Well, I converted this past Sunday.
I’m not going to lie – I was super nervous in the hours leading up to my appointment. Not because I had doubts (I didn’t), but because I wasn’t 100% convinced I was going to be “accepted”. Allowed in. In hindsight, it was a pretty irrational fear. But hindsight is 20/20.
So, beyond the class that I started in September (which ended about two weeks ago), I had to prepare an essay, go before the Beit Din, and then go to the Mikvah if both those other things went okay.
My essay could be as long, or as short, as I needed it to be, and mine ended up going on for 12 pages because I’m wordy and don’t know when to stop writing. XD I was given a list of suggested topics to cover, and I tried to touch on most of them although I couldn’t go too into detail on any of them. I submitted that on the last day of my class, and writing it was hard. I agonized over it for a long time. I had known for over a year that an essay would be required, but I’d sort of put off writing it because I just couldn’t get it right. So when I finally had to force myself to put words on paper as a result of a looming deadline, it wasn’t great. At least, I didn’t think so.
Then on Sunday had I had my appointment with the Beit Din. The Beit Din is a council made up of three rabbis; my Beit Din had the rabbi who had been teaching the class, the other rabbi at the synagogue I attend, and someone who isn’t “officially” a rabbi, but is more along the lines of a lay clergyman. He’s a rabbi but not a rabbi, if that makes sense. They asked me all sorts of questions about me and the essay that I wrote.
In the essay I had written, somewhat offhandedly I think, that I would likely be starting a family on my own. (In answering the question about how I would raise my children Jewish, if I had children.) They really sort of narrowed in on that comment near the end of our meeting. They asked me some questions, tried to determine why I had written what I had.
I won’t go into lengthy detail about the conversation. What I will say is that they asked me if I was open to a relationship/a more traditional family. I said that I was, but that I wasn’t willing to sacrifice the having kids should I not find a husband. They said they wanted to see me able to have both, and that there are lots of single Jewish men in the community who want what I want – to settle down, have a family. It’s a little difficult to explain what exactly that conversation sounded like (I think from the way I’m writing it, it sounds a little like religious men trying to push me towards me being a more traditional woman and it wasn’t that at all) but I will say this… I can’t recall a time I have ever felt so profoundly, genuinely, cared about by people who aren’t family. And by that I mean, I was sitting there facing three rabbis, and I could have so easily felt ganged up on, or judged, or dismissed. Instead, I could tell that these questions and comments were coming from this incredible place of genuine care and concern.
I had already decided to take a bit of a break from trying after cycle four was a bust, so I haven’t made any attempt in May to get pregnant.
But I think, after the conversation on Sunday, I may put the plan on hold for a couple more months. Not forever, not even indefinitely.
But maybe there’s a reason that relationships haven’t worked out for me before now. Maybe there’s a reason that I miscarried in February. Maybe the timing just wasn’t right. Maybe now that I’m part of this new community, I’m going to meet the people I’m supposed to meet and have the opportunities I’m supposed to have.
And if not, and it’s all a bust and I don’t meet anyone or I don’t meet anyone I could see myself being with, then I start trying again to conceive on my own. Whatever is supposed to happen will happen. And it only seems fair to give myself another chance to take the more “traditional” route, now that I’m going to be interacting with new people, and participating in a new community. I mean, in all honesty, that would be my preference. If nothing else, all the stress of trying to get pregnant sucks. It sucks doing it on my own, and suffering disappointments and loss on my own. Being with someone would certainly be easier.
On one hand, I don’t love the idea of putting everything on hold even longer. But on the other, wouldn’t it be nice to have both? The husband, and the baby?
Anyway, so that conversation has definitely affected me and I’m feeling conflicted. Until I’m no longer feeling conflicted, the baby attempts are getting put on hold. I don’t want to jump into this, unsure.
So after the Beit Din was the Mikvah, but I think I’m going to write about that in another post because this one is already far too long. XD
I’m so excited that I’ve finally converted, and looking forward to what that means for the future. I’ll try to fill in some of the gaps here later – I had almost no posts about the process between when I started the class and when I converted almost a year later, so I definitely want to get everything else filled in too as I have time.