I spend a lot of time lately looking at Baby Girl and feeling so thankful. Here I am, with everything I have ever wanted. I am truly blessed and this year there is even more to be thankful for than ever before. Sometimes my heart feels as though it will burst from the sheer quantity of the purest love I have ever felt. This, my friends, is worth fighting for.
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When I was 19 I was so frustrated by the acne that had plagued me all through my teenage years. Surely it should have been better by then, I thought. I had tried everything available OTC and via infomercials. Everything. I had even tried several prescription drugs (all nightmares). So I went to a dermatologist, again. He examined my skin and asked me if I had regular periods, which I had never had. He told me he thought I had PCOS and that I should check with an OBGYN. When I brought it up at my annual exam, she literally laughed at me but ordered an ultrasound to humor me. Guess what? Cysts all over my ovaries. And a clear imbalance in hormones. HA!
But wait, the joke was on me. I spent a lot of time searching the internet for info. You know, with a dial-up modem and some now-defunct search engine since I hadn't yet heard of Goo.gle. There wasn't a lot out there but I realized one thing - this was going to cause problems when I wanted to have children. The lack of regular periods had always bothered me, but it was always brushed off by the same OBGYN and she told me it would get better with age. Clearly that was not to be. I spent the next ten years wondering if I would ever experience pregnancy, whether I would have children or not. How do you get pregnant when you have two or three periods a year? That can't be good, right? I warned my then-boyfriend, now-hubby, in case he wanted out to find heartier breeding stock. I was lucky, he stayed.
Sometimes it was at the back of my mind. Sometimes at the forefront. Sometimes a doctor during grad school would look at a 26-year old me and say, "What are you waiting for? It will only get harder."
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A fellow blogger, Eileen, who had twins in August recently received a strange "congratulations" card from a family member and wrote about it on her blog. On the outside the card said, "Did you know that in some states you can legally dump your kids at the courthouse?" and on the inside said, "Road trip?". First of all, when is this card ever funny and who on earth would send it by way of congratulating a new mom, especially one who went through several losses and several IVFs as Eileen did. This was a serious "WTF?!?!".
I commented, and so did many other people. Most having the same WTF feelings. One anonymous (of course) commenter said this (boldface added by me for emphasis on my point):
"The card might have been offensive to you, but it seems like she was reaching out to you. Maybe things are really tough on her? I think you are a tad bit overly sensitive when it comes to the comments. The remark about having your hands full doesn't mean the person is insinuating having twins is bad. Most people assume having one new baby is time consuming much less having two. I also think it is silly when those that struggle or have struggled with infertility think they somehow value their children (or will value them) more than the "fertiles". I call BS on that one. By all means with your past struggles I can understand the wounds are still raw and easily opened."
I'm not sure that value is the right word but what about appreciate? Do we as "infertiles" appreciate our children more than "fertiles" who took their ability to procreate as a given?
Does a person who almost loses their spouse to a car accident have an awakening and vow to not take their spouse for granted in the future? Does a child who grew up poor appreciate a scholarship to college more than a privileged student? Does someone who knows what it really is to struggle to achieve something appreciate the prize at the end of the fight more? Does a woman like me who anticipated the fight for many years, experienced loss, and then, after treatments, had her baby appreciate that baby more? Does a woman who went through far more than me appreciate her baby(ies) more? Do we look at our children, our miracle babies as we often call them, and realize what we almost didn't have and appreciate them more?
I'm calling BS on her BS. I respectfully* disagree. I think we do appreciate them more. Does that mean we love them more? No. But we know where we've been, what it cost us (not just monetarily), and how we felt when we imagined our dream might never come true.
I'm certainly not saying we have a monopoly on loving our kids. Nor that we have a monopoly on appreciating them. Just that we appreciate them more. What do you think?
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. And may you all be able to give thanks for your babies, now or in the very near future.
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*What I really want to say is: You're G-d D--n right I appreciate her more!
But I'll be polite and restrain myself. :)
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ReplyDeleteI think to truly appreciate what you have in the way that you feel about Baby Girl, you absolutely have to have been in that dark place where you truly believed what you have now would never exist. I have rarely met an infertile who hasn't at some dark moment on the journey actually imagined what her life would be like without kids. Who truly believed that her body was incapable of either becoming pregnant or carrying a baby to term and really wholeheartedly believed she would never become a mother. That was my darkest moment(and it lasted much longer than a moment), and without it I never could have appreciated what I have now in the way that I do. Not even an iota of the vast appreciation and awe I feel when I look at my son. So yeah I think you're right, although I would never tell a fertile that. I wish I too knew what it was to get pregnant for free sometimes, but I don't know that the trade-off of never knowing what it is to look at you child and be overcome with the sheer magnitude of his/her existence is really worth it.
ReplyDeleteI do think you girls appreciate that children are true miracles a lot more! However, as parents, you go through the same struggles with parenting and have to realize it isn't wrong to feel frustrated somedays. (and maybe that was what the card was about, even though i agree it was insensitive in that case)
ReplyDeleteI compleetly agree with you. Knowing what might not have been makes a person apreciate anything more. As does trying to acheive something for MANY years.
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving!
I think (and I'm still formulating my thought as I type this...so bear with me...) "I" value/appreciate my daughter more than "I" would have previously done. It's not a "me vs. them", it's a "me vs. me". I'm not saying that my love/appreciation is greater than anyone else's--rather, my love/appreciation is greater and deeper (in my own heart) because of what I have experienced in myself and my journey.
ReplyDeleteHave I ever mentioned that you're a great writer? You really are!
I think that commenter missed the point, as most easily offended people do. When I say I am a better mother and more appreciative of my daughter because of the fight I had to fight to get her here, I am talking about ME. I'm not talking about anyone else or their relationship with their children.
ReplyDelete*I* am a better mother than *I* would have been had *I* not had to fight so hard to become a mother. I know *I* would have taken so much for granted had I gotten pregnant easily. I would have taken my pregnancy for granted and complained through the whole thing. But because I had to fight so hard to get there, I delighted in every miserable symptom because it meant I was pregnant. I had EARNED those symptoms. I very rarely complained, much to the surprise of all around me. I wasn't like every other pregnant woman. I delighted in my stretch marks, my swollen ankles, peeing every 2 minutes, the whole 9 yards.
I know that *I* am a better mother than *I* would have been. I have an unlimited amount of patience because in those moments where my daughter is driving me up the wall, I look at her sweet little face and am reminded of how hard I struggled to get her here, and my patience meter goes from E to F in no time flat.
I take nothing for granted when it comes to her. And let's face it, most people do take their children for granted. They take the miracle of pregnancy for granted, and the gift of parenthood for granted because they didn't have to fight with everything in them to become a parent. They didn't have to struggle with their loss of faith, confidence, finance, relationships, and self to become parents. Until you have truly struggled, you will never appreciate things the way you would had it come easily. Period. That's all there is to it. Plain and simple.
So, like you, I call BS to their call of BS. They obviously did not put real thought into their comment.