The first life altering fact of my life is infertility. Infertility brought forth this monster of pain and angst and people who have never been touched by it, let alone experienced it, love to give advice and condemn the victims of it for having feelings other than grace and happiness during pregnancy announcements, baby showers, family gatherings and allegedly innocent comments made about subjects that are, frankly, no one else's business.
Not everyone deals with infertility the same. In fact, I am probably a worse case scenario on letting it impact life and emotions. (In fact, the first thing I say to someone who is in the weeds and overcome by the pain of infertility is "It is okay to feel this way. However you feel, whatever impulse you imagine, it is not wrong to feel that way"). Part of loving me as my partner in life is understanding that, even though I have had the honor and privilege to give birth to three amazing little boys through the miracle of IVF, babies still make me sad. I always planned on having a big family. I still would like that. But it is not a matter of me and my partner coming to that decision. After the decision is made, it becomes a matter of how the heck are we going to cough up $20,000 to maybe have a chance at one more baby. And if word of any of that gets out, that is when the peanut gallery chimes in and makes you feel like an ungrateful (insert your favorite expletive noun here) for not being satisfied with what you have etc. Nothing makes you feel like super mom more than someone telling you there is something wrong with you for loving your babies so much that you want more of them, and how some don't get any at all. I KNOW ALL THIS. BELIEVE ME! I COULD HAVE EASILY BEEN ONE OF THEM!
So what does loving, specifically, me entail when dealing with babies? It means you are not allowed to be (at least visibly) happy for anyone's pregnancy/birth etc. Follow my lead, and if I am happy, go ahead and be happy but just a hair less happy than I appear to be,. Because if I am showing enthusiasm for anyone's pregnancy, I promise you, I am still dying on the inside. Sorry folks. Thems the facts. So many articles about dealing with someone who has infertility (dealing with, don't you just love it) advise friends and family to be understanding but still send out that invitation to the baby shower. I am here to tell you, I'm okay not getting it. I am honestly trying my best to pretend you aren't pregnant when you aren't around so that I don't have to think about the fact that I am not either. And if you really know me, you already know this and accept it and I have likely loved you enough to overcome this in spurts because you are important to me.
But it is a lonely cross to bare, made only bearable by the person that loves me and their acceptance of what I need in that situation.
There is one more thing that make me hard to love. It is one of those events has split my life into "before" and "after". I lost my baby brother March 23, 2015. He was 17 years my junior. His death was traumatic and I was by his bedside in the hospital for the last 12 hours of his life. Visually it is haunting. It is one of those things you can't "unsee". Emotionally it destroyed me. And left me questioning everything, including what I could have done to prevent it, my last interaction with him, the haunting waking dream I have of reliving, from his perspective, that day with great detail put together by hundreds of puzzle pieces I gathered from various sources, police reports, EMT reports, friends, family.
The best way to explain the aftermath is not that it gets easier, but that the space between breakdowns gets harder and the timing, sometimes, is partially manageable. The days leading up to the anniversary of his death are always hard. I think about how this time, however many years ago, there was still time to save him. If I had only....then maybe.... But there are two dates, every year, that became mine when he died. March 23, his death and November 14th, his birth. I witnessed both. And if you love me, don't make plans for either day. I do not know how it will affect me that year. I do not know what I will feel like planning, how I want to honor him or how deeply the knife of pain will dig on that day, but once again (sorry not sorry) nothing matters that day but being with me and the boys and remembering my brother. Once again, people that know nothing about this kind of loss like to scoff, call you mentally ill, put an expiration date on your pain and generally belittle you for having feelings. But if you haven't been through it, you do not get to have an option.
Just like, if you haven't been through infertility and the components that make up my journey (Miscarriage, IVF, IUI, around $60,000, marital strain, NICU and almost losing one, hundreds of painful shots, hundreds of vaginal ultrasounds that leave you longing for just a normal visit to the gyno, anxiety ridden two week waits, thousands of dollars spent on fertility supplements and devices, special fertility diets, self loathing, you get the picture) you don't get to have an opinion and frankly should not talk about it unless you are saying something wonderful.
And just a side note to my boys.
YOU ARE ENOUGH.
I LOVE YOU MORE THAN WORDS CAN SAY
PART OF THE REASON I WANT MORE IS BECAUSE OF HOW AMAZING YOU THREE ARE!
And to my brother
PART OF THE REASON I FEEL LOVE WITH THE IDEA OF MOTHERHOOD WAS BECAUSE OF HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU
Not all of the effects of these two elements has been negative. As a result of infertility and allowing my journey to be public, I have had the honor of walking with many others through that same journey, sharing some things I learned along the way through research and practice and offering words and advice that I wished someone would have said to me. In fact, some I still need to hear these things at times, even if it is me saying it. And the same goes for my brother's death. Its yet another club that I never wanted to be a part of but there are a lot of us. And I am grateful for the fellowship and camaraderie. I am also grateful that the person that loves me already knows (partially figured out) and accepts these facts of our life. He knows this is not something I have a choice about, just like I didn't have a choice about the things that caused them. He knows that I might react to other's insensitivity in a less than desirable way but that I do not initiate confrontation on these issues and just need distance, with him, from the situation. He has become my advocate, my strength and allows me a reprieve. I am so grateful.
