What a miserable day. If you’re not infertile, you can’t begin to understand how completely awful today is. Fortunately my husband and the cats are trying to make it special/ less painful, but I still hate today.
People forget that I lost children, so there are no cards, no phone calls. By society’s standards, today is not for me, I’m not included in the celebration. I’m an outsider wanting desperately to be an insider.
Last year we were still in Lithuania on Mother’s Day. Seventy-two hours after being PNG'd by the Belarusian government, we drove to Lithuania in a convoy of other Americans. We ended up living in a hotel for two weeks while my husband finalized some work, and we waited to hear whether or not we would be going back to Belarus. What do you mean “going back” you ask? Well, shortly after arriving in Vilnius, Lithuania my husband received a phone call telling him that the U.S. was going to try to get us unPNG’d. The U.S. hadn’t provided the list of Americans that they wished to remain in Minsk, as they had done before, so we got PNGd. Then it occurred to someone that the embassy couldn’t function without someone in my husband’s position, so yes, they were going to go back to the Belarusian government and ask for our PNG status to be changed. Obviously it didn’t work, though this wouldn’t be known for another three weeks, until we were back in the U.S. It was a nightmare.
Anyway, we were still in Lithuania last year, I was still bleeding from the failed FET, and it was Mother’s Day. I begrudgingly went to meet everyone for breakfast and was doing quite well holding myself together until someone walked in and said “Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers”. I wanted to disappear. It hurt so much. Fortunately the woman sitting next to me knew about our IVF, loss, and the failed FET. She immediately reached under the table and patted my leg. Thank you “M” for understanding and for being so kind.
Here it is a year later, and instead of having three beautiful infants to celebrate with, it’s just another horrible day. At least this year I have the cats.
Happy Mother’s Day to all women. To my infertile friends, consider yourself hugged.
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Happy Mother's Day to you.
ReplyDeleteThat must have been very horrible. I'm glad your friend had the sensitivity to remember your feelings and think of them at that moment.
I really wanted to email my priest this week and ask him to put in a general intercession for all the mother that have lost their children. I didn't. I feel bad about it. There are so many that have. But I didn't want my priest trying to start a conversation with me about it (I'm a Catholic and they don't seem to understand to condone fertility treatments).
HUGE HUGS to you. We are also Catholic and I'm really struggling with the church's position on IVF. Feel free to email me if you want to chat privately.
ReplyDeleteHappy Mother's Day!