I’ve been trying to determine how to best describe infertility after late-term pregnancy loss, and it finally came to me.
Imagine your favorite painting falls and shatters and covers you in broken glass.
So you pick up the pieces and put them in a bowl.
And as soon as you put the last piece in the bowl, it drops and the pieces shatter again, covering you in broken glass once more.
So you pick it up, piece by piece, only for it to fall and cover you in broken glass another time.
Every time you put that last piece in the bowl, it happens again. But continue to pick it up, piece by piece, because you really want the painting.
And no matter how many times the bowl of broken glass falls, you repeat the process.
Because you know how beautiful the painting will be.
And you constantly forget how much it hurts, to be covered in broken glass.
Add in thousands of dollars in medical bills that insurance won’t cover and multiple shots in your stomach and that’s a pretty accurate depiction.
The world’s largest debate
I was thinking about this analogy when I was debating whether to hate Mother’s Day this year or not (so don’t say I’m not productive).
You know, you get coffee and go to Target and see a mom with her child and think “man, I’m going to be so grumpy and hateful in 14 hours when a day just for moms begins because I’m not one and you are”.
I even received emails and Instagram posts from companies saying “let us know if you don’t want to receive Mother’s Day messages this year” and as much as initially I thought FUCK YEAH, CHAMPION IDEA, it changed quick.
I’m not sure if people call it “becoming an adult” or what, but my entire belief system around Mother’s Day did a 180.
I have no idea what that mom yelling at her child in Target went through to get to that point.
I don’t know if she got pregnant on her first try, if it took years, or if she adopted her child.
I’m not sure if she has just the one kid, or if she has 18 more at home.
Quite honestly, I’m not even positive it was her own kid, I’m not super perceptive.
I do know that me hating Mother’s Day isn’t going to make me pregnant (or maybe it will, I’m sure there’s a podcast about it).
I remember being pregnant and thinking “I’m sorry that someone isn’t pregnant but that doesn’t mean I’m going to apologize for BEING pregnant”.
A sentiment that immediately left my body when my child did.
A sentiment that came back around this year like a friggen boomerang, smacking me in the face with some good old rational thinking (which was new).
Maybe I was just an asshole
Just because I was struggling, hating on someone for having a successful pregnancy didn’t make my pain go away.
It actually low-key kind of made me an asshole.
….
I’m not sure how to transition this post because now I just feel like an asshole all over again….
My point it, there are millions of stars, circling millions of moons, that’s circling millions of planets in millions of galaxies, that all revolve around one point in the universe, and that point is not you” (or rather, me).
Yes, that is a quote from Reba.
The bottom line, is that babies deserve to be born into a good family, and how does it make any sense to hate on someone that wants a baby as much as I did, and is going to give theirs this incredible life?
In what way does my infertility make it ok to hate on a day those mother’s MORE than deserve?
Thinking of you
If you ARE struggling today, I’m sorry.
And it’s not to say that you SHOULDN’T struggle today.
It’s saying that I need to not be an asshole.
I think this post just went rogue and isn’t even about infertility anymore, oops.
If Mother’s Day is difficult for you this year because you have gone through a pregnancy loss, buy yourself a coffee and know that you are just as much a mother as the others.
If Mother’s Day is difficult for you because you are struggling to get pregnant, buy yourself a coffee and know that I see you and you’re doing amazing and every single feeling you have is valid.
If Mother’s Day doesn’t even apply to you, buy yourself a coffee anyway because I have yet to find a difficult situation that coffee doesn’t fix.
