One Thing

The week of April 27th was National Infertility Awareness Week...yes, it gets it's very own week out of the year. While I had hoped to post something sooner, it simply didn't happen.

One. Little. Week. Sigh. And I missed it.

A new (in)fertility website has promoted the "One Thing" campaign for the last two weeks...one thing you would like people to know most about infertility.

If there is one thing I would like people to know and understand about infertility is how much it changes who you are...forever. I've said on my other blog before, that infertility hurts...it hurt then and it still hurts now. I know it's odd, but it really doesn't matter that I have crossed over to the other side, so to speak, as a mother of two little girls. It should...but it doesn't. I still get that little twinge in my stomach with pregnancy announcements, baby showers, birth announcements, christenings, baptisms, birthdays...and it's never anything directed at that person(s), but rather a reminder of my own inadequacies as a woman who can't do the one thing I'm supposed to be able to do, a reminder of years of sadness, my own shattered dreams, my own futile hopes. 

More than three years after becoming pregnant with the girls, it is still a huge part of who I am today. Yes, I am now a mother...an amazing gift and one I truly never thought I would be given. But three years later, I still have to pinch myself to see if this is all real...to see if this is really my life. I still sit at the foot of the girls' bed and watch them in complete awe while they are sleeping because I canNOT believe they are my daughters. I am still brought to tears as I watch the girls, hand in hand with their daddy...a vision that I once daydreamed about whenever I saw Robert from a distance. I still cannot listen to certain songs without being brought to my knees, in a puddle of tears, because I know that I am so incredibly blessed to be living my dream. I don't take these small moments for granted, I cherish them all and often stop to just take it all in...to convince myself that this is in fact my life now...that it is not three years ago when we were so desperate, so lonely, so heartbroken, so sad.

Infertility is something we still talk about, we still face--it has never gone away, we were never "cured." Because if we were magically fixed by having our girls, we would probably being trying again, be pregnant again, or have another child by now. 

But I assure you, not one of those things is happening or has happened. Instead of following our heart's desire to have more children, we are forced to set it aside, hoping that it will either fade away on its own or that one day we will be in a place where we can try again. 

And until either one of those things happens, it will still be the "one thing" that will always be a part of me, for better or worse. I have accepted my infertility. I have embraced it as part of me. I only hope that in coming to that place of acceptance, I can help others who are facing IF, by sharing our journey thus far and our hope for the future.

Praying tonight for far too many women, whose dream has yet to come true, whose prayers have gone unanswered, whose hearts are broken, and whose spirits are weary...that this be the last Mother's Day they spend without a little one in their arms. Thinking of you all...knowing the place you are in...holding you all close.