Infertility: It’s always darkest before the dawn, or is it? Maybe it’s just always dark

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I don’t write much anymore. In some ways it seems quite strange as this virtual space and I were daily bedfellows for such a long span of my life. And then, life just simply took over and in many ways I moved on from infertility. Though I suppose we never really move on from infertility. It lingers under our skin like a rare parasite we picked up on an exotic vacation that can never be completely eradicated.

My life has pushed onward. I accepted the offer to go back to work full time, my career catapulting, which was suppose to make me happy, but it didn’t.

I made peace with losing two years of my life’s work on my dissertation, and eight years of work on my PhD. I accepted an EdS bookend to a very excruciating chapter of my life, even though the ending meant no fanfare, no celebration, nothing to mark all of the years of my life that I gave to this failure.

I showed up for friends who needed someone to show up. I called, I wrote, I cooked, I cleaned, I shopped.

I completed months of paperwork for our adoption. I attended the mandatory courses, one of which made me feel smaller and less significant than possibly any other experience in my life. I bared my soul in the first adoption interview, and I stressed over how to fit the second and third in with all of the other things on my long “to do” list.

And then the lights went out. Literally.

“Frankenstorm Sandy” hit the east coast, and along with it our lives were turned upside down—for the second year in a row right on our anniversary—sending us driving seven hours home when we should have been having breakfast in bed.

And so now, five days without power later, I find myself wondering, is it really darkest before the dawn? Or is it simply always dark and we keep the light of hope lit within for a dawn that never seems to come?

I want to be positive. I want to keep going. I want to glide into the party tonight with my little black dress on and my hope chest filled to overflowing. But I can’t, because inside it’s dark and some days I’m just not sure that there really is a dawn.

Infertility: The Well, The Tears, The Scuba Gear

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Tonight my husband and I went to see The Odd Life Of Timothy Green. And though years have now passed since our infertility journey began, and wounds scab over as healing happens, sometimes things can break them open again–even if just for a moment.

Sometimes we are reminded of the deep well of love that lives inside the unused parts of our hearts. The parts of our hearts that were made for tiny hands and tiny feet. The parts of our hearts that were made to be broken wide open by a love so deep that the bottom is yet to be discovered.

And so perhaps one of the greatest hardships of infertility is not the loss of physically carrying a child. Nor the loss of exuberant friends and family who joyfully help us to prepare to join all those on the other side. Or maybe not even the loss of baby clothes shopping and bickering over the perfect name. Perhaps the deepest well of infertility is the one that lies in our hearts. The one that cannot be filled with embraces from friends, well meaning wishes, nor all the other forms that love can take.

When we have so much love to give that it breaks us apart from the inside out, it can feel as though we are dying a little every day. It is as though that love pushes against the crevices of the well until the walls begin to crack–until we begin to crack.

And so tonight Timothy Green reminded me that when our deepest desire is to be a mother, anything is possible; we must dive in. Because the gift, it’s there, and when we refuse to harbor sorrow, when we let it go, the gift will fall right in our hands.

So here I sit tonight with the crickets, the wind, the stars peaking through the trees, and my scuba gear, wanting nothing more than to dive in.

This Gift

This gift will last forever
This gift will never let you down
Some things are made from better stuff
This gift is waiting to be found
Your heart’s in wide receiving
Been too long buried in the sand
Some things require leaving
This gift will fall right in your hand
Just try to understand…If you long enough
And you don’t give up
If you’re strong enough
And you don’t give up
And you…

You’ll be no harbor to the sorrow
Just let it go.

Don’t hang your head in sorrow
Don’t give up just before you win
Don’t wait around for tomorrow
Open up your arms and let it in

This gift will last forever
This gift will never let you down
Some things are made from better stuff
This gift is ready to be found
Just you believe it now

This gift will last forever
This gift will never let you down
Some things are made from better stuff
This gift is ready to be found
Your heart’s in wide receiving
Been too long buried in the sand
Some things require believing
These things just fall right in your hand
Just try to understand

If you long enough
And you don’t give up
If you’re strong enough
And you don’t give up

- Glen Hansard

Duck, Duck, Infertility GOOSE!

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I thought that when we began the process of adopting, when we made peace with the big IF, when we finished the huge pile of paperwork and readied for our home study, that I would begin to feel more like the “others.” You know, the ones for whom infertility is a remote concept that they feel empathy for but don’t really think too long and hard about.

And then, I was reminded that I will forever, and ever, be the goose. Duck (pregnant), duck (pregnant), goose (clearly not pregnant) and up I spring to chase what I’ll never catch. Welcome to Infant Care Class.

“Now I would like every couple to introduce themselves and if you got blue, yellow, or purple when you walked in tell us what trait you hope that your baby gets from your spouse. If you got red, orange, or green, tell us what unexpected positive thing has come out of your pregnancy.” Oh thank you all things good and great that we got purple. Yet still, how in the world does a clearly not pregnant girl answer that one?

Yes, the world is made for people who form their families through the traditional way. The world sees adoption, or the choice not to mother through parenthood, as “out of the ordinary.” We’re not though, we’re no different than anyone else, we just don’t birth the children we mother through our womb.

And so, we could become angry, we could break down into tears and run from the room, or we could hold our chins up high, take a deep breath, and accept this “burden” that will become our greatest strength.

You see our children–whether ours through parenting or ours through mothering without the title–need us to be sturdy like an oak in the midst of a hurricane. Our children need our voices to be strong, steady, and matured through the fight of a lifetime. Our children need us to proclaim to the world that YES! we are the goose, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

And so with two more classes to go, a room full of pregnant couples, and class content completely designed and directed to couples forming their family through  physical birth, I will be the goose. However this time when I’m tagged, I won’t get up and I won’t run.

When all eyes turn to me, the goose, I will smile, sit tall, and show them that this goose is every bit as much an expectant mother as the room full of ducks surrounding me. And I’ll remind myself that this ugly duckling is not a goose, but rather a beautiful swan transformed through infertility.

Duck, duck, swan.