Country music legend Dolly Parton has been married to her husband Carl Dean since 1966, and at the time of their marriage, they dreamed of having many children together.

“We’ll probably start our family or start trying next summer,” Parton said with excitement in 1967. “I’d like to have at least four children. I’d like to have six if we can afford it and if things go well.”

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t to be, and the couple never did end up having the babies they’d once dreamed of. The U.K. Mirror reported that Parton had still not become pregnant by the early 1980s, when she found herself suffering from an excruciatingly painful undiagnosed gynecological condition that was causing internal bleeding.

In 1984, Parton collapsed onstage in Indianapolis when she defied doctors by performing. It was then that she was finally diagnosed with endometriosis , a condition that results in the lining of the womb to grow on other organs. At just 36 years of age, Parton had to undergo a partial hysterectomy, meaning that she would never be able to naturally conceive a baby.

This entire experience threw Parton into a deep depression that ended up being the most challenging period of her life. She began binge eating and turning to alcohol, and eventually, even contemplating suicide.

“Suddenly I was a middle-aged woman. I went through a dark time, until I made myself snap out of it,” she recalled in the 2017 book “Dolly on Dolly: Interviews and Encounters with Dolly Parton.”

Even though the children she’d once dreamed about never ended up being born, Parton has no regrets looking back now. In fact, her and Dean are glad they never became parents.

“It wasn’t meant to be. Now that we’re older? We’re glad,” she explained. “I would have been a great mother, I think. I would probably have given up everything else. Because I would’ve felt guilty about that, if I’d have left them [to work, to tour].”

“Everything would have changed. I probably wouldn’t have been a star,” Parton added.

As one of twelve siblings, Parton has tons of nieces and nephews to keep her busy, as well as her famous goddaughter Miley Cyrus.

“I’m the perfect grandma, I’m the perfect aunt, I’m the perfect babysitter, because I don’t have children. So I bring them over to visit me by choice. They don’t get dumped on me,” she said. “I got tree houses. I got caves. I love to babysit because it gives me a chance to play.”

This serves as a reminder that even though we all go through disappointments, life has a funny way of working out just as it’s meant to!

This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.

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