There are about twenty people that I know personally who have either just had a baby or who are pregnant. My Facebook feed is littered with updates and pictures of beautiful bundles of joy. Every single one brings a new and special pang to my heart. As a woman I thought "well if I never succeed at anything else I know one day I will be an amazing mother." I remember when my Aunt Jana tried to get pregnant when I was in high-school and she couldn't succeed. I don't remember the exact moment but I remember that I was 16 years old and suddenly my biggest fear shifted from being strangled in my sleep to being infertile.
That fear was realized in 2010 when I was told that it would be very unlikely that I would ever have children. How is it even possible to miss someone you have never even met? I guess I mainly miss the vision that I had of my future. I watched it deteriorate in front of me. It was like watching my life flash before my eyes but just the perfect life I wanted and I was left picking up the pieces of my broken heart. No break up, no upset, nothing, has ever come to hurt as much as knowing I would not be able to bare my own child.
When someone you love dies a hole forms in your heart. It never truly goes away and that hurt never fully heals, but over time it is doctored by fond memories and love. Finding out that you are infertile is similar but different in so many ways. When I found out that I couldn't have my own child it was like I had lost someone I loved. However, over time, that hole has not been filled with anything. The hole that infertility has left in my heart only continues to grow. That hole has become a pit of bitterness that makes it hard to see the light in the distance.
People are tethered to their children indefinitely. This is proven by the fact that even after a child is raised and loved by who they believe to be their parents there is still a part of them that needs their biological parents in their life. No matter what grief our parents give us, no matter how much of a pain in the ass your mother can be, she will always be your mother. Mothers are givers of life. There is no greater bond than one that exists both on an emotional and subconscious level between a mother and child.
Then there is the tether that connects the father and mother. There is something special that happens when two people have a child. Two become one. That child is half of you both. In a parents eyes that child is the perfect part of both. I see, even in split up couples, when a man or woman will look at their child and see that ex lover or ex husband/wife. Simple actions cause a reaction bringing in a wave of lost emotions and memories. People can say that they hate their children's other parent, but deep there will always be a part of them that can never stop loving them. No matter what that person has done wrong in their life they always made one thing that was damn near perfect in their eyes. Will I ever have that bond with anyone?
I want all of it, everything that comes with pregnancy. I would take nine months of morning sickness, swollen ankles, mood swings, and bed-rest to be able to feel tiny kicks, to hear a heart beat on an ultrasound machine, to be swollen with a common day miracle. I often have dreams where I have a child and hold it in my hands crying and saying I made this. There is no doubt in my mind that this would be my exact reaction in real life. I don't believe that there is anything else that I could want any more than to have my own child.
I guess I am committing this all to paper, so to speak, because I feel like I have no one to talk to about this but myself. Sure, I know a few people who struggled getting pregnant. Trust me, every time I have a break down I am reminded that such and such waited 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, and then finally had children. Those people who struggled, even they cannot relate. That pain and fear they had of remaining childless ceased to matter the moment their child entered their lives. So much pain was erased in moments.
I will wait indefinitely. I will wait even though there is recognizably little to wait for. This hole in my heart will continue to grow and break me. It will eat me alive from the inside out; it does more and more every day. There is nothing that I want more than to be a mother. I don't want to be a mother now, or in a year, or even in two years, but just knowing that their is a very large chance that I will never bare my own child makes it hard for me to even get past today.
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