We recently announced the birth of our first son. He arrived after seven years of trying. Those years taught me how important it is to quiet the mind, and to accept that the universe has its own way of working things out.

Like most couples, my husband and I worked hard to get settled in life, and then one day we decided we were ready to grow our family. We had no idea what we were walking into. Every month ended in disappointment. I was healthy, so at first I didn’t want medical intervention. When we finally did see doctors, some of the best in the Bay Area couldn’t find anything wrong. Every test came back normal, so I was given the label “unexplained infertility.” And when we did get pregnant, my body wouldn’t hold on to the pregnancy. Nobody knew why. I was exhausted, physically and mentally.

Somewhere in those years, I got a roommate.

I met her every night. Some nights we had a decent conversation. Most nights we didn’t. I’d wake up drained because she had kept me up talking till morning. Once in a while I managed to get rid of her, with a sleeping pill or by burying myself in work, but she always came back. And our conversations were always the same:

• Why me?
• Why is this happening to me?
• I’ve never knowingly hurt anyone, so what did I do to deserve this?
• Did I not take care of my health?
• Am I doing everything I can?
• Is it stress from work?
• Will this ever end, or is this my life now?

Nobody who knew me would have believed I was depressed. I didn’t believe it either.

They say grief has five stages:

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance

Depending on the person and the situation, some stages pass quickly and some last a long time. I was stuck in bargaining and depression for years.

Then came 2015, the year I lost three pregnancies back to back. Something in me shifted. I can’t say exactly what, but I wanted to start over.

I had read a line somewhere:

To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did!

So what had I never done? The answer was clear. I needed to evict my roommate, for good this time. But how?

“By learning to let go (no attachments) and not control everything”

And how do you learn to let go? For me, the answer was

Meditation!!

I started practicing regularly, and slowly, the voice got quieter. I started to feel like myself again. Then the universe led us to a doctor who finally figured out what was going on. In 2016 I got pregnant, my body accepted it, and today I’m the mother of a beautiful baby boy.

My mother gave me a piece of advice during those years that I hold onto to this day:

Birth, Death, and Marriage are not in our control. Time is the only answer!

I’d like to believe that with time, I came across meditation and knowing my inner self better which eventually led to a happy ending.

I like to think that time brought me to meditation, meditation brought me closer to myself, and that’s what led us here.

Everyone goes through hard stretches in life, and everyone needs a way to carry grief. Mine is meditation. Yours might be running, swimming, yoga, music, time in nature, laughter, or a dog asleep at your feet. Find yours now, before you need it.