by Band Back Together | Aug 13, 2014 | Fear, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, Infertility |
It’s not uncommon to see my clients struggling to own their stories; especially to own every single part of their stories. We can all struggle to own, accept, embrace, and maybe even like every part of our stories.
I’ve been asked, “How do you just put it all out there without any qualms or fears?” I make sure to be very real, very honest, and very brave. Owning all the parts of my story, even on my strongest of days, involves mustering up courage; this courage does not exist without fear.
On the good days, I say who I am, my choices, and my mistakes without skipping a beat; palms dry, voice steady, my light shining through.
On the harder days I say who I am, my choices, and my mistakes while stumbling over words; palms clammy and hot, voice shaking, and yet, I make sure my hope shines through.
It’s only been through my own brutal work with my therapist that the ownership of my story has strengthened. With this continued work, practice, fight for recovery, my shame slowly dwindles.
I will continue to own and tell my story to help and change myself and – hopefully – others. I can only do this with bravery, feeling the fear, and doing it anyway.
I was recently challenged about the amount I am able to own my story within the limitations of judgment. We all judge, some more so than others. We have all been judged, some more so than others. I’m not sure we’ll ever fully escape this human experience of judgment.
What I do know is that the more I accept, embrace, and own my story – all the parts of my story – including the really difficult, misunderstood, invalidated, and judged parts of my story is that this judgment doesn’t have any room to grow.
It is really difficult to truly judge someone who wholeheartedly accepts, embraces, and owns themselves and every single part of their story.
I am not sure there will ever be a day that I am not judged on my story:
Judged for not figuring out how to try more rounds of IVF, both financially and emotionally,
Judged for knowing and making it clear that we are not choosing to adopt,
Judged for accepting a child-free life while leading a very child-full life,
Judged for living this all out loud,
Judged for attempting to change the shamed silence of infertility,
Judged for authentically living my work in recovery,
And judged for being the genuinely vulnerable therapist that I am.
But I dare you to hold on to your judgments as you read my words let alone hear me speak my story.
I dare you.
I am a survivor of infertility and IVF.
I stopped treatments after two failed rounds, because for us that was enough.
I know adoption is not my path to a family.
I bear the soul scars of three never-to-be babies, and yet I am still a mother.
I accept a child-free life, while having a very child-full life.
I will spend the rest of my life finding the end to my story by giving people permission to break the silence of infertility, and to break the silence of any of their sufferings.
I am resolving to know more than one happy ending.
I am an open and honest therapist who fights for her own recovery.
And, I dare you to judge me.
I have faith and trust that when I own every single part of my story, through my fear, shame and all, your judgment will become uncomfortable enough that your world will open up.
You will learn. You will see me – all of me. With that sight, I can only hope you grow a little more educated, a little more compassionate, and a lot more brave yourself.
And, I assure you, I will not allow your judgment and your misunderstanding to dim my light.
I will own it.
All of it.
Because only then do I find myself again.
And, only then will this light shine bright enough to hopefully give others the ever upward courage to do the very same.
I dare you…
by Band Back Together | Nov 26, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Baby Loss, Compassion, Coping With Baby Loss, Faith, Family, Feelings, Forgiveness, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Hope, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, Infertility, Livng Through A Miscarriage, Loss, Medical Mystery Tour, Miscarriage, Pain And Pain Disorders, Rheumatoid Arthritis |
*I know that not everyone out there is a Christian and I hope that nobody will take offense to this post. My faith is a very personal thing, but it helps me get through so much. My prayer is that everyone dealing with a life crisis will find something that will bring them peace and hope, whether it’s faith in God, faith in humanity, or faith in herself.
When I wrote about my miscarriages and TTC journey, it was the hardest piece I’d ever written. What I left out, though, was the behind the scenes issues. The emotions that I’m still ashamed of feeling. That probably sounds stupid. I mean, you can’t help how you feel about things so why feel shame? Well, it’s been six years and I still do, so I guess I can’t answer that.
When Jordan and I decided to start trying to get pregnant, we didn’t broadcast it, but we also didn’t hide it when people asked. And people did ask. We’d been married over a year at that point, and apparently that’s the time that everyone from your grandma to the cashier at the grocery store deems you ready to have a child. But when we realized we would need a little help expanding our family, we clamped our mouths shut. Our families and closest friends were the only people who knew what we were going through. But when we got that first positive test, we told everyone! I’ve never been the best at keeping my feelings under wraps and we were thrilled.
A few days before I got that positive test, my sister-in-law gave me the news that her sister-in-law was pregnant. I was pretty discouraged at that time thinking that the round of Clomid I had just finished had not worked. But here was this girl (who I love dearly, BTW) who had become pregnant accidentally. It hardly seemed fair.
But then I found out that the Clomid had actually done its job and all was right with the world again. I could be happy for my sister-in-law sister-in-law-in-law sister-in friend, if a little worried for her. After all, my faith had always dictated that “everything happens for a reason.” But then it all changed.
During the few days that encompassed the fateful ultrasound experience and gut-wrenching D&C, I lost more than my baby. I lost my faith.
I left the hospital a bitter, heartbroken person that I no longer recognized. I was angry at the world. I was angry at God. I didn’t go to church. I didn’t pray. I didn’t even sing; something that has always been my solace. For three months I was in this dark pit. Every time someone who didn’t know would ask about the pregnancy and we had to break the news again, I sank further.
At that time, I worked for an agency that provided low-income housing. It seemed like every other day I encountered another woman who was expecting yet another child that she couldn’t afford. All these women around me were getting pregnant so easily, some while actively trying to prevent it, and having the healthy babies that I wanted so badly. I couldn’t understand why I was being treated so unfairly. I couldn’t bring myself to go to the baby shower for my brother-in-law’s sister. Every time I saw a pregnant woman I would cry.
It kills me to finally admit those things. There are very few people in this world that I’ve told about that dark time. I still feel guilty for being so angry. But if my first miscarriage caused me to lose my faith, my second one brought me back.
My second miscarriage happened on a Saturday morning. I was in the ER for a few hours then sent home. The next day at our church was Youth Sunday. I hadn’t been to church in three months at that point, but Jordan’s best friend, David, was delivering the message that day, so I insisted on being there. Not many people at church had known I was pregnant that time, so we didn’t really have to talk about the loss.
Something happened that Sunday morning, though. The youth members all did a great job with their testimonies, prayers, and music. David delivered a beautiful message. And then the youth sang a song to tie it all together – Here I Am Lord. I had heard the song a hundred times before. I had sung it about half that many times. But that day, I actually listened to it. It suddenly spoke to my heart in a way I had never felt before. Thank God we were sitting in the balcony so the whole congregation didn’t see me burst into tears.
I suddenly was at peace. After being angry for so long, it was an incredible feeling to let go of it. In that moment I knew that, like Abraham and Sarah, we would eventually have a child. And that there was a reason for my losses. I knew that it was going to fall to me at some point to support others going through it.
I was able to do just that several months later when my best friend had her first miscarriage. I’ve reached out to others as well – old high school friends on Facebook, a friend at church, etc. It’s what I hope to accomplish by contributing to this site. It also sort of paved the way for me to do the same thing as soon as I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in 2008. Since then I’ve found myself in something of an online support network of people living with chronic illness. Without that moment of clarity, I’m convinced I would still be that bitter person. I’m sure that the RA diagnosis would have been much worse than it was, emotionally speaking. I honestly don’t know how I would have made it through either of my full-term pregnancies, much less through a certainty of life-long pain, had I not had that renewal of faith.
I didn’t tell anyone about what happened to me that day until a few months ago when Jordan and I had the privilege to see David ordained. I figured that was probably the right time to tell him about the impact he had on me that Sunday so long ago. Today, my relationship with God is the most important thing to me. Through Him, I can do anything. There are days when I just need a nudge and there are days when I’m forced to ask Him to carry me. And I’ve come to realize that everything truly does happen for a reason, even if that reason isn’t revealed during this earthly life. But the choices we make when facing hardship will usually go a long way to reaching that revelation.
“But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.” ~ Isaiah 40:31
by Band Back Together | Oct 20, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Family, Feelings, Guilt, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, Infertility, Jealousy, Loneliness, Sadness, Stress, Trauma |
“baker baker baking a cake
make me a day
make me whole again
and i wonder what’s in a day
what’s in your cake this time”
Infertility has forever changed the fundamentals of my being. Almost two years have passed since I suffered through the last of my IVF cycles. Physically, my body seems to have recovered from that violation. Emotionally, I am damaged beyond repair. I mourn the loss of that whole, hopeful person I once was. Even though he’d never admit it, I’ve also crushed my husband’s dreams of normalcy. I can’t help but wonder how many maybe babies there were that we never knew, that never stood a chance. I’m heartbroken for my friends who are still fighting the uphill battle towards motherhood and those who are suffocating under the crushing weight of loss.
Maybe today I’ll file away some of my bitterness and anger. So much of it I carry around in secret. After all, I have my beautiful, perfect little girl here in my arms. What about my friends who don’t? Don’t they better deserve to wear their heartache like a badge of honor?
Aren’t I supposed to just get over it and just be happy? I want to, but I know I never will.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Anger, Feelings, Grief, Infertility, Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sadness |
Sometimes you don’t even realize what you have been running from, or for how long.
Until the night (why is it always at night?) it knocks you down, sits on your chest and forces you to stare directly into the eye of the storm. The night when you turned your head too casually and found it, there, staring at you from your peripheral. Angry for being ignored, pained for not being nurtured.
It is on this night that you pay for the days, months, (years in my case) of composure, the relief you have culled from choosing to ignore your demons.
And oh, I paid dearly.
Six years ago, I woke up from anesthesia an altered woman.
I have never allowed myself to mourn what I lost that day and how much of my soul has been scraped away since. I have been too busy ‘looking forward’ and ‘moving on’ and ‘being thankful’. I have kept a smile on my face and I have continued to placate myself with thoughts of ‘it could be so much worse’ (it could) and ‘I still have more than others’ (I do). But last night night, I was not thinking of how much worse it could be, but how bad it is, not caring that I don’t have it as bad as others because my situation is looking worse by the day.
And it all fell down. My feelings of frustration and inadequacy. My overwhelming pain over never being able to do what I always thought I would and could do.
It honestly became exhausting to hold down my feelings about losing part of my body, of being let down for the past four years by other parts of it. My arms and my heart gave out from the weight of it all. I have been holding my hand over that little girl’s mouth for too long but last night she was allowed to wail and cry and stomp her feet for what she has lost. For the life she felt promised, but was never and may never be fulfilled. For being the exception to the rule and for being held at arms length from almost every goal she ever set for herself.
Today, yes, I will try to get back to my zen, a place of acceptance and a place where I can build from.
Last night though, was about how much has been lost and destroyed.
by Band Back Together | Oct 1, 2010 | Abortion, Abortion Recovery, Adoption, Family, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, Infertility, Woman's Health |
I am infertile.
We have been trying to have a baby for years to no avail. I will spare you the details, but I was approached by a potential birth mother who is a friend. She is pregnant, doesn’t want the baby, was going to have an abortion and decided she didn’t know if she could go through with it. She asked if we might be interested in private adoption. YES, oh YES, it would be a dream come true.
I did it. I got my hopes up against all logic and warning from everyone.
I got a text today that says she is not going through with the pregnancy. I am so sad right now. I am heartbroken at the needless loss of a life that could be my baby.
Where do I go from here?
I had such a tight lid on this I never let myself feel this hope or dream.
I let the lid off and now I am devastated.
by Band Back Together | Sep 11, 2010 | Baby Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, Infertility, Livng Through A Miscarriage, Loss, Miscarriage |
The first miscarriage was the one that destroyed me.
I lost four more babies; suffered a failed adoption; and barely saw my first born before she was yanked from between my legs – limp and drenched in a dark, life-sucking coat of meconium – then rushed to specialists trained to cheat death.
But that first loss, when my body cramped and convulsed and spit out a baby we so desperately wanted, is what shattered my heart. It robbed me of hope and started a years-long spiral into grief, despair and, ultimately, nothingness.
Exhausted by the anguish and terrified of feeling it again, I turned off as one loss became two. I numbed myself as two bled into three, and the doctors called me infertile. I became a shell and didn’t feel the fourth miscarriage or remember the fifth. I disassociated from my body when the doctors told me they intubated our first born and knocked her out after she had an eight-minute seizure. That person, sitting speechless and alone in the hospital room after they rushed our baby to a first-rate NICU at a different hospital in another city? That wasn’t me.
But it was.
I was 30 and married just a few months when I first got pregnant. I didn’t know much about babies, didn’t have friends who had them – or lost them. And I certainly never heard the statistic that as many as 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage.
We pored over baby name books at the bookstore and delighted my parents with the news. We heard the baby’s heartbeat and marked the due date on the calendar.
Then we saw blood. Just a spot. “It’s common in early pregnancy,” the nurse told us over the phone. “Try not to worry.” So, we didn’t. We believed her. We didn’t know enough not to. Idiots.
Then I bled more and they asked us, ever so calmly, to come in to the office. “Let’s just take a look.”
I sat in the passenger’s seat while Kent drove down the interstate and I tried not to think this was anything more than typical bleeding. Truthfully, though, I feared otherwise. Kent excitedly pulled an ultrasound photo from his suit pocket as we readied for the doctor; he couldn’t wait to compare the growth from the last appointment to now.
Ten years later, I can still see the inside of the car and the exit from the highway as it was that day that changed everything. I see the inside of the doctor’s office and Kent fiddling with the black and white photo.
“Put it away,” I snapped nervously. Sure he was jinxing the luck we needed.
And then, quick and impersonal as a business transaction at the bank, the doctor inserted the ultrasound wand, marked the top and bottom of the little bean with an X and explained that he didn’t see a heartbeat.
“Put your clothes back on and when I come back in we’ll talk,” he said.
We left the office in silence, a short, poorly-written book about miscarriage in our hands and an appointment for a D&C on the books. The tears started in the car and rushed with scary abandon once I crumbled on to the couch at home. I hid my face and howled into a pillow. Angry, terrified, lost.
Kent made phone calls to my family, talked to my boss. He tried to explain what we didn’t understand. How it happened. Why? When.
I agonized over the “when,” made myself sick flipping through the calendar as I tried to imagine what I did the day our baby died. Because, of course, I killed the baby. We went camping a few weekends before: did scrambling over rocks and hiking to exhaustion kill the baby? I spent too many hours at the newsroom: did I drown the baby with the stress of deadlines, interviews, and vapid politicians?
The baby fell out of me in horrifying pools of blood and fluid and mangled clots the night before the doctors planned a sterile procedure on a cold operating table. I was alone in the house, doubled over with cramps when the first gush sent me running to the toilet. Over the course of the night, Kent phoned the doctor several times to ask about the shocking volume of blood spilled in the tub, the toilet, the bed, on the floor.
We left the doctor’s office the next morning in silence. We stopped for bagels – because I was famished after losing so much blood – and ate without a word: chewed food, swallowed milk, stared past each other. Like robots, if robots could eat.
Kent went to work while I called in sick the next few days, stayed home and wept with little reprieve. I listened to angry, pulsing music at deafening volume to drown the mournful wails of my heart. And I wrote a letter to the baby I held in my belly but never felt in my arms.
“Today we were supposed to see you once again, all flickers and squirms and holy, miraculous life,” I wrote. “Instead, we shall say goodbye. We came to church to do it. We had hoped the baptismal waters would rush one Sunday morning in June as the priest held you aloft and the congregation craned to see your pink body and dark hair. God would welcome you then, we thought. We didn’t know He’d want to take you now…
“Now, we entrust you to Him. Though we wanted so desperately to hold you and touch you. Love you. Watch you. Clothe and bathe and feed you. Nibble your feet and tickle your ears. We couldn’t. But we did love you. And we will miss you. You can be sure.”
I signed the letter, then Kent did too and we traveled to church to leave a pink tulip at the base of the baptismal font, a symbolic gesture to signal the start of our healing.
Ten years later, I pulled the letter from the envelope and found a leaf from a Japanese maple and a helicopter seed tucked in with it. Signs of life lost, just like our baby.
I changed, but I am not healed.
