THAT Day

Uh huh. Tomorrow is THAT day. The day that celebrates the love a person has for his or her mother. Where we can show our love and gratitude for the women who gave birth to us and raised us. A chance for kids to nationally recognize all that their mothers have done for them.

And it’s a day that makes any woman suffering through infertility want to run and hide under the covers for the next 24 hours. Because it’s yet another reminder that what we want most in life, we just can’t have.

You would think that after ten years of childless Mother’s Days the pain would lessen after a while. In many aspects, the hurt isn’t as bad as it was … say, the first Mother’s Day after my failed IVF. Or last year, when my SIL’s pregnancy with Liam ripped those IF wounds (which I managed to stifle for years) wide open.

Of course there are those other days where the pain rears its head once again. The grand announcement of a family member’s or friend’s pregnancy. The random baby shower invitation in the mail for one of your mother’s friend’s daughter. The conversations with FWC (Friends with children) that inevitably turn towards what their kids are doing these days.

What I have learned over the past ten years is to anticipate this pain to surface on days like tomorrow, where the whole continent recognizes the woman that brought them into the world. And the woman who raised them and provided them with love and protection. And I expect to feel this kind of pain for days, sometime weeks, after learning the news of any new pregnancy. Because yet again, it’s another pregnancy that I’ll never have.

I sense this pain will never ever go away. However, over the past year I have learned to temper it. I know now when to say “No” to baby showers. Or to simply walk away when pregnancy talk gets to be too much. I know where to hide (a bathroom, the spare guest room, my car) when I need to steal a moment to cry.

So tomorrow, after celebrating the love and appreciation Hubby & I have for our mothers, I will want to climb back into bed and not get out from under the covers until Monday morning. But I won’t. Because I want to be able to say that I got through this tough day with my head held high and my renewed spirit towards adoption intact.

But if for some reason, Hubby notices I’m “missing” for a short period of thim … I may have to tell him to check the restaurant restroom. In the private stall. Where I just might be crying.

I may be stronger than I was last year at this time. But I’m not THAT strong.

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My infertility resides in my heart as an old friend. I do not hear from it for weeks at a time, and then, a moment, a thought, a baby announcement or some such thing, and I will feel the tug — maybe even be sad or shed a few tears. And I think, “There’s my old friend.” It will always be a part of me ….

— Barbara Eck Menning, founder of Resolve