What a long strange trip it's been...
This may be the most personal post I have written to date.
I am the type of person who takes inoccuous conversations with me and ponders how they came into being and how they relate to my life path. This practice came at me headfirst last week when a friend was telling me a story of how he lost a child due to a lost pregnancy. I have long advocated that the loss of a pregnancy is as devostating for a male as it is for a female. No matter if the loss was spontaneous or planned. Loss is loss and deserves our acknowlegement in the grieving process. This friend of mine was showing me a small pendant he purchased of a handmade clay fetus. I told him I know the artist who designs the fetuses. We talked about the artistry for a few minues. Then he told me how he planned to wear it as a talisman to connect with his lost child that never had the opportunity to be born. The details of this conversation are not important. And the story is his to tell, not mine. But those randomly spoken words on a porch as I was making my way to work have set off a storm of activity inside my brain. Because it opened up some old wounds I thought long healed.
I was married when I was very young. At that time I had no concept of my own body and what was happening inside of it. Most teenagers don't think too deeply about themselves, they just think about themselves. I was no exception. During my four year marriage I had 5 miscarriages. With the frist, in my youthful oblivion, I did not think of it as a loss. I grieved for a short time then became obessed with becoming pregnant again. And again I lost the pregnancy. This cycle kept repeating itself until I finally began seeking fertility treatments to become pregnant and carry to term. After the last miscarriage, my husband had found himself inlove with another woman. He left me in the midst of my fertility treatments. To say I was devastated would not even begin to describe my state of mind at that time. I was not only emotionally crushed by the end of my marriage, I had hormones rushing through my body that were transforming me into a baby-coveting demon. I was not sane. (Seriously people, I was growing fangs and drooling baby lust. It was horrific.)
Over the many years since my marriage ended I have sought more medical treatment. Not for fertility, but for answers to why I cannot have children. Inside my head I feel like a failure of the most basic function of the female body. About two years after my divorce I finally had a diagnosis that explained what was happening to me. I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. It is a common malady, I won't go into details as you can click the link to learn more. This diagnosis explained so much about my entire life, not just my reproductive organs. But in my doctors words, it is not impossible for me to have children it is improbable. But after age 30 it leans more towards impossible than improbable. I am now 36. So not only is impossible possible, but likely.
But knowing what was wrong did not fix the feelings of failure and devostation I felt inside for having lost five children. The loss of a child is difficult no matter the number. But I kept repeating to myself, Five, Five, Five. I felt like I had been the reason that five innocent lives had been stripped of their opportunity for existence. Failure again was the word that consumed me. I wanted nothing more than to be a mother. I continued to be obsessed with the concept of creating life inside of me no matter the consequences. This way of thinking became a dangerous path filled with quicksand at each turn. I was jealous of every woman with a baby bump. I was angry over the people who said things about not wanting children but having 4 of them. Failure turned to rage. I was a raging psycho bitch looking for someone to impregnate me.
Given my new age lifestyle at the time(who am I kidding, I'm still new agey), I began meditating on my reaction to anything baby related. I began seeking herbal remedies to help balance my hormones. These things worked. I felt better. I had fewer anger reactions to baby news. I resolved my mind to the prospect of never having children of my own. I became realistic about what my body was capable of doing. Even now I feel calm in the context of my infertility.
Just under the surface of my calm lays that old stone that rippled the water long ago called rage. I named my baby making jealous rage JohnnyCakes. It's a silly reference to The Outsiders. And of all the characters from my favorite childhood book, Johnny Cade is the least likely to indulge rage. But it was the Robert Frost poem from the book that made me call my rage JohnnyCakes. Natures First Green Is Gold, it represented that my anger and rage is only a moment in time. As my joy and happiness is just as fleeting. None of theses emotions are permanent unless I cling to them. Clinging to them is useless because it only makes me rage all the more. I broke the cycle by naming it with a disarming vision in my head.
When my younger sister became a mother, I found myself encased with rage once again. It hit a more resonant chord having it my closest family member betraying my desire for motherhood by procreating before me. It took months for me to reconcile my emotions in relation to my not being the daughter giving my mother her first grandchild. I would never tell my mother that since she always nagged about me finding a man and making babies. She did not understand the emotions I was going through. I did not tell her either. So there is that. I never told my sister of my issues. Our family has a strict policy of not sharing feelings, who was I to break that. I'm sure on some level she felt my roiling tide of fury for being denied motherhood once again. (Not that I was trying at this point, but you know emotions have no logic or timeline)
Two days after the conversation with my friend about his loss I was climbing the stairs at my sisters house. The sound of giggles coming from my mother's apartment wrapped itself around me. I was completely infused with the happy giggles of my two youngest nieces. At that moment I lost all feelings of rage, jealousy, and anger. Those beautiful babies are incarnations of the babies I lost so long ago. They arrived when they were supposed to arrive, to a mother that they were supposed to have. My sister is a wonderful mother. She is probably a better mother than I could even dream of being. I am grateful for being their aunt Amy.
Also, I have decided that my five neverborn children deserve their respect. I want to honor their being. They existed, if even for a few weeks. I grew to love them even if I was unaware of their existence until they had ceased to exist. To my children, I want to tell you I loved you, I love you, I will always love you. If I am granted a late life miracle and find myself a mother either by my own pregnancy or by adoption, I will never let the memory of the five neverwere to die, but I refuse to cling to the anger for their loss. I am grateful to them for blessing me with lessons no other entities could give me. There is a special place inside my soul that keeps your memory.
Here is that Robert Frost poem. To date this is the only poem I actually have memorized.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Natures first green is gold Her hardest hue to hold Her early leaf's a flower But only so an hour Then leaf subsides to leaf So Eden sank to grief So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay
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