You'll Be Ready For IVF My Son!

Here is a classic poem by Kipling that can easily be used to describe my experience with IVF and Surrogacy. You just need to change the last line to - You'll Be Ready For IVF and Surrogacy My Son!



Rudyard Kipling
If

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Wow....just wow
Anonymous said…
Lovely. I enjoy reading your blog. Thanks!
nh said…
I've always loved that poem, but just re-read it in an entirely different way!
Jaymee,

It was really weird to me how closely this followed my experience with IVF and Surrogacy. It fit it to a T.
Robynanne,

Thank you for the complement.
NH,

I am with you on that one. I have heard the poem many times over the years and always thought it was a good one.

Then someone mentioned something to me recently, and this poem came to my mind. I re-read it and it sounds like it was written to describe our IVF adventure.
Here from ICLW...
I've known that poem by heart since childhood but never thought of it in an IF context before. But now whenever I think of these lines:

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

I think of Homer Simpson talking to his father about a gambling loss. Grampa quotes that line and then, "You'll be a man, my son," and Homer counters:

You'll be a bonehead!

Sometimes I think they're both right. :)

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