Again, thank you to those who commented on my
Infertility & Baby Loss post. I truly
do want to understand. I have found the parallels between IF and baby loss to be strikingly similar and enjoyed the responses. My writing below is jumbled and unorganized. They're each separate thoughts as I tried to touch on your comments. It makes for one mess of a blog post, but hopefully connects us better in thought.
First, I hope that none of you were offended by my words. My intention was only to piece through my own thoughts after reading countless amounts of infertility blogs and understand them better. I guess because I find myself so familiar with the many thoughts women who struggle with IF express on their blogs, I wanted to open it up to conversation.
Never would I think that women who struggled with IF for years and will struggle with it for the rest of their lives (even if they don't want children/more children, they still live with IF and the knowledge that conception is not a natural option) will carry on and forget about how hard that time in their lives was for them. To learn from many of you that it's painful just knowing that you cannot
ever become pregnant with your husbands the old-fashioned way made it very real for me. There's something very special about knowing conception can occur in the company of your home and not a sterile doctor's office. That's something I do not take for granted. That is definitely something to grieve, I understand. I firmly support IVF and all fertility treatments that help women who suffer from IF achieve their ultimate goal of motherhood. I know that if my struggle (since we all have them) were IF, I would do whatever it took to see that our dream was fulfilled by IVF, FET, IUI, or adoption.
The grief of lost time and money is not lost to my
ears eyes.
My heart swells for those who have never been fortunate to carry a child at all. It's such a special experience that I grieve for you. I don't have any clue what it feels like to hold my living child in my arms, but I am familiar with pregnancy and that joy. It should be a gift
given to every responsible woman. Any time we have with our children is precious-- no matter if that means in utero alone, as a newborn, a toddler, or their entire lives. Ideally, we'd conceive and keep them for eternity. I love how
Tiffany put it by saying, "...I feel like just having the opportunity to have them (even for a few weeks in utero) is a win." It's something I don't think of nearly enough and give thanks for nearly as often as I should. The greed of wanting
it all overcomes me and I feel entitled too often because 99% of others carry on without baby loss grief. Being thankful for the small victories and blessings is not a pill I can easily swallow.
I notice that many who are successful in their IF treatments and complete their family wish go on to have blogs that almost don't resemble their past. As if those IF girls bring them down and they
want to graduate from this issue. That's where the whole graduation thought came from. I see it with baby loss blogs, too. Your past
always affects your present and future, at least in my life. I do not think that dwelling on your past daily is important either. We all carry on from grief in our own way. Merely an observation and not a judgment. I don't blame anyone for just wanting to be normal. I'd give just about anything to rewind time and have that happy, bubbly pregnancy blog about a living child and all that crap. I don't want to be a baby-loss-mom. None of us do. I want to be a stupidly smug mom of a chubby boy. I wish I could "graduate" to that level but know it's not possible. I do hope that it becomes less of a scab and more of a scar as time presses forward, but nothing is guaranteed.
The jealously many of you mention in seeing families who seem to become pregnant by drinking the same water is understandable. No matter how many children
we have, I'll always be jealous of others, too. For me the jealously is seeing that they got to keep all their babies and for those who struggle with IF, it's seeing that obviously pregnancy wasn't a struggle for them.
The flippant conversations of "We weren't even trying", or "I've was even on birth control!" or "This is our last one, I swear" makes me seethe is anger and jealously, too. It seems like those babies never end in miscarriage or stillbirth, either. To have an
oops baby. Hah.
Not feeling like you belong in any community after birthing live children seems similar to baby loss as well. I know that when I was fresh into my grief journey, I wanted to find those who experienced their loss at the same time and under similar circumstances as myself. I wanted to know that others were brokenhearted and
not parenting other children. Baby loss is not selective. I lost my firstborn but have friends who lost their second, third child. I have felt those feelings of injustice that they carry on being an active parent but I'm still stuck in a zone of not even being acknowledged for ever birthing my child. On the outside, no one can tell that we were ever pregnant or have a fully decorated nursery just bursting at the seams. I was jealous of those who had living children despite losing others because they
still had a child/children to hang onto. I am carrying on better about things right now, but I still long for what it's like to actually witness
my own live birth. After I have another child, I will probably feel the same way-- still wanting my foot in the baby loss world, but also wanting to be a part of parenting in real life outside of my grief. That's a post for another day. So many thoughts loom through my head about that one.
One of you spoke about how at the end of an infertility treatment, a healthy child is the coveted outcome. While that "new" child will bring you great amounts of joy, it doesn't erase the sadness and past wounds of struggle over the years. Perhaps the scabs will fade a bit, but they always leave a light scar from years of abuse to your body, and soul. I bet that's how us BLMs feel once we have a "rainbow" baby. I'm not much a fan of the term... just not my style. But I acknowledge the meaning of that beauty and calm after the storm. While the storm existed and will always be a part of us, the rainbow brightens the future. This may be the triumph for us all. But I bet we'd all give up the fight to have boring conceptions, pregnancies, and births. I know I would.
Thanks for your thoughts and sharing your hearts. I wish you all the best and of course, babies. :)
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