Loss

Recently, there have been a few loved ones around me who have passed. One was a family member, and the other a friend. A young, vibrant and wonderful person.


After I heard of a friend's husband passing, I listened to a podcast on miscarriages, though the two events are not related.


The podcast got me thinking about all of the shame, heartache and disappointment that goes along with a miscarriage. The presenters discussed how often times, women are told "Don't worry, you'll get pregnant again," as though their loss is trivial. Clearly, if you lose a child at or before 20 weeks (the definition of a miscarriage), you would not feel that your loss was trivial. Just because the child has not yet made it into the world yet, does not mean that you did not feel that you were a mother, and that this was not your child, who is now gone.


As I thought about myself and my friends who have endured a miscarriage, of course, my thinking came back around to my own infertility. The presenters of the podcast discussed the rise in depression amongst women who miscarry. Statistics were also cited to state that women who experience infertility, and then a miscarriage undergo a longer bout with depression.


But what about those of us who have yet to even know what it is to be a mother? Sometimes, I feel like my life is a constant disappointment. I feel the surge of hope, usually right around day 15 or 16 of my cycle, only to bury my head down and fight my way through the deepest, darkest valley when my cycle begins again.


I'm sure that many people think that we, as the infertile community, cannot fully understand loss (I have personally experienced a miscarriage, btw). However, I think we do. I also think it happens more frequently. I feel like the feeling of loss has a parallel with the process of weathering. Let's say that you are a healthy (i.e. not infertile) woman who has had a miscarriage. You are devastated, of course. The impact of this feeling has the fierceness of a tsunami. Your world is turned upside down, inside out, and you don't know which end is up. After a while, the pieces start to be put back together, and you begin to feel that life can continue. Maybe you even feel a sense of hope.


For an infertile woman, each month is like being a cliff, who is being beaten and bashed each month by a rolling wave of disappointment. There is no time to put anything back together, because it is always falling apart.


I think a rocky cliff is a good analogy. . .either that, or the Tom Hanks movie "The Money Pit." You could even interpret that literally and figuratively.

We shall see what the future holds.


P.S. If you are not a Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast listener, check them out.  They do their research, cite their sources, and are generally quite entertaining.  Tip o' the cap, smnty!