I started this entry several days ago, and forgot to post it. I couldn't sleep Thursday night, so I got out of bed around 5:30 to start my day and get a jump start on everything I had to do. I was browsing pinterest while I took a break and I came across an article about 9 things women who battle infertility want you to know. I was curious, so I read them. Having been there, I understood, but at the same time, having come through the other side and having been blessed with a living child, it also made me.....what's the word. Not angry, because like I said, I've been there. I guess I felt the need to clear up a misconception. The one that piqued my interest was the one that said women with infertility cannot handle hearing women complain about pregnancy or their children.
I know, I knooooow, I've been there. It's so easy to assume that this ungrateful bitch has no idea how lucky she is, and if only I could get pregnant and have a kid, I would never take them for granted, not even for one second. I know how easy it is to think that. But it's simply not true. Being pregnant can be awful. I experienced some of the most painful things in my life when I was pregnant. Round ligament pain (which I still get from time to time with a good sneeze, is that normal?), cervix checks, being manually dilated, having your pelvic bones spread before delivery which feels like you're vagina is sitting directly on a bike post without the seat, cramps from hell, that first time you get out of bed post-Csection once you're epi has worn off, the first time you sneeze after a csection....I could go on an on. When I lost Kayla, I would have gladly taken any one or all of those things if it meant still being pregnant with her, and getting to keep her.
But...that doesn't mean those things are easy to deal with, and complaining about them doesn't make you a horrible ungrateful person. So I felt the need to comment. Not to prove I am right, not to be shitty to women who are hurting, just because I no longer suffering from infertility (but I will always hurt for Kayla and going through what we did will always have helped shape me to be who I am today), but to maybe offer the perspective of someone who has been there, and is now on the other side. To maybe give them a way to think differently some times, to make themselves feel better. No one has to think this way, it honestly does not hurt me if people see me in public being annoyed with my kid, and thinking I don't appreciate her, but it's got to be hell for them. Just like you forgive people for your own well-being, not for theirs, I thought maybe I could offer a perspective that may help them feel a little less angry, hurt, and broken. So I thought I would share what I wanted to comment (but didn't because it just became way too long):
What I am about to say is not to judge, or condemn you and other women for thinking this way. But to hopefully offer a different perspective to maybe relieve some of the anger and anguish felt from infertility. From start to finish it took three years to get my daughter, 21 months of infertility, one miscarriage, one stillbirth and a high risk pregnancy for multiple reasons. Strangers may see me out in public with my daughter and think how lucky I am, and feel jealous of me, not knowing the struggles I went through to get her. I realize that sadly for many women, infertility doesn't always have a happy ending, but please don't assume that everyone complaining about pregnancy or their children take them for granted.
I suppose some women do, but I know how blessed I am. I think about my lost daughter every single day. I look at my living daughter and think about how lucky I am to have her. I may not feel that way all day, but I feel it every single day. When the bad stuff happened, I wondered why me. But when my daughter was born, I again wondered why me? What had I done so great in my life to deserve this little girl? Pregnancy IS hard, and throwing up all the time, hurting all the time, and worrying all the time is hard. I had some good days in my last pregnancy, but at least some part of every single day was spent worrying. Every cramp, every spot of blood, every weird feeling, I was terrified I would lose her. I know, I've been there. In the days after my stillbirth, there was nothing I wouldn't give to have felt those aches and pains again, but being grateful doesn't make them any easier to cope with, and feeling miserable and venting doesn't mean we are ungrateful.
Raising children is hard. Everything you know, everything you do, everything you think, your parents had a hand in teaching you, showing you, and correcting you. But many of us cannot remember back so far to our toddler years. We think all that knowledge was just somehow magically bestowed on us. Most of us have figured out ways to make it through the day while adequately communicating our needs and wants. Some haven't, of course, but for the most part we forget that our little minions are just learning these things for the first time. We're trying to have patients with new communicators, new do-ers, new learners, and it's hard to sit back and be cognizant of the fact that they aren't trying to ruin our day, they just simply are not and cannot be capable of behaving like the tiny human we are striving for them to be right now! I love my daughter with all my heart, and I am so so appreciative of her and I am well aware of how lucky I am to have her, but when she burst into tears for the fifth time that morning because she dropped her doll (at her feet, where she could very easily bend and pick her up) or her cookie broke in two, or because I nicely told her to come away from whatever danger she was about to get herself into, it is impossible for any human being on this earth can keep calm and patient all the time with their children, and wanting one so badly because you cannot have one, does not give one super powers to combat against these hair-pulling moments. You're not a bad parent when you get frustrated with your children, and getting mat or frustrated with them does not mean you do not love and appreciate them.
I sometimes think I would like to have another child, but the fear is stopping me. The fear of infertility, that crushing defeat every month when the pregnancy test is negative, or those many months of not having a period, wondering if ovulation is ever going to happen, and if it does, you'll miss it because you're so irregular, it's difficult to catch the signs or take an OPK at exactly the right time. Looking for an impending O after months and months of irregularity is like looking for a needle in a haystack. The worry that once you do get pregnant, that you'll lose it. People say once you're past first tri you're out of the woods. Not for me, I lost my daughter at 22 weeks. Even past that point, the love and support you get from baby loss support groups has a down side, you learn of ALL the other ways you can lose your baby, right up to the day you deliver and beyond. I also worry that if I had another, I would be punished for being greedy, and something bad would happen...or that I am not allowed to want another, because I already have everything I could ever want in the world.
I realize these are your private thoughts, and you have every right to feel them. And sometimes you need a villain, someone or something tangible to be angry at, because infertility and loss is no one's fault. I completely understand that. But perhaps some days, it will help to know everyone is fighting a battle of some kind. The stressed out looking mom at the grocery store yelling at her kids, may be having a hard day because it is the anniversary of losing one of her children...or the mom playing at the park, looking absolutely enthralled with her child and so in love, is celebrating a good day, thinking about how lucky she is to have her child after going through infertility in the past. When I lost my daughter, I stupidly looked up to see how many babies were born, and lived, at the hospital I gave birth at that same day. Seven. Seven other women gave birth and experienced the best day of their lives, as I was experiencing my worst.
I wondered, why did they get their take home babies? How come they gave birth to a live baby and I did not? But then I realized, perhaps all seven of those women were giving birth to their rainbow baby, after years of painful infertility and/or loss. Some days this thinking didn't help, I NEEDED to be angry and bitter and feel bad, but some days it did, and it made it much easier to feel joy for them, and to give myself hope that one day, I too would be one of the women giving birth to a live baby. In fact, the day I went in for my induction with my living daughter, on my way to my labor room, we passed a room with an angel on the door...the same angel that alerted people a year earlier that my room was not filled with joy. I didn't know those people, but I prayed for them, and I knew how lucky I was, going to meet my miracle. I hope you are able to experience the other side one day, to get that miracle I know you pray for every day. My thoughts and prayers are with all women who cannot have the one thing they want in the world.
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