I Didn't Know If I Would Ever Have a Baby, So I Consulted a Psychic

I consider myself a practical person – I’m someone who constantly doubts and is highly unlikely to believe in anything too unconventional, like a psychic. However, that skepticism was tested the day my husband, Matt, and I were told by doctors we might never have a child. It was a Wednesday; by Friday, I ordered several self-help books and broke down and asked my mom to talk to her psychic, a future-teller who “just knew these things.”

Although I would have preferred torture over telling my mom her desire to be like her friends with grandchildren might be doomed, I was burning to consult her medium. “Your daughter will have a baby for sure,” the psychic said by phone, with a confidence-building laugh. But she had a note of caution: the baby might not happen right away. There was a specific spiritual lesson for me to learn in order to be the best mom. What’s more, the psychic concluded, “Your daughter will undergo a journey in the next year, and the baby will eventually have a story attached to how they came by their name. Don’t worry, I know these things.”

The part about some life lesson? This sounded like something in a bad movie. A difficult year of fertility treatment followed. Matt and I fought constantly, and when I saw heavily expectant women, I honestly thought that odd way they walk was to show off their status to women less fortunate, like my tragic self. (I may have been feeling just a little self-pitying.)

Related: We Didn't Quite Know What We Were Getting Into Having Kids, but I'm Sure Glad We Did

One day, tests showed that my hormone levels had drastically improved. Doctors thought if someone with as crappy a reproductive system as mine had any shot, it was with IVF. I had better get going, the nurse said. Also, IVF might not even work, at many thousands in cost. No pressure, she added – but it was now or never.

I chose never. In a blinding flash of clarity, I saw that I hadn’t been mature enough before to be a parent. I had wanted it my way, as in only a genetic child. But if I really dreamed of being a mom (not just of the baby shower I would have), then down the line, when we weren’t feeling like we’d thrown away our life savings on doctors and badly needed therapy, we could adopt.

And while I once ridiculed “chick-flick” moments, I walked away from that clinic like I was in a Reese Witherspoon movie, purse and empowerment swinging in the breeze. I decided then and there never to give up on being a mom – or on anything. I’d let life determine the hows and whens. I knew this was the right choice deep in my bones, like the psychic herself said.

Well, you know the rest: I had a kid. Her name is Faith – what I needed to have back then. And with my kids getting bigger and my pregnancies over, I haven’t needed a so-called “psychic totline.” Now, I’m readily willing to consider that there are things beyond normal comprehension. To me, there’s no doubt life can’t always be explained – and that the psychic’s predictions came from a realm that’s not entirely our own.