My New Calendar

There's a new calendar that I follow now. Along with all the marked holidays, there is another one marked. This calendar I carry around in my heart. Today, last year, we lost our baby...

It has been a year.


Sometimes I struggle with the issue of grieving this loss. I ask myself if I deserve to grieve this one loss? Is it ok that I'm hurting and sad over infertility? Sometimes I'm even embarrassed by how much it has effected me. But then I stumble upon a blog post from Hillary over at Making Me Mom, and I thought it was so powerful that I asked her if I could share it. She talks about the comparison of death and infertility. She also made of list of things she would miss if she were not able to have a biological child, which I did not post below. But I guess just her words about grief and infertility, struck a chord with me. And it made me realize that it is ok for me to still be grieving...


As posted by Hillary...

"I have been working on a list titled "My Losses." Many times when I have been struck by a wave of sadness, I have added to the list as a new feeling of loss was triggered.

Many of the items on the list seem silly, superficial, or small, I know. And I am sure at the end of my life - and certainly in eternity - I will look back on this time very differently. But in this season of my life they feel very real and painful. The heaviness of the sense of loss I feel is almost crushing.

I also thought about the way we describe grief, in general. If I describe my sadness over the loss of my beloved grandmother 8 years ago, I would say things like, "I miss sitting at her kitchen table and hearing her tell stories from her life," or "I wish I could open up her fridge and see the jello in small glass pyrex cups she always had waiting for me." There are few words to describe the loss and pain, but somehow those little things I can describe add up to convey the magnitude of grief. And with death, I feel like we can all relate...that we can hear somebody describe those little things and feel the giant monster of pain within the heart.

And so it is with infertility, I think. I can only say "This is a really painful loss" in so many words, but all of these "little things" I have listed below communicate those feelings better than my few words can. The only problem is, unlike my example of death, most people cannot relate. And to them, when they read these little things, they just seem like little things. Insignificant. "Why can't she just move on? It's not the end of the world."

I am not saying the experience of loss through infertility is greater or more painful than loss through death, but that it feels very lonely. And it is yet another reason I am so thankful for the blogging community, that here, in this virtual space, I know many of you do understand what this list of "little things" communicates."

I have my first cold of the season. Boo to that! I haven't had to use my neb machine since February, so I'm hoping my asthma doesn't start acting up soon. Do you ever feel cursed? Just Friday I was telling a co-worker how I was surprised that I hadn't gotten sick yet! And wham! Immediate cold.

I'm off to my couch, to sip tea and watch The Holiday. Great movie...

Goodbye, December 12th. When they say "Time heals all things," I guess they mean more than a year. Perhaps next December 12th things will be so different :)