To My Friend

Dear Friend,

Recently you asked me a serious question about my infertility and instead of giving you a straight answer I gave you the easy one, I told you that I handle it "with tears" and then tried to brush off your questions by saying stupid things so that you would leave me alone.

I'm sorry.

Your question was a serious one and it deserves a serious answer.

Please forgive me for not giving you the answer you deserve.

When I told you I handle it "with tears" this is what I meant:

I don't touch pregnant women, it's too painful. I rarely hold newborns, it breaks my heart. When teens, drug addicts, and others who don't treat their kids well get pregnant I throw my hands up in the air and scream at God: "Why them and not me?" 

Then, at night, when my husband is snoring I cry.

I'm not as angry at God for my empty womb as I once was. I've cried those angry tears enough nights. I realized that what I needed to do was grieve.

Now when I cry after one of my friends get pregnant I cry for my babies never born. For those brilliant blue eyes of my husband I will never see in our own child, for my Grandfather's smile reborn, or my bushy eyebrows on a little toddler's face. I grieve for my husband and I, who will never experience the unique joy of looking at their offspring and proudly saying: "That right there, that goofy walk, it's in his blood, it comes from me." I grieve as if they had been born and tragically passed away. 

Friend, the pain you feel about your empty womb, I doubt it will go away. If it does I suspect it will take years. Even if you adopt, you may still feel this pain. I know this, because even though I have a son, I still mourn my empty womb.

He is my delight and joy and I would never trade him for the world, but a part of me still wishes.

Wishes to feel that first kick, to know what it is like to bring life into this world, and wishes to create a little person: a little bit of me and a little bit of him.

God is good and He knows our pain. He is the only thing that gets me through my grief when it creeps up on me in the night. I cry and I pray and I thank Him for what I do have. For Stomper, for Honey Bee, for the teens who come to visit, for Our Sweetie, for the children I am able to mother because my broken heart is open.