Dear Emily,

I’m 40 years old and married for 18 years. I’ve suffered seven miscarriages and my husband and I still don’t have children until now. My last miscarriage was five months ago. This makes me feel incomplete and a failure.

I envy my siblings, my in-laws, friends, or just about any pregnant woman who doesn’t have my problem. My doctor said that because of my age and consecutive miscarriages, it’s now dangerous for me to have a child.

My husband is supportive and has not left me despite his mother telling him to leave me and find a woman he can have children with because I’m useless. Am I really worthless? Is a woman incomplete without children?

DESPERATE MOTHER IN WAITING

Is being useless the word for suffering the pain, frustration and heartache of seven miscarriages in wanting to have a child? Your mother-in-law sure takes the cake for humaneness and generosity of spirit in her judgment of you.

We cannot change the cards fate has dealt us with, except in how well we play the game. It’s nobody’s fault that you couldn’t bear children. That doesn’t make you any more incomplete than the couple who has a dozen.

What completes this world is our ability to fill up the inadequacy or void made by other people. There are so many roles to fulfill in this world. Accept with grace your childless state and find your fulfillment in other worthwhile issues.

Fate gave each of us significant roles to play. Motherhood was just not assigned to you.

***** *****

Dear Emily,

I’m 34 years old and I just got engaged to a British guy I met through an online dating site two years ago. He came here for a visit last year. We fell in love and got engaged fairly quickly. He recently told me he had a vasectomy a few years ago because he already has four kids with his ex-wife. He said we can adopt once we are married.

I don’t want to adopt. I want my own flesh and blood. I love him, but I’m having second thoughts about marrying him. Am I wrong for thinking like this?

CONFUSED BRIDE TO BE

Your maternal instincts went on overdrive upon learning of his vasectomy. This reflex reaction to fulfill what you consider an important must-do has put in question whether you still want to marry a man who doesn’t want kids anymore. After all, he has already lived a full life, while you are barely out of the gate long enough to experience anything!

Living abroad may look attractive, factored in by a financially secure future with a probably well-employed man. But you’re young, single and have the whole world open to pursue whatever you want in life. Will physical comfort be the sole reason to nail your future to him? Do you like him enough to forego and forget having a child of your own?

Think hard about it. Life is in constant flux and the road ahead is full of u-turns, dead-ends and bumps.

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