Infertility: My Journey / The Spirit Of A Mother: A Poem (2/19/2019)
I'm writing this as a sort of therapy for myself.
However, before I get too into my head and my journey, I want to share some truths that I think everyone should know about infertility:
1. Unless you have struggled to conceive, you can not relate to what someone endures in the fertility vs. infertility process.
2. Further, unless you have been unsuccessful in your struggle with fertility, you can not relate to the scars and pain that remain for the person that still has been unable to bear their own child.
3. If you want to support someone struggling with fertility issues, the best thing you can do is educate yourself.
https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-can-i-support-a-friend-with-infertility-1960033
https://www.verywellfamily.com/things-not-to-say-to-someone-infertility-1960012
*****
What I've always known...
There is one constant that I've known as long as I can remember - I was going to be a mom. I couldn't wait to have children. I adore babies, children, family and the instinct to mother and nurture is innately part of who I am. I simply never considered that I wouldn't be a mom someday. It was just what I was going to do. I was always mothering someone or something. As a small child, I carefully tended and wrapped my baby dolls or any creature that would let me treat it as a baby. Even as a pre-teen, my arms ached to hold babies, and parents trusted me with their infants and children. I began babysitting as soon as I was allowed to and was very sought after in my neighborhood. My first job was at a daycare after school. I took summer jobs teaching art to small kids. If there was a crying baby, I was drawn to them. I could put the fussiest of babies to sleep. If there was a child in a room, they seemed to be drawn to me. Years later, when we began fertility treatments, I didn't question whether it was going to work or not - of course it would. I was destined to be a mom.
"Fertility" - the F-word....
There is something about the struggle and failure to conceive that is beyond gut-wrenching. As you plod along the journey, you endure being reduced to a science experiment - you endure intimate conversations with people that you don't know that make your cheeks flare - you endure prying hands in cold, sterile procedure rooms - you endure prying eyes as you breakdown, alone in a doctor's office hallway as disappointment streams down your face and catches in your throat - you breathe your way through searing physical pain - you console yourself when panic and anxiety loom large - you find a way to soothe your emotional trauma when facing loss - you refocus your energy when you know you must move on - you check your emotions and find the strength to rejoice in the announcements your friends and family make - you find the strength to smile your way through births and baby showers - you breathe your way through insensitive, hurtful and prying comments - you learn how to cope with more than just not being able to conceive.
It is so much more than having a child. It is so much more than infertility. It is a festering combination of guilt, disgust, denial, betrayal, disappointment, grief, heart-break, anger and sometimes a plethora of undefined frustrating emotions that become black-tar goo in your soul. But still, you figure out how to push that down and lock it all away. You become a puzzle master - picking up fragments of your heart and soul with each failure and putting them back together in a skillful way so that the trauma is hidden and you can go on. You work, you play, you cry, you smile, you love, you grow, you learn and you just keep going. You find a way to live life in the midst of all the disappointment, pain and angst. You do everything in your power to realize your dream...and you hope.
And now...
Now, I'm closing in on 45 years old and the reality as I see it is this: My body has betrayed me. Hope and faith have led me down a path that has only led to the antagonization of my heart. I feel a great sense of guilt at letting my husband down. I am nearly swallowed up with grief for the babies lost along the way. My protective shield is melting against the fiery anger I feel at the injustice that people who don't want children (or those who shouldn't have children) can conceive without thinking twice. Disappointment animalistically ravages the piece of me that desires motherhood, leaving an empty, desolate, scarred hole where that need will never be realized or take true form. And now, the seeping sadness I refused to allow in, the hope that has turned sour in my stomach, the heartbreak I've tucked away to be dealt with later, the bitter fear I've swallowed that it won't ever happen...all these emotions are boiling into a poison that is bound to eat away at the walls I've built to protect myself.
A part of me knows this...
I have carried this around with me for far too long. Don't get me wrong - I have been warrior-like in my patience, stamina and resilience. That is not to be overlooked. However, over the years, each lost battle has become part of the bigger lost war that has taken up residency in me. The battle wounds have not only scarred my heart, but the grip of disappointment and sadness have begun to strangle my heart. The weight of this war (waged for too long) has buried my soul in sludge - that black-tar goo I mentioned before.
This season of my life has brought about some shifting. This shifting has awakened a desire within me to be free of the self-imposed baggage that I faithfully carry to my own detriment. I am very aware that this particular baggage is not your everyday, "two bag limit, to be picked up at carousel 2." Oh, no. This particular baggage - the baggage I'm carrying from the struggle of fertility and wanting children - this is the kind of baggage that you need at least one (if not more) 40' cargo containers that can only be moved via train or slow boat from China. This baggage is no "must fit in the overhead compartment" baggage.
What's worse about this kind of baggage is that it doesn't have easy to maneuver wheels and a collapsing handle. This kind of baggage requires a bulldozer to move it. And in the process of pushing or pulling this weighty cargo around, it creates more than just a crack in your life...it rips a chasm. And I know - I KNOW that I can't manage it anymore. It is time to let go of the baggage - to walk away...and simply be free.
Now what...
But now what? What's next? I recognize that it may be time to find freedom from this. At the same time, I realize that a very integral part of who I thought I was and who I thought I would be is going to be very different from now on. So I face these questions: Do I change? How do I change? Can I be true to myself if I change? Can I blend the past me with a new me and come out more whole? What is the next step?
*****
However, before I get too into my head and my journey, I want to share some truths that I think everyone should know about infertility:
1. Unless you have struggled to conceive, you can not relate to what someone endures in the fertility vs. infertility process.
2. Further, unless you have been unsuccessful in your struggle with fertility, you can not relate to the scars and pain that remain for the person that still has been unable to bear their own child.
3. If you want to support someone struggling with fertility issues, the best thing you can do is educate yourself.
https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-can-i-support-a-friend-with-infertility-1960033
https://www.verywellfamily.com/things-not-to-say-to-someone-infertility-1960012
*****
What I've always known...
There is one constant that I've known as long as I can remember - I was going to be a mom. I couldn't wait to have children. I adore babies, children, family and the instinct to mother and nurture is innately part of who I am. I simply never considered that I wouldn't be a mom someday. It was just what I was going to do. I was always mothering someone or something. As a small child, I carefully tended and wrapped my baby dolls or any creature that would let me treat it as a baby. Even as a pre-teen, my arms ached to hold babies, and parents trusted me with their infants and children. I began babysitting as soon as I was allowed to and was very sought after in my neighborhood. My first job was at a daycare after school. I took summer jobs teaching art to small kids. If there was a crying baby, I was drawn to them. I could put the fussiest of babies to sleep. If there was a child in a room, they seemed to be drawn to me. Years later, when we began fertility treatments, I didn't question whether it was going to work or not - of course it would. I was destined to be a mom.
"Fertility" - the F-word....
There is something about the struggle and failure to conceive that is beyond gut-wrenching. As you plod along the journey, you endure being reduced to a science experiment - you endure intimate conversations with people that you don't know that make your cheeks flare - you endure prying hands in cold, sterile procedure rooms - you endure prying eyes as you breakdown, alone in a doctor's office hallway as disappointment streams down your face and catches in your throat - you breathe your way through searing physical pain - you console yourself when panic and anxiety loom large - you find a way to soothe your emotional trauma when facing loss - you refocus your energy when you know you must move on - you check your emotions and find the strength to rejoice in the announcements your friends and family make - you find the strength to smile your way through births and baby showers - you breathe your way through insensitive, hurtful and prying comments - you learn how to cope with more than just not being able to conceive.
It is so much more than having a child. It is so much more than infertility. It is a festering combination of guilt, disgust, denial, betrayal, disappointment, grief, heart-break, anger and sometimes a plethora of undefined frustrating emotions that become black-tar goo in your soul. But still, you figure out how to push that down and lock it all away. You become a puzzle master - picking up fragments of your heart and soul with each failure and putting them back together in a skillful way so that the trauma is hidden and you can go on. You work, you play, you cry, you smile, you love, you grow, you learn and you just keep going. You find a way to live life in the midst of all the disappointment, pain and angst. You do everything in your power to realize your dream...and you hope.
And now...
Now, I'm closing in on 45 years old and the reality as I see it is this: My body has betrayed me. Hope and faith have led me down a path that has only led to the antagonization of my heart. I feel a great sense of guilt at letting my husband down. I am nearly swallowed up with grief for the babies lost along the way. My protective shield is melting against the fiery anger I feel at the injustice that people who don't want children (or those who shouldn't have children) can conceive without thinking twice. Disappointment animalistically ravages the piece of me that desires motherhood, leaving an empty, desolate, scarred hole where that need will never be realized or take true form. And now, the seeping sadness I refused to allow in, the hope that has turned sour in my stomach, the heartbreak I've tucked away to be dealt with later, the bitter fear I've swallowed that it won't ever happen...all these emotions are boiling into a poison that is bound to eat away at the walls I've built to protect myself.
A part of me knows this...
I have carried this around with me for far too long. Don't get me wrong - I have been warrior-like in my patience, stamina and resilience. That is not to be overlooked. However, over the years, each lost battle has become part of the bigger lost war that has taken up residency in me. The battle wounds have not only scarred my heart, but the grip of disappointment and sadness have begun to strangle my heart. The weight of this war (waged for too long) has buried my soul in sludge - that black-tar goo I mentioned before.
This season of my life has brought about some shifting. This shifting has awakened a desire within me to be free of the self-imposed baggage that I faithfully carry to my own detriment. I am very aware that this particular baggage is not your everyday, "two bag limit, to be picked up at carousel 2." Oh, no. This particular baggage - the baggage I'm carrying from the struggle of fertility and wanting children - this is the kind of baggage that you need at least one (if not more) 40' cargo containers that can only be moved via train or slow boat from China. This baggage is no "must fit in the overhead compartment" baggage.
What's worse about this kind of baggage is that it doesn't have easy to maneuver wheels and a collapsing handle. This kind of baggage requires a bulldozer to move it. And in the process of pushing or pulling this weighty cargo around, it creates more than just a crack in your life...it rips a chasm. And I know - I KNOW that I can't manage it anymore. It is time to let go of the baggage - to walk away...and simply be free.
Now what...
But now what? What's next? I recognize that it may be time to find freedom from this. At the same time, I realize that a very integral part of who I thought I was and who I thought I would be is going to be very different from now on. So I face these questions: Do I change? How do I change? Can I be true to myself if I change? Can I blend the past me with a new me and come out more whole? What is the next step?
*****
THE SPIRIT OF A MOTHER
by Autumn Boyet-Stinton
Every scenario
considered, every detail ensured…
Every thought
pondered, probability secured.
Nothing left to
chance, not a wayward insight…
A pure motive,
intention, a plan of delight.
For from the very
core this desire rose up…
To nurture, to
share, to give from my cup.
Holding nothing
back, for self not inclined…
Every modicum of
fear dashed, happiness defined.
A privilege so
great one would be hard-pressed to find…
Helping nourish
the body, the soul and the mind.
From the very
beginning, each choice has been planned…
Hopeful hearts
knowing, magic will play a hand.
More than a vessel
and more than a task…
Worthy am I?
Still, for this blessing I ask.
I need more than
just luck for my wish to be met…
So I wait and I
wonder, I worry and fret.
Yet, the truth of
the matter may not be for me…
For outside
myself, other reasons may be.
No matter the
outcome, no matter my part…
I am but a mother,
down deep in my heart.
I am but a mother
down deep in my heart.
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