This is a tough one for me. Six weeks ago, I was very much looking forward to May 13, planning to fudge the rules just a bit (because I was pregnant and who's going to tell a pregnant woman no?) and taking part in my special Mothers-To-Be Day alongside my own wonderful mother and beautiful friends celebrating their very first and most special Mother’s Day.
I’ve risen out of the dark place that surrounded me just a couple weeks ago. But I know my wound is still fresh. I know this because, despite my indifference to the empty, opportunistic advertising with which our TVs and radios and “Current Resident” mailers have been inundating us, I cried a couple days ago for the first time since emerging from that dark place. In response to an ad that snuck up and knocked the wind (strength) out of me.
I’ve risen out of the dark place that surrounded me just a couple weeks ago. But I know my wound is still fresh. I know this because, despite my indifference to the empty, opportunistic advertising with which our TVs and radios and “Current Resident” mailers have been inundating us, I cried a couple days ago for the first time since emerging from that dark place. In response to an ad that snuck up and knocked the wind (strength) out of me.
I don’t even know what the product or company was – Gerber, Huggies, something of the like – but it presented pairs of beautiful infants and their glowing young mothers interacting in the simplest routines – a fresh diaper, bath time, tiny toes receiving butterfly kisses. Those small moments in which an eternal bond is forged. And in that thirty-second interruption, I was reminded of the excitement I had felt just a little while ago at the thought of being able to participate in Mother’s Day not just as a daughter this year, but as an expectant mother anticipating all of those moments that lay ahead. It reminded me that I still feel that hole in my heart. It did what any good ad is meant to do – it made me long for the product it was selling. Some Don Draper somewhere did his job all too well and probably doesn’t even have a clue.
I had an epiphany a few months ago that sums up my entire (in)fertility odyssey – I am a childless mother. A simple idea riddled with complexities only the infertile can understand. I know there are thousands of us going through this paradox. And I know we have all felt very helpless and alone, with each repeated disappointment not knowing if we can survive the next one to come our way. I know there are good days and there are bad days, and then there are bad days when we feel guilty for considering them bad.
Which is where I stand now: guilty for losing the joy of a very important day – a day when all children can take time to be as grateful to their mothers as they should be year-round. To love and pamper the woman who has given more of herself to her children than to herself and asks nothing in return but the wonder of motherhood and all that implies. But here’s the other side: it is, in great part, because of my amazing mother that I so want the chance to be in her shoes one day, why it hurts so bad not to be able to grow, nurture and support my own child the way she has me, and why I am all the more appreciative of a chance to honor my mom and all the moms like her. All of the moms who know what a gift they have and who have taken that responsibility seriously.
But while I deal with the confusion of emotions Mother’s Day evokes for me, I am overcome with delight for my sweet friends who will be celebrating their first Mother’s Day tomorrow (you know who you are). I see the happiness and unbridled love your new little people bring to your lives. And I see the comfort and love you, as their mothers, bring to those instantly trusting, miraculous tiny humans. Please know I share your joy – I do – and I celebrate you.
And so I say Happy Mother’s Day to all of the very deserving, loving, giving mothers out there, especially those in my own life. But I also say Happy Mother’s Day to all the other mothers, who I know are feeling this same bittersweetness in their own hearts – those mothers still waiting for their children.
I had an epiphany a few months ago that sums up my entire (in)fertility odyssey – I am a childless mother. A simple idea riddled with complexities only the infertile can understand. I know there are thousands of us going through this paradox. And I know we have all felt very helpless and alone, with each repeated disappointment not knowing if we can survive the next one to come our way. I know there are good days and there are bad days, and then there are bad days when we feel guilty for considering them bad.
Which is where I stand now: guilty for losing the joy of a very important day – a day when all children can take time to be as grateful to their mothers as they should be year-round. To love and pamper the woman who has given more of herself to her children than to herself and asks nothing in return but the wonder of motherhood and all that implies. But here’s the other side: it is, in great part, because of my amazing mother that I so want the chance to be in her shoes one day, why it hurts so bad not to be able to grow, nurture and support my own child the way she has me, and why I am all the more appreciative of a chance to honor my mom and all the moms like her. All of the moms who know what a gift they have and who have taken that responsibility seriously.
But while I deal with the confusion of emotions Mother’s Day evokes for me, I am overcome with delight for my sweet friends who will be celebrating their first Mother’s Day tomorrow (you know who you are). I see the happiness and unbridled love your new little people bring to your lives. And I see the comfort and love you, as their mothers, bring to those instantly trusting, miraculous tiny humans. Please know I share your joy – I do – and I celebrate you.
And so I say Happy Mother’s Day to all of the very deserving, loving, giving mothers out there, especially those in my own life. But I also say Happy Mother’s Day to all the other mothers, who I know are feeling this same bittersweetness in their own hearts – those mothers still waiting for their children.
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