This is my first post this week in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW). This year's theme is: Don't Ignore...
Don't Ignore My Grief Over The Child I Long For
This may not make sense to someone who hasn't experienced infertility, but I grieve for a child that has never existed. I cry over the holidays that I am not celebrating with my child, over the memories that we aren't making together, and I grieve the feeling that it is my fault that the child in my heart doesn't already have a heartbeat of their own. I also grieve the fact that my best friend's child and my niece and nephew won't be close enough in age to my child to become close friends. I grieve the dream of what I thought my life would look like right now.
Let me give you a few examples of what my life looks like right now vs. what I thought it would when I started trying to conceive.
1) Every day I pass an empty room. Its walls are a very pale yellow and there are cream colored curtains that help keep it dark. This is my child's room, but my child isn't in it. There is no crib, no changing table, no toys, no crying, and no laughter. Every time I pass this room it is a painful reminder of the child that I long for.
2) When I go to the grocery store I see moms with their little children searching for the best grocery deals so that they can feed their growing family. I search for the best deals so that I can save as much money as possible for the treatments it could take just to get me pregnant.
3) I see beautiful pictures of children and babies every day on Facebook. These pictures are bittersweet. I am happy for the families in them, but I cry wishing that I could post pictures like those of me, my husband, and our child.
Those are just a few examples of what I go through daily. I grieve for my child. I need you to understand how painful this missing piece is for me. I need you to acknowledge that this grief exists and to ask me how I'm doing. I may or may not want to talk about it, but it will mean the world to me just to know that you cared enough to ask.
I do know that you grieve and there are many many days (whether we have talked recently or not) when I wonder how you are doing and I wish that there was something, anything, I could do to make your dream come true.
ReplyDeleteOne thing in this post that caught my attention is when you said your child doesn't have a heartbeat yet.
I think your child's soul has already chosen you and is just waiting for the proper vessel to join the rest of us here. I think that their heart is already beating within yours, that you are sharing this part the journey together, they are already a part of you. And when the timing is right your heartbeats will separate as they join the rest of us who cannot feel or hear their heartbeat now, even though you can.
And don't worry your child will most likely become close friends with your friend's child or their cousins at some point. I have a cousin who is eight years younger than me, we were never terribly close as children and even lost touch for some years but our familial bond is strong enough that after reconnecting we are very close now and feel as though we've always been best friends. So even though we didn't get that when young we have the experience now and now it means waaay more than it ever would have as a child. Just sayin'.
Hugs, your words are my words, too. It's hard having to grieve someone you never got the chance to meet every month.
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