One of my friends had a terrible summer involving a birth, mourning, and a funeral. All of her pre-term son. He was 17 weeks along. She has a clotting disorder that makes getting and staying pregnant quite difficult for her. Miscarriages she suffered have caused her to refer to her daughter and son as “miracles.” Rightly so.
We stood in the warmth of the innocuous sun one morning as she cried and I hugged her. This is the kind of closure, the kind of goodbye, no parent wants. Ever.
Her, crying: I’m sorry.
Me: For what? Being human?
Her, laughing through tears: I’m not human; I’m superwoman!
Me: Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Her: Thank you for being so sweet about this. I know how hard it is for you, but that you understand.
Me: It’s hard for you, too! I dealt with it when I lived in Utah—that’s where I found out about my infertility.
Her, in a boy-are-we-both-screwed tone: And you’re Mormon, right? You know how hard it is to go places and see pregnant women everywhere.
Yes, it is hard. But why am I so hard on myself about infertility? It's not like I can control it. My friend is also hard on herself. I’m not talking about striving for the potentiality that being a daughter of God entails. I’m talking about having a righteous desire being thwarted by a very fallible body while the phrase “multiply and replenish the earth” reverberates in my head, and yet still blaming myself for it on some level. I can laugh about the all-or-nothing thinking pattern this follows—but what stops me in my tracks is the “perfection or bust” goal church members have. I have evolved beyond thinking I have to bake 150 perfect cupcakes for a school function, aerobicize until I’m wearing my perfect body, wash the car windows at the gas station so there are no streaks, and pop out babies in perfectly coordinated outfits. But I cannot perfectly lift my spirits out of the melancholy of miscarriage. I am human. I am imperfect. In this one area, I am not wholly happy.
I have not had miscarriages to the extent of some friends, but I have had them. Last month, I knew I was pregnant. My menses was five days late, and I just knew. Then one morning I woke up and knew I wasn’t pregnant any more. There wasn’t any fuss. The world didn’t halt. But I knew it. And I wasn’t. How many babies have I said goodbye to, I wonder? How many times have I closed my eyes and breathed in and out in an effort to keep my heart beating and willing my mind not to go crazy thinking about it? The child in me doesn’t want to say goodbye, even though my adult mind reconciles it. It takes an incredibly courageous woman to say goodbye and still turn to the new day and the possibility of saying welcome. I have been such a woman. Just as I have also thought, Today, I cannot be that woman.
Some of the strongest, most capable women I’ve ever known have been my friends dealing with infertility, or who have had miscarriages. They are not perfect. They have at times, like me, been able to barely scrape by emotionally. But they keep moving forward. The reward is somewhere up ahead. Right?
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6 comments:
Oh, I'm sorry! I know you're not posting on her for "sorries," but this whole thing just sucks. Goodbye is hard. Goodbye to a child would be the hardest, but it's also hard to say goodbye to the dreams and possibilities that IF forces us to. But, yes. The reward is up ahead. Hugs from way down here...
It's a strange thing how you can just know you're pregnant, or just know you're not, even without a pregnancy test. I have known every time. I am dreading the two-week waiting period after transfer because of it.
Not to be one of those annoying people that tries to diagnose your fertility problems, but you should ask your doctor if you have a luteal phase defect. (Or if you chart, you should be able to tell if you do or not) If you've had several of these types of early miscarriages, that could be the culprit. And the good news is that it's easily corrected.
That's so sad about your friend. Sometimes life is just so hard.
I'm clued to the luteal phase thing--I'm going to get a 2-liter of progesterone. Diet, of course.
Thanks for the hug, Fiona. I'll pass it along, too. :)
Like you said, you can't control being infertile, so you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. But you can do something about it. We have so many options nowadays. I'm so grateful I live now and not 50 years ago.
I LOVE ALL OF YOU! And Julie, you are superwoman in my book. It amazes me the capacity of hurt our hearts are capable of feeling, yet it's like our bodies can give out in exhaustion because of it. It's so funny how different we all are in our personalities and individual experiences, and how I can not even know somebody, like Fiona, yet I feel a closeness or a love for someone just because of one issue that we all have to suffer through. In that one sense, I am grateful for this trial that brings us together.
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