My life, though wonderful in more ways than one, does not look exactly how I pictured it when I was growing up. Life is not, however much we wish for it to be, a fairy tale. We don’t live lives like Cinderella, where all of our troubles go away when we find Prince Charming. Our lives aren’t like Sleeping Beauty, where true love’s kiss can save the day. Maybe our true loves and our Prince Charming’s can make us feel better when times are hard, but they are just as troubled, hurt and grieved as we are when it comes the loss of our children.

When I was 16, I envisioned my future life like this: I would graduate high school and go off to college. I would find a boyfriend and marry the summer after graduating, at age 22. I would find a job, buy a house in my hometown, and start having children by age 24. Throw in a dog, a cat and a work-from-home writing gig once the first baby arrived, and that completed the picture.

Here’s how it really went: I married at 24. To find jobs, we had to move away from home due to a bad economy. Moving away meant cost of living was much higher, and we put off having children for two years to become more financially secure. We got a dog, but no cat. Then for two years we battled infertility and finally conceived, and then miscarried. Miraculously we conceived again a few months later. Then we bought a house, far from home. Then we lost our baby at 26 weeks, stillborn.

I’m now 29. I have two babies in Heaven and none here with me. I continue to struggle with fertility.

16-year-old me would be so disappointed. How can I possibly be entering the last year in my 20’s and I have no baby in my arms? I am so far behind schedule.

But then, almost 29-year-old-me knows something that my younger self didn’t: life doesn’t always go as planned; it cannot be scheduled. Sweet and wonderful things happen, and really awful things happen. True love cannot save us from the hardships, but is there to walk through it with us. Prince Charming cannot change the things out of our control, only hold us when we need comfort, laugh with us when we are happy, and press on with us, highs and lows. We can try to envision our lives and plan them out, but life is unpredictable and daunting and stunningly beautiful. We can’t know what will happen next, no matter how hard we try to control it.

And so in growing older, in deep loss, in great grief, I am learning to let go of control. To let life happen and to have faith, even if it’s not what I’d been planning or hoping. To accept and to breathe. If not for me, for my children, who don’t get to experience life as I know it. Children who, though they’ll never grow older, have made me wiser.

“The important part of growing older was the growing part. Resisting change meant forever standing still, which was a sad way to live.” ― Barbara Delinsky, Blueprints