Jen sent me this submission with the suggestion it was published under Our Stories, but I read her words and knew they belonged under We Are Worthy.
This is our day, and we are worthy to be seen, be heard, be recognised, be respected, be understood, be accepted.
Stephanie Joy Phillips, World Childless Week founder
The following was written for my 155 close friends and family on Facebook. It might have worked and it might not have, but it had to be done. I hope others can fill in the blanks on this submission for their own story. I hope to be someone's voice if they need it. We cannot be alone in this fight. We have so much more to offer than staying in the shadows
This will make you uncomfortable.
On this journey of infertility, I have personally learned that nothing will change unless something is said. I’m going to try this again.
I’d like to further define “infertility” and maybe this can shed a little light on becoming more cognizant on providing a safe space for someone that is in a prolonged or new state of grief.
As a childless (not by choice) couple that is nearing the biological dead zone age, we are facing something that we weren’t necessarily prepared to face. Acceptance. As we are on a path of acceptance, we recognize that we are in a period of grieving. Or, at least we think as to somehow make some sense of this. We grieve a void and we grieve something that never happened.
For a few years after we received our diagnoses from the reproductive clinic in Omaha Nebraska, we fled the only place we knew for 32 years. The years that followed in a new city and state were filled with excessive consumption of anything that we could find to pass the time. To calm that quietude. To speed up the night because "what else is there to do?"
It is now year 38 for the both of us in these bodies of ours. This isn’t a movie or a tantalizing fictional drama. This is us – your old friends, your pals, your FAMILY. Sure, it all looks fine from the outside. You see me posting things of beauty and moments of quick clarity, but you know what the reality is? We have to still come home to quiet. This is where I’m going to talk about your preconceptions. Get rid of them. We don’t have it all.
Infertility is:
Coming home to quiet.
Side-eye glances at one another subtly in the darkness with only the light of the TV illuminating the room to see eyes welling and lips pursing when the local pediatrics hospital commercial blazes brightly and loudly reminding us that we will never have a newborn.
Side-eye glances when a woman is seen on a hospital bed getting an ultrasound
Taking a wrong turn in a store and ending up in the children’s clothing section. Newborn socks or booties.
Trying to redefine the word “legacy” to fit into the tiny box that we will need to keep open for our future. When it’s only us. Then when it’s only one of us. When “us” as our own entity is a distant memory for the family that we do have that continues to grow outside of “us.” We will one day both be forgotten.
This is real life:
When I haven’t seen you, dear friend, for years, and the first thing that we do is go into a room full of children swimming in a hotel swimming pool. Everything was so loud and so in our face. We looked directly at a life we would never have. Chaos with purpose. I fell into a daydream of watching our own demanding us to “Look! Look!” as he or she splashed in the water. Please don’t. That one hurt.
When you send me an email message asking for my address (500 miles away) so you can send me a baby shower invite -- after responding “giving hugs” to me from yet another infertility Facebook post -- Please don’t. This brought me back down when I thought I was doing well.
When I reach out in pain, I’m reaching out to you because I am in pain. When your response is, “it is what it is”, I further feel alone. Choose healing words or no words at all. Silence is sometimes better than nothing.
When I tell you, dear coworker, that we, as a couple, are grappling with our own personal infertility struggle, please do not make me watch you give my pregnant supervisor a homemade “tummy time” blanket. That hurt.
When I tell you, dear supervisor, that we, as a couple, are struggling with our own personal infertility struggle, please do not make me listen to you glowingly rave about your newly furnished baby room in which you will put this “tummy time” blanket. As you glowed, I wanted to burst into tears thinking about how we will never have a room for baby – full of natural sunlight, a rocking chair, a few wicker baskets of neatly folded and fresh outfits that were lovingly given from family and friends, against a subtle pastel-colored wall – with the brightest thing in the room being that crib. That we’ll never have. That one really hurt.
When we just sit down for a family dinner, after driving 8 hours and being road-weary, and you want to blurt to me, “That’s just what it’s like to be a parent.” I will likely never know what it’s like to be a parent. I want to flee. You said it as if this is a prize that I will never win. Please don’t. Please think before you speak.
When you, coworker that I have spilled my heart to, becomes pregnant in the same small office as me and begin to loudly proclaim that you had a ‘struggle’ of getting pregnant after one year, alienating me and causing me to withdraw into myself by closing my office door to have a depressive anxiety attack, please don’t. I thought that the pain in my face would say the words that I needed to say.
When I’m on a Zoom meeting and get put into breakout rooms with two women that I do not know that work within the company and they exclude me from their conversation about children being the greatest thing, giving the greatest purpose. Please don’t.
To note: Our story is not the same as yours. I know you are trying to help – truly – and you might not know what to say, but it might be easiest to keep it simple and say, “That has to be really hard.”
I know you are trying to help – truly – but you struggling for 1, 2 or even 3 years is not the same as 20 years.
When you say that you are having a hard time conceiving another because "we want to really give such and such a brother/sister" when you already have one biological or adopted child, we have a hard time relating. To us, we see you as the luckiest to have even one child. This is not the same as our struggle.
When you ask us, “Why don’t you just adopt?” We have already tried and the pain that came from that falling through has caused an anguish we did not anticipate. I’m not sure we have the mental fortitude to go through the process again.
If you ask why we have not tried IVF, please look up how much money that will be and look at the guaranteed success rate: spoiler -- IVF is not guaranteed.
If you ask why we do not foster, this is a more complicated answer. “Well, you must not want this badly enough.” If this is your immediate thought, then we ask that you refrain from further communication with us.
Setting Boundaries: It will be quite some time before we can close any chapter on accepting our fate together. We appreciate you thinking that a miracle is coming, but it’s nothing that we haven’t heard for over a decade. It is now that we ask for your patience and understanding on anything and everything that is “baby.” It is just too hard for us to face the subject knowing what we have endured and will face years from now. Baby showers, birthdays, pregnancy announcements, memories of childbirth, photos of pregnancy belly, anything – you name it – it STINGS right now.
We would like to be happy for your happiness, but in our grieving process, it is best that we shield ourselves from a heart ache that I would never wish on anyone. It is nothing personal; it’s just hard. This is an ongoing process that we are both trying to navigate together. One day, we will be okay with the final determination and the end of the road. The time is not now.
We’ve all made quite a few trips around the sun at this point. Our friends and family. I’m here to say that it is not too late to shift a few preconceptions on how others live. “Others” can be your close family members, acquaintances, or even somebody that you read about in the news.
It is not too late to think before you send that text message, say those words, or post that meme.
Think of us others in the void. We want to be a part of your life, but when your life is family and we will never be parents, grandparents, great grandparents...a wave of discomfort comes over us as we do not know how to react to your life’s growing milestones.
We don’t ask that you walk on eggshells. Little things can help. There are features on Facebook and Instagram in which you can block a person from reading one specific post. You can talk about something else with us. We are not asking you to subdue your happiness.
Our only reasonable request is to show a little sensitivity. I’m sure you all remember middle school and high school when you didn’t get picked for the team. Well, plainly, it sucks.
From our heart to yours,
J+C
Jen Maria Harris
