This photo shoot was healing. I wanted proof. I wanted to show our baby that, yes, you grew in my belly. I sang to you. You came with me to photograph buildings & we made lots of construction guys very nervous when we were on ladders.
I wanted to say, "your story began in my uterus and my body worked."I had to have a c-section despite my four-page, single spaced, super-natural birth plan. It was such an impersonal, invasive group-project getting me pregnant that I was desperate to do something on my own. I was in labor from Friday AM until Monday at 11PM.
I remember the team pulling her out, my guts on my lap & being so upset I could not hold her. I remember saying, "Just get her to Stephen. Give her to Stephen."I have a hard time recalling this time in my life. We finally ended our maddening search for parenthood. We had the babies that we had always dreamed of. But we then dove right into the reality of a parent quickly dying of cancer.
Meanwhile, my husband began his own business & traveled part of the week.
I remember more than once when I managed to find a babysitter for Elizabeth while Tierney was in preschool and I had a few hours to help care for my father.
It was when was pumping breastmilk as I drove to his house & nearly crashed the car that I realized I was falling apart.Both Stephen and I are happy to meet with couples who are wrestling with the donor egg decision. We are very grateful for the couple who offered the same to us.
We support Resolve New England at their annual walk with the team name "From Western Mass and Kicking Ass".
I lead a RNE peer support group here in Western Massachusetts because research shows that while infertility can be traumatizing, having support makes a meaningful difference.I often think about what I would tell my younger self if I knew how this would end. I wonder what I would have liked to hear; honesty, I suppose. Maybe something like...
Dear Younger Self,
I am sorry.
This journey to parenthood is going to be more difficult than you can imagine. It will take ten years. You will feel alone and confused and empty. You will never find answers about what is wrong with & there will be times when you will despise your own body.
You will feel demeaned and humiliated and embarrassed. Additional losses in this journey will lead you to a place that feels like you are unable function but you will never, ever stop fighting. Even on that darkest of days, you will never lose your ability to get up again.
You will not have many companions on this journey but Stephen will be by your side - always.
When you are at the point where you are so lost & begin to think you live in this rotten place, you will make it to the other side.
Both strangers and family will help you in ways you never could imagine. Your path through is one you never even knew existed and the light at the end is brilliant like none other not despite but because of that darkness.