they handle and make efforts to overcome the heart-breaking agonies in their desire to be parents.  Some poor people, on the hand, barely able to feed the multiples mouths they already have, and yet, new ones are keep popping up to add further strains on the parents’ hunched backs. 

Who is luckier?  Which one would you rather be?  Financially secure and well off but no child; many children but struggling day to day just to feed and clothe the breeds? 

Each will say the other is better.  Or, many will insist to simply add, to what they have plus the one lacking.  Many people like to do simple equation with what they think of a perfect life.  They don't want to accept the obvious fact that we can't have it all.  Yes… there are MANY who seemed to have it all when judging from outside.  But, are they really…?  Is there such a thing in life, like a perfect life, having it all we want???  I don’t think so. 

For some reasons, we human beings are unable to switch their own perception for another, to comprehend the omniscient factors that, we just can’t have it all in life.   Children or no children…our life meant to bear each allocated shares of agonies and tears and triumphs.   In life, no matter what, we will always have something missing.   There is no such thing as everlasting happiness after the Mr. Perfect met the Miss Perfect.  In fact, that where the untold portions of fairy tale starts to unfold. 

In astrology, to have children you need the combinations of 5th Space (good past karma, rewards from God) plus 6th Space (debts from past life, hard works in this life).  That is why raising children is not only expensive but also hard works.  They demand endlessly and mercilessly, stretching us beyond what we ever imagined possible before we had them.  And yet, they are gifts from God who teach us the most important life lessons of selfless giving.  

We tend to think life is about satisfying our needs to find happiness.  Actually it’s not. Happiness is never like straightforward equitation between profit/loss accounts.  Even if we know we are in losing end, having children brings in us the best parts of human nature; angelic god-nature of wanting to give.  We all want to give.  Happiness multiplies when we can give and children are the best outlet to give.  That is why many people desire to be parents, though having children is life-time commitment with no guaranteed return. 

It was Deepavali today and with it another season of year-end approaching…So to call back the old-stork woman who seems to have gone onto long holiday, why don’t we first practice of giving without expectation of any return?  New Year resolutions…maybe we could include the plans on how to do more GIVING…