This Is A Post About Infertility

There is a small grief I keep in my pocket. 

It was a short, pink line - faint, but there. A week later it was gone, replaced by a period that started heavy and black, and excruciating pain that made my husband wonder when a trip to the ER might be warranted. I hear this is called a “chemical pregnancy,” and is really nothing more than a period that comes a few days late. 

Sometimes in quiet moments, I let myself take that small grief out the pocket I shoved it in. I unwrap it and listen to the If Onlys … If Only that period had not been late, had not come at all. If Only we were a family of five now. If Only the past year of quietly taking tests and undergoing procedures had not happened, had not been necessary. 

I don’t usually have long before it’s time to fold the grief back into itself and put my focus to something more immediate.

There is a fitting parallelism here, between my grief for this and my boys’ grief for their mom. I am the mother of all grief. I am in a storm of my nine-year-old’s pain, trying to keep upright as his anger whips around, knocking him to pieces. I am in the fun house of my twelve-year-old’s mind, trying to keep balance as he turns grief into hysterical silliness before he calms and settles back into himself. And I step into the river of my own sorrow, aching for this loss that never really was.

Infertility is a wild thing. I am desperate for information. I want to see everything going on inside me. I am tempted by internet charlatans offering six week programs to balance hormones. I want to find the right thing to eat or do or think or feel or say. I would howl at the moon, wear my clothing inside out, or drink water upside down if it meant I had that control. If only infertility was as easy to overcome as hiccups. 

And yet - sometimes I wonder if it is better to not know. If I don’t know that the way my fallopian tubes are shaped gives me an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy, then I don’t have to face the fact that I live in the Bible Belt, where somehow it is holy to let me die. A place I fear might put me in jail because of a period that came a few days late.

Let me be very clear here: my life is beautiful. It is full of light and laughter and deep, deep joy. Love overflows. I have an incredible family that I wouldn’t trade for anything. 

I am lucky and I know it. 

I wish I had some sort of neat bow to tie all this up inside. I don’t, and I am sorry for that. All I know is that I give thanks every day for the life I live, and sometimes I take the grief out of my pocket, unwrap it, and wish for what might have been.