Infertility Chat: Maybe I Don't Want To Babysit Your Kids

I've been on a blogging hiatus these past few months, but I'm back to talk about something that has bothered me lately. I've had a few instances where discussion of my infertility has led to responses such as the following:
"I bet you're a great babysitter!"
"You can babysit my kids!"
"If you lived closer, you could come and 'mom' my kids some time!"

I want to give benefit of the doubt that no one intended for these comments to be hurtful or inappropriate, but you know what, they are, and I'm going to unpack the reasons why.

Firstly, sometimes these people are joking. This falls into the same category of  the nudge-nudge "You can have my kids!" statements that I get occasionally. These are the worst kind of comments. Do not do this. My infertility is not a joke. The fact that you can have kids and I can't is not funny. I understand that this topic may make someone so uncomfortable, but that doesn't make it okay to laugh about it to somehow lighten the mood. There may be times when I lean on dark humour, but that is my own prerogative as the hurting, grieving person. If I am being serious and sharing a deeply personal grief, there is no call for you to make a joke, particularly one that is not really funny anyway. If you're that uncomfortable, it's far better to just say, "I don't know what to say. I'm sorry you're going through this."

Even if they are meant seriously, these comments turn the focus back on the person responding. I've shared something about my own personal grief, and instead of mourning with me or asking how they can be supportive, it's turned into an opportunity for ME to do THEM a favour (babysit their kids), while somehow be phrased like it's a gift to me. This is not okay. I am happy to help my actual friends, the people who have sat with me and listened to me and wept with me. If a genuine friend needs a helping hand with her kids, then I am happy to oblige, but presenting it like you are doing something super nice to me by "offering" the chance to do what your 16-year-old neighbour does for an hourly rate is not loving or kind.

I understand your train of thought. You think that spending time with children will fill that spot in my heart, will make me feel like an almost-mom, but the truth is that it might not. I help in the nursery at Bible study occasionally, and while it is sometimes fun, I almost always end up crying in my car afterwards because holding those babies just reminds me that I'll never hold my own babies. If being around other people's kids filled that void, I would just work at a daycare. In other areas of life, we understand that this mindset is silly. If a friend were out of work, you wouldn't offer to let them come to work with you for the day to experience what it's like to be employed. If a friend is single and depressed about it, you would never think to say, "Why don't you spend the day with my husband?" We understand that our friend doesn't want to just spend the day with a man, but is in fact wanting a long-term, committed relationship to someone they love. Likewise, my desire to be a mother is not because I just want to spend lots of time with children. It's about the family life that I had pictured for us, the relationships that would develop, getting to know a little person who is a bit like me and a bit like Gil and also something extra and unique, and watching that person grow and learn over a lifetime. An evening spent watching your kids while you go to the movies will not fill that hole.

I've said it before and I will say it again, but someone else's infertility is not your problem to solve. The absolute best thing you can do is listen and grieve, and ask if there is some way for you to offer practical support. Please allow me the agency to decide what will and will not be helpful to me in my own grief without deciding on my behalf that your suggestion is just what I need.

Christmas Ghosts

Merry belated Christmas, friends! I hope it's been a good one for you and your families.

I haven't blogged in a long time. It felt like I ran out of words to say. Sometimes I was busy, and sometimes I had too many balls in the air, and at other times I just had too many emotions and no way to put them on the page.

In some ways, you could say that I'm doing better than at this point last year. We moved through some of stormiest periods of grief. I put myself out into the world and had new adventures and new joys. We are probably healthier than we were at the end of 2016.

But.... it still hurts. When I look at my tree on Christmas morning, I see the shadows of the gifts that should be there, the pajamas and toys and books that my children should be opening. When I look at our stockings, I see the extra space where more stockings should be. I see my shadow life, the one we were 'supposed' to have, the one in which we have two kids and maybe a third on the way, and I feel the gut punch of knowing that will never be. I live with the awareness of that ghost life every day, but at especially at Christmas.

One of the saddest parts of our infertility is that very few people understand or share in our loss. It is unacknowledged, unseen. When I voice it, I am being 'too dramatic' or 'too negative' or I just need to 'have a little faith'. No one sees the deep wounds that I carry. People commend me for looking happier, but don't notice that I still walk a little differently because part of me is broken.  There is hole in my heart. These ghosts come with me every day. I think they always will.

Eight Years, Four Years, One Year

Oh July, bringer of hot, lazy days and summer adventures, but with heat comes the danger of being scalded,, seared, or simply consumed in the fire so that nothing is left.

Eight years ago this week, I waited awkwardly in a shopping mall entrance to meet a man for dinner. Shortly after this, I spent a weekend with my mother at our family cottage, and during a canoe outing told her, "I might have met someone. I think I like him."

Four years later, the man from the shopping mall meeting, now my dear husband Gil, said to me, yes, let's have a child. Four years ago today, full of hope, I wrote down that it was finally Cycle Day 1, our first month trying for a child. Filled with hope, I envisioned a winter pregnancy, a spring baby. My imagined spring due date pushed forward to summer, then, autumn, then winter, then spring again.

One year ago tomorrow, I got the call from the clinic. Our cycle had failed. Our last hope. The dream was dead.

I thought that one day it would get easier, that one day I would start waking out without grief or pain. It hasn't. The sharp knife point of grief has dulled slightly, but infertility is still the air that I breath, day in and day out. It envelopes me and consumes me. It is my constant companion. I am infertility and infertility is me. I cannot imagine a life when I will not be aware in every moment that I wanted to be a mother, and I never could.

How do I keep going to face another July, and another? I don't know. I live by putting one foot in front of the other. I enjoy the good moments when they come, and I let myself grieve. I am kind to myself and try to be kind to others. I pray and worship and try to find my way in this dark valley of my faith. I look forward to months that are not July.

National Infertility Awareness Week: Listen Up!

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week, when bloggers, Facebookers, Instagrammers, etc., are encouraged to share their stories and raise awareness about the issues surrounding infertility. This year's theme is "Listen Up". I really like this theme as I've been extremely slowly making my way through a book called Living the Life Unexpected by Jody Day, which helps women come to terms with the fact that they will not have children (due to various reasons). One of the things Day says is that we need to be more vocal about our stories, because the stories of the involuntarily childless are often not heard. We hear all the miracle baby stories, but no one wants to hear the ones that don't end in pink lines or successful adoptions. Our stories make people uncomfortable, but it's precisely because of that fact that they NEED to be heard. We need to normalize the fact that some infertility stories don't have a happy ending.... Or maybe it's better to say: Some infertility stories end with a new and different definition of a happy ending, because I would say that learning to live on and find joy when your biggest dream has died is still a miracle story.

Why aren't we sharing our stories? Sometimes it's because we're embarrassed or ashamed, or because we think find it awkward to talk about something so personal, but other times, it's because we tried sharing and it didn't go well. We stopped sharing because when we said we were hurting and struggling, the response was "Parenting is hard, you know." We stopped because when we were exhausted from getting up at dawn for ultrasounds and anxiety-ridden sleep, we were told, "You don't know tired until you have kids." We stopped because when we had the flu, people said, "You're lucky you don't have kids, because moms don't get sick days." We stopped because when we opened up cautiously, needing love and support, we instead got every piece of advice under the sun and were peppered with questions about our choices like we needed to prove we'd tried hard enough to deserve pity. We stopped because when we sought empathy, we got one-upmanship. We stopped sharing because it felt like no one was listening. (In case you're wondering, all of these happened to me personally, and this is far from the most hurtful comments that I have experienced.)

So how do we change this? I believe many people want to be helpful, but their discomfort with pain and loss and sorrow leads them to say and do hurtful things. I think we start by LISTENING. Most of us like to think we're good listeners. It's not like we tune out all the time, or interrupt constantly, or just walk away, right? Right? I would say that a lot of people - myself included - are not actually that good at truly listening to our friends who are going through the deep water.

We're not really listening if we're jumping in to give advice all the time, or to tell stories of someone who we know - or maybe we know OF - who overcame infertility. Our friend needs someone to hear her story and love her amidst the pain. She doesn't need to know your Great Aunt Edna's tried and true pointers on how to get pregnant. She doesn't even need your Google search results, because she probably has done eons more research than you have.

We're not really listening if we're trying to find the silver lining for someone else. She will come to a point where she can find her own joys and silver linings, but they may not be the ones that YOU would choose. When we try to find someone else's silver lining, it often feels like we're making light of her struggles.

We're not really listening if we're talking a lot, plain and simple. The book of James says we should be "quick to hear, slow to speak", and the book of Proverbs says "Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin." Wise words from God's Word. It might seem like you're not doing much, but a physical presence, an impromptu card, or a "I'm so sorry" can often say what reams of well-meaning advice or miracle stories cannot. We know it's hard. We know you don't have the right words. You don't need to give me all the best words; just give me yourself.

I encourage you all: If you're infertile, feel free to be bold and share your story. We need to hear it. I need to hear it. If you're a family member or supporter take a page from Frasier Crane, call up your friend and say, "Hello Friend, I'm listening." And then just stop talking.

April 2017 Life Update

Hi friends! It's been a while since I just updated everyone on how our life is going, so I figured that was overdue.

Work: I don't even know if I mentioned this (oops), but I graduated last June with a Master of Information, and then started looking for work. In November, I was offered a part-time, one-year contract position working on a research grant at a hospital, and in February, I started a second part-time position, also in medical research. It's been an interesting journey and I am learning a lot! Working two part-time jobs is difficult because I will learn something and then not be back for days, so that has been a challenge, but I hope that by putting in the hours, I'll eventually get to a full-time position.

Convocation!

Writing: I took part in NaNoWriMo last November and I managed to hit my goal of 50,000 words! However, I didn't actually finish the novel and it's been on the backburner ever since because I started working that month. Maybe one day, I will pick it up again. I also have been contributing to my church women's ministry blog, which you can find here.

Travel: I have been struggling with this area. Between infertility treatments and school and Gil's schedule, we have not had a proper vacation in years. We went to Barcelona last June, but that was for a conference and it was a whirlwind trip. I'm going to push for a winter vacation next year, but we may be able to do a long weekend trip somewhere in Ontario in the next few months. Keep your fingers crossed, because we really do need that time away together! There is a chance that I may go on a summer mission trip with the church in August, but I will update more on that later when it's finalized.

Infertility: There is really no update possible. I am still grieving our journey and the child that will never be. There are days when I am okay, and other days when I see nothing but darkness around and ahead of me. I am learning to enjoy the good moments and ask God for the strength to survive the hard ones.

Neville: Is cute as always. I mean, look at this face! :) This little guy gives me so much joy. We have had so many downs since we adopted him, and his boundless energy and silly ways keep me laughing during the dark times.

Infertility Book Response: Avalanche

I've been reading a few infertility-related books lately, so I thought that I'd start giving a brief review/response to some of them in case readers are interested. I recently read Julia Leigh's Avalanche, a memoir of her experience going through IVF. You can find a thoughtful piece from the Guardian here. This piece is probably more of a personal response than a review, so read it accordingly.

For obvious reasons, I found it an emotional read. It's a strange book. Some parts are extremely personal - the story of her marriage collapsing, for example. Other sections feel very procedural; however, that's kind of the epitome of fertility treatment for me: You are going through what is potentially the most emotionally grueling experience of your life, and yet your body also feels like the clinical subject of a laboratory experiment. You weep on the subway and in the bathrooms at work, yet you calmly inject yourself twice a day as if measuring out Gonal-F dosages were just the way of things. In that way, I think Leigh really captured some of the absurd essence if infertility.

Leigh's lifestyle and character were so completely different from mine. I found it hard to relate to her impulsive and tumultuous marriage or some of her other choices. She had lovers and ex-lovers, even ones who were prepared to donate sperm for her. However, in some ways, I found her account refreshing. I've read too many infertility accounts that focused on the perfect, committed, loving couple facing the odds. You know, the ones who "deserve" to be parents, for whom everyone feels sad because "Any kid would feel lucky to have you as mom and dad." But who are those people? Not Gil and me. Okay, we rarely fight, and we are nothing like Julia and Paul, but infertility is grueling and tears apart even the most supportive of marriages. I liked seeing a real portrait of messy people in a heartbreaking situation.

I liked that Leigh conveyed the overwhelming amount of decisions that need to be made in infertility and the guilt that is associated with that: "If I don't do this test or that test or the embryo glue, will I always worry that THIS was the reason why I never had a child? I also liked that she questioned the odds she was given and asked for evidence.

Some of the critiques I've read of the book say that Leigh comes across as selfish and/or self-absorbed. Maybe so. It's easy to become obsessed and absorbed with the process when you're in it. Fertility treatment becomes your entire life. It's also easy to judge from the outside. I find that there is this pressure on those of us who are infertile to prove ourselves as deserving: of pity, of sympathy, of being parents. Regular people just get to have kids, but once you're infertile, you need to be a saint or else people shrug and imply that maybe your infertility is just the universe's way of saying you're not meant to be a parent. I've been interrogated about how many procedures we went through, and why we didn't do X, as though I don't get sympathy or grief until I've shown that I "tried hard enough", and only then will they be supportive. All that to say, maybe Leigh was selfish, but that didn't stop me from aching for her sad journey.

Would I recommend this book to others? Yes. In fact, I wish all my friends would read it, so that they could be better informed about the process and the odds. I've been told to "just do IVF", but I think Leigh's book shows both how difficult IVF is and how low the odds for success actually are. For my infertile sisters, I would say that this is a difficult book. I don't know if I could have related if I were still in the rose-coloured glasses stage when I was sure that I'd get pregnant eventually. Maybe it would have felt too disappointing. Now that I'm grieving what might have been, it's cathartic to know I'm not alone.

Some of my favourite quotes:
"I didn't want to tell people because I thought that unless they were involved in that world themselves they wouldn't want to listen. Or they would only half listen and so diminish my experience. Or they would ask questions that required explanations too complex for conversation. Or they would offer advice based on hearsay and a general theory of positivity. Or I would make them uncomfortable because of my proximity to the abyss. Hush, keep your voice down, don't mention it by name."
YES YES YES YES YES. This is my experience to a T.

"I'm an expert at make-believe. Our child was not unreal to me. It was not a real child but also it was not unreal. Maybe a better way to say it is that the unknown unconceived had been an inner presence. A desired and nurtured inner presence. Not real but a singular presence in which I had radical faith. A presence that could not be substituted or replaced."

My Dirty Little Secret

I have a dirty little secret: My house is a mess. Not like "Oh glory me, I haven't dusted the baseboards in days!" kind of mess, but a real mess. I mean, you've probably seen dirtier. It's not like an ecological disaster zone quite yet, but it's pretty darn filthy.

In addition to the dirt, my house is cluttered. Part of this is not my fault; my husband has a bunch of bins of old stuff that he has no time to go through, including reams of paper, and he tends to leave his clothes in a heap but wants to do his own laundry. Part of the clutter is due to the fact that I was in graduate school and working for a while, and the paper just piled up. I can make a bunch of excuses for it, but there is just clutter all over.

Part of the problem is that I kind of, sort of, maybe hate my house. I'm thankful for it, of course. Shelter is good, and we're fortunate to have a house in a crazy market. However, I hate my house because it's a constant reminder of what should have been. It was to be our forever home, with three bedrooms, so we could fill them with kiddos. Instead, I fill those rooms with stuff so that I don't have to think about the what ifs. 

The worst part about my nasty house is that it shames me. Or rather, it adds to the shame that I already feel, and that becomes a cycle. My mind tells me all the time that I'm a failure. I'm a terrible wife and a terrible woman. I can't have a baby and I'm not a great cook, so what kind of wife am I? The logical part of my brain says that it isn't true, that my husband loves me for who I am and doesn't think less of me for my struggles, but it's hard to believe that. That same logical brain tells me to cut myself slack, that I've been dealing with depression and acing school and volunteering as well as working, and it's okay to focus on surviving some days. Then I look at my messy house and the words just ring through my head: "Failure. Failure. Failure." And instead of cleaning and decluttering, my instinct is to hide under the blankets and cry, because I can't face the reality that once I clear it all out, I'll have to come to grips with the emptiness of those empty rooms that will never belong to a child.

On January 1, I woke up as a woman on a mission. I wanted to clean out this house from top to bottom. I wanted to sweep out all the things that had built up and that were overwhelming me, to stop being embarrassed to have someone drop in. Maybe it was getting past the difficult holiday season or hitting roughly six months since our last set of infertility treatments failed, but suddenly I needed change. Since that day, I've been taking it one day at a time. I bought a filing cabinet to attempt to fix the paper problem. I went through boxes of old paper and tossed most of the sheets that I no longer need for school. I scrubbed floors and I dusted. It's a long-term project, and I may never have that pristine house from the magazine, but I'm getting a little bit proud of my progress. Maybe one day I will graduate to being a real adult with a proper home.

Why am I sharing this story? It's embarrassing, right? I don't want people to know how messy I am. I guess I'm sharing it because maybe there are other people who are stuck in shame and loss and grief and need to know that they aren't the only ones who haven't scrubbed the kitchen floor in a long time. I needed you all to know that this grief I'm in is real and painful and nasty and all-encompassing, but I'm ready to be very real about it and not live in shame. I also want to advocate for us hurting people. It's easy to watch an episode of Hoarders and feel sorry for those poor people in their mess. It's not as easy to walk across the street and hug the hurting person who is in front of you. People like me are everywhere. We are in your Bible studies and in your book groups and at your workplace. We are embarrassed and ashamed of the mess inside our homes and inside our minds. I've had people - even my own mother - chastize me for the messy state of my house, and it didn't help. Instead it just told me, "Keep hiding." What I needed was love. I needed to be told that despite the mess, I was worth loving. So readers, if you aren't in the mess right now, keep your eyes open, because it might be your turn to tell someone that they are enough.

2016: A New Hope or The Darkness Strikes Back?

This year. I can't sum it up in words, more like guttural utterances and tears, with a few profanities strewn in. On top of our personal crises, which included the death of my beloved Sadie and several rounds of failed fertility treatments, we had a number of celebrity deaths, Brexit, the Trump campaign, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, the growing crisis in Syria, and probably a lot more than I'm forgetting. The world feels darker now. My anxiety has been ramped up considerably. My coping has been shaky at best. Despite a couple of high points such as my graduation (which was somewhat marred by my cat's death the day before) his year will go down as a bad one in my life.

On Friday, I went to do something I had really been looking forward to: a friend date to see the film Rogue One. You see, I have been a Star Wars junkie since I was quite small. I grew up enjoying the exploits of Han, Leia, and Luke. Just before meeting my friend, I learned that Carrie Fisher had suffered a heart attack, and on Tuesday her death was announced, followed by her mother's death the following day. I grieve. I was then reminded of this post from one year ago today, when I was feeling low about the year that was, and found a sliver of hope in watching Star Wars, Episode 4: A New Hope. I wrote these words, which feel ridiculously optimistic after the year that we just experienced: "So maybe it's there, somewhere, that hope. Maybe I can find it and grasp it, if even for a little while."

Looking back on 2016, it feels less like A New Hope than The Empire Strikes Back. It feels like this year was spent fighting the darkness within and without. I did a year-long study of Revelation and then an autumn study on spiritual warfare, yet I feel more helpless than ever against the darkness. I feel like I'm losing and being closed in on all sides. I have prayed and sought and prayed and sought some more, but it's hard to find God in the darkness. As we close off the year, it feels like the Emperor is in charge, Darth Vader has the upper hand, and Han Solo is frozen in carbonite. All I can do is hold on to a tiny hope that this isn't the end and that this darkness will not define the rest of my life.

However, in a dark time such as this one, I am reminded that Carrie Fisher, too, struggled with dark demons, that many people consider her a powerful spokesperson for those dealing with mental illness. So in honour of Carrie, I will raise a glass to toast the end of the year that was, and go forward hoping and praying that this year will be the one when the tide turns, when the darkness ebbs, and when I find hope again. Perhaps 2017 will be the year when I learn how to fight like Princess Leia. May it be so, and may the Force be with you.

On the Term "Childless"

I've been thinking a lot about words lately. As a writer, words are important to me. There is a reason why we choose one synonym and not the other, why we say that something is 'gargantuan' instead of just 'big', for example. I myself have been known to prefer the term 'barren' because the former conveys the bleakness of my lost hopes in a way that the medical 'infertile' does not. Lately, as we ponder the life ahead of us, I'm wondering about 'childless' versus 'childfree'.

This is a polarizing topic. Those who choose not to have children often define themselves boldly as 'childfree', showing that they feel unencumbered by the societal pressure to have a family. It's something I admire, but I do not relate to. I do not feel like I belong among the 'childfree', those who are pleased to choose a life where they can go across the country on a moment's notice, trek the Andes, or just go for drinks after work without ever worrying about who will do the daycare pick-up. Moreover, my inability to conceive feels less like freedom and more like a millstone around my neck, dragging me to the depths, a perpetual burden. I do not think that I will ever view my lack of children as anything other than a lifelong grief.

On the other hand, there is the term 'childless'. Some people, particularly mothers, prefer this term because 'childfree' denotes a sense that to have children is burdensome. I sympathize, because I do experience my situation as marked by loss; however, I do not like those who have children deciding on the term that I - who cannot conceive - should use to define myself. More importantly, I do not wish to constantly define myself as 'less than'.

Those of us who have been in this position, pushing into the 30s with nary a stroller or a bassinet or a baby bump, have perhaps experienced the sense that at some point, their lack of children made them somehow 'less' than others. With phrases exalting a "mother's love" and a "mother's heart", and declaring that "moms are special people", we who are not mothers are defined as less loving, less compassionate. Our time is always less important; it is we the childless who should work late in the office and cover all the holidays. I hear this constantly as my husband consistently works almost every holiday in the year so that the parents in his practice can 'be with their families', as though I am not my husband's family, and as though Gil does not deserve to attend church on Easter like the rest of the doctors can. As though my punishment for being barren is that I should spend the next 20 years of Christmases alone while my husband works at the hospital, so that the deserving fertile people get to be with their families. We are told that our opinions and experiences are less meaningful when people throw around phrases like, "Well, you'll feel different about that when you have children." In churches, we are often an afterthought, the ones asked to teach Sunday school or hand out programs at the multitude of 'family-friendly' events; we are part of the body of Christ, but we're one of those less vital organs, like the appendix or the spleen. The moms - special as they are - get to be the heart and the lungs.

So when I am told that I ought to use the phrase 'childless' to appease some mothers, I wonder why? Why should I walk around defining myself constantly as lacking, as less than, as having a piece missing?  But maybe, in fact, we don't need a term for us as all, because we don't really exist. We are like the wallpaper that you might have noticed at first, but after a while you've forgotten whether it has flowers or polka dots. I don't need a word for my lack of children because my deep grief barely exists, it is invisible to most - even those have been told about it repeatedly - and in a sense, it's as though I don't really exist either.

Have Yourself a Snarky Little Christmas (Card)

'Tis the season for Christmas cards. Around this time of year, we go to the mailbox and find it stuffed, not just with a gazillion flyers for things we probably don't need, but also with cards. Our mantles and fridges are decorated with images of angels and reindeer and bells, covered with red, green, and gold, and bedecked with photos of families in their holiday best, smiling in a meadow or in front of a Christmas tree. Doesn't it put a smile to your face?

It doesn't. Not to me anyway.

You might wonder why I am such a Grinch? People take time out of their busy lives and pay for postage just to wish me a happy holidays, and here I am, tossing their handiwork in the recycling bin. Am I just a horrible person who hates children and families and the true meaning of Christmas?

I've posted in the past about how difficult holidays, and especially Christmas, are to me in my infertility journey. There seems to be a societal consensus that Christmas is for the kids, that we're supposed to find the magic in watching our little ones open their gifts from Santa and experience the joys of the season. All of the radio and television ads are about children. They feature happy families putting up a tree. We all know that Christmas is about families, and those of us without children - who may never have a little one to spoil in the name of Santa - well, we can just sit back and watch everyone else share the magic.

It's no secret that this year has been extremely difficult in many ways. There were joyful moments, like when I graduated and our brief holiday in Spain, but overall, 2016 has been a hard year. Our infertility treatment failed. Our cat died. I suffered anxiety and depression. I feel like have been mired in sorrow, fighting so hard just to get one foot in from of the other while I am up to my knees in the mud and muck of loss and grief.

One of the saddest parts of this journey has been the lack of support from loved ones. When you lose a family member or get sick, people rally around you. They bring casseroles and send flowers. This has been one of the most profound grief experiences of my life, but no one sent flowers or brought around food. Very few people have acknowledged it at all. Many of our friends have faded quietly out of our life, unable to face us in our sorrow. It hurts.

So what does this have to do with Christmas cards? Well, everything. This time of year, the cards come in. People who never acknowledged our pain, who never sent so much as a two-line email telling us how sad they are for our situation, are now sending us cards with their adorable children. Maybe they think this is helpful and their way of sending love, but when you've been silent during my grief, a photograph of your happy family makes me feel like you're rubbing it in my face that you have a family and I don't. It doesn't say "I love you" to me; it says "LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN." If you haven't reached a hand down to help pull me out of the pit, then I don't want your family on my fridge. I don't have time for superficial friendships any more. I want to invest in the people who will invest in me in return. I want to spend my time and emotional effort with people who will make me feel loved and supported in my darkest days.

This Christmas, maybe I am the Grinch. I'm okay with that. I've been asking myself the hard questions this year, like why do I bother sending cards anyway? Is it out of habit, or because I truly love these people, and if so, how am I prepared to invest in those relationships in the coming year? I ask you, too, to think before you send that card. What are you trying to say with it? Is this person going through a hard time, and have you reached out at all? How are you investing in that friendship in other ways, or is it just a once-a-year, Christmas-card relationship?  Let's not just do things because we think we should. Let's make gestures that are meaningful instead.

Merry Christmas. This year, let's love harder and better.

Halloween?

So it's Halloween. A few weeks ago, the facilitator of my infertility support group asked if we have trouble with this day, and most of us said that we don't. I don't remember this being a particularly hard day in the past - certainly not up there with Mother's Day - but it turns out that I should know better than to make assumptions with the emotions of infertility. I'm finding today hard.

Halloween is not a big thing for me. I enjoyed it as a child, and somewhat as a college student, but frankly I'm not hugely into costumes and have never had the desire to dress up as an adult, so I've predominantly ignored it in years past. I hand out candy, but I don't watch spooky movies or decorate beyond a simple pumpkin. It's not my thing.

Halloween in uni. Oh my.

This year, I suddenly find today difficult. My Facebook feed is full of children and families in costume. Everyone seems to be enjoying today. Everyone but me. Since we've made the decision to step back from treatment, it feels like I'm mourning all the things that will never be. I won't dress my adorable cherubs in fun costumes. I won't ever be the one going door to door. It feels like just one more aspect of life that I'm shut out of. Between Christmas, Family Day, Mother's Day, and Halloween, it feels like every few months there's another observance to remind me that I'm on the outside looking in, while others mark the passage of time. I feel a little like Scrooge peering in on his nephew's Christmas dinner in A Christmas Carol. Observing, but not observed. Such is the life of an infertile woman.

A Letter

Dear child of my heart,

I’ve written a lot of letters over the years, some to dear friends, some to people I had never met, and others to the nebulous “to whom it may concern”, but apart from writing to Santa in my childhood, I’ve never written a letter to someone who didn’t exist. But in a way, you do exist. You are my child, the child of my heart. You were never conceived and no one knows you in the flesh, and you will never have a fingerprint or a social insurance number, but I know you. You exist in my mind and in my dreams, and most importantly in my heart.

Child of my heart, I am sorry we will never meet, but know that I imagined the day of our meeting a thousand times. The way I would hold you and weep when I finally saw your face. The way your dad would be in awe. How we would send the news to the far corners of the earth that you were here at last, our baby.

I am sorry that I will never carry you in my womb. I’ll never know what it felt like when you kicked me or be able to complain about your pressure on my organs. I’ll never know the agony of pregnancy nausea coupled with that tiny bit of joy because it means you’re still there, holding on. I’ll never touch the place on my middle where you are poking your little arms or legs or butt out, never be able to sing or speak to you, to be the first voice you will recognize.

I’m sorry that you will never be able to show me the depths of love that exist in this world or challenge my innate selfishness by just being a person who needs me constantly. When other women talk with knowing nods about how motherhood changes a person, I’ll think of you – my nonexistent child – and know that I would have been changed too, and maybe I already have been – but in ways that none of these women would understand if I told them.

I’m sorry that you will not know your loving grandparents. I’ll never be able to look at your expression and see my father or mother, my younger brother or your own dad staring back at me. I won’t come around the corner and be overcome with emotion when I see you moving your arms in a gesture that is just like your grandma. I’ll never know if you would have taken after me in my musical abilities or my husband with his mischievous spirit.

I think of all the experiences we were going to share. I was going to read to you, first Goodnight Moon and Paddington Bear, later Anne of Green Gables and the Narnia books. I was excited to see you experience beloved characters for the first time. We would take you to the park, to see you soar in the wind on the swings and use the slide with glee, knowing that mommy would always be there to catch you at the bottom. We would go to the cottage, and you’d splash around on the same beach that I did when I was a child, and we would race to the dam, pick raspberries, and mark your height each year on the side of the bedroom door jamb. Then I’d show you on another doorway how tall I was at that age, and your uncle too, and we would compare.

I was going to watch you grow up, experience hardships and pains that would break my own heart as I stood by but couldn’t stop them. One day, you wouldn’t like me that much, but we’d push through. I would make a million mistakes and say all the wrong things, but in every moment, you would at least know you were loved, so loved. If you ended up like me, you would want to spread your wings and fly far, far away. I would stifle tears and let you go to forge your own path because I too once (or twice or three times) stood at airport security with a big bag, waving at my parents as I went off for adventure in new lands. As I watched you go, I’d lean on my husband and let the tears out, and he’d remind me that you were strong and would have the time of your life.

People will say that you can’t mourn someone who didn’t exist, but to me, you are real. You will always exist. You are my child – the child that never was and will never be – and I long for you each day with a visceral ache. I will miss you every day until it’s time to close my eyes and leave this world for new adventures. I will always love you, child of my heart.

Long weekend musings on summer and infertility and grief

It's that time of year now when the temperature drops in the evening, kids go back to school, and even though the leaves are still green, we know it's only a short time before the autumn will be back in force. It feels like every day, someone else wants to talk about how the summer has just flown by, and where did those months go? To be honest, I'm finding this difficult. My summer has not flown by. My summer has been painful and grief-filled. I struggle with the balance between being authentic and not wanting to alienate people with my grief.

I haven't updated in a while about our infertility journey, so here goes: In the spring, we decided to head back to the clinic to try again. The timing made sense as I was finishing school, but did not have a job lined up, so my schedule was free enough to allow for the myriad of appointments without being too draining. This new procedure required me to give myself daily injections for the first 10-12 days of my cycle, which was pretty daunting, but I quickly got used to it. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that we tried this for several cycles, and it was unsuccessful.

Gil and I now find ourselves in a quandary. There are other possible options, if we want to be more aggressive. People tell us we have to try everything, that it will certainly work one time. On the other hand, the reality is that isn't true. There are many people who try everything and still end up childless. Success rates for IVF and surrogacy and all that stuff are actually not nearly as high as people think. Moreover, I am losing so much of myself due to depression related to infertility. I miss the person I was. I don't want to live through three more years of constantly oscillating between optimism and grief. When I went in for my last blood test towards the end of July, I had this sense that I was done with the clinic, that I just really did not want to go back. But the other option, the one that says we will never hold our child in our arms, is almost unthinkable.

So now we grieve. I grieve the life I imagined, the exhausting days of looking after little ones, the hectic years of school-aged children, the lonely days of seeing teenagers fly the nest, the moments when I would see my husband or my grandmother in the fact of my own child. I don't know how to imagine a life without children. I don't compute how I will never be a grandmother.

We grieve alone. People do not understand this or even recognize it as grief. They want to tell us how we can have such a great life without children, as though it's easy to just change course. As though it's not the greatest tragedy of my life to lose the future that I imagined since I was a young child. So I have to smile a few dozen times and say, "Yes, summer is over. It's gone so fast," when really, it was slow and painful and sad. There were no bike rides with kids, no water parks or camp outs or walks to the park. My cat died. My dreams died. Yes, there were fun moments, like when I graduated and a brief trip to Spain in June, but mostly, 2016 has been a summer of grief.

Do I believe God is good throughout this journey? Yes. Somehow I do. Somehow, I trust that He can redeem these awful years, that He can put beauty into our darkest moments. I fight with Him daily. I ask Him why. I ask Him where the Church was, how it could be that His people were not there in the moments when I was begging Him to let me die instead of giving me this childless future. He does not answer, but He tells me to trust, so I have faith that one beautiful day, the pain will make sense and the tears will be wiped away. Until then, we grieve.

Three Years

This week marks two things: It makes seven years since my first date with Gil, which was in 2009. It also marks three years since we started trying to have a child.

Celebrating one year of dating, in 2010. I look so young!

Three years is a long time. If you're in my shoes, and you're involved in infertility communities, you might be tempted to think that it's not so long when faced with others who had longer journeys, but one thing I'm learning is that it's okay to feel like my three years have been an eternity. Three years is enough to get a Bachelor's degree without Honours, or even with Honours if you do a lot of extra grunt work. It's 75% of the way through high school in Ontario and also 75% of the term of an American president. It's apparently the life cycle of an iPhone, according to Apple, unless you're someone like my dad who always needs the newest model. It's the length of time audiences had to wait between episodes of the Star Wars franchise, both the original trilogy and the much lamented set of prequels. It's 36 months - and if you're infertile you probably felt the passage of each month with a heart growing heavier each time. It's 156 weeks or 1095 days, which makes approximately four full-term pregnancies back to back. You certainly feel that the most when you're infertile, because you probably have friends who have had more than one child while you've been waiting.

My friends with young children frequently say things like, "I can't believe he'll be 2/3/4! The years fly by so fast." On the contrary, I feel like the years have crawled by in my childless life as I've watched infertility mark every aspect of my life with sorrow. For the past 2.5 years, ever since we were officially labelled as infertile, there has rarely been a day that didn't hurt. There are no mornings when I wake up and don't remember how much I want to be a mother. I never see a pregnant belly without feeling a tiny bit sad. Someone told me recently that she is afraid to ask her infertile friends about their issues because she does not want to reopen a wound. I told her that what she's missing is that for us in the journey, our wounds never close. I feel like the walking wounded, and every moment that I'm smiling or laughing or going about daily life, it's because I've learned to live with the constant ache. I've learned that most people - even the ones that say they care - do not want to hear that you are wounded. They want you to pretend it doesn't hurt. Trust me, time does not fly by when you are always nursing an open wound.

I want to end this on something positive. I'm sure that I've grown in some positive ways in these past few years. I hope so, anyway. I've obviously gone back to school and traveled and made new friends. When I look at these years, though, I grieve. I'm sad that half of my marriage has been marred by infertility, that we cannot remember any more what it's like to believe we'll be parents. I grieve the relationships I had with friends back when I was sunny and emotionally able to support others, back before I greeted each morning with tears. I grieve the big family that I was going to have, because even if we do conceive, we certainly do not have the time to try again several times. I weep for the moments that I imagined and may never experience: The first time I would feel my baby kicking; the look in my husband's eyes when we would find out we were expecting; the joy of seeing my baby on the ultrasound screen. I grieve the self that I feel like I've lost. My pastor recently said that we rarely see God's hand in the present. It's when we look at the past that we are aware of where He's been working. I hope that one day, I will look back on these three years and see the sparks of light that I missed, because most days things still look very dark.

For the Love of Sadie

This past week was bittersweet. There were some ups: I graduated from my Master's program on Thursday and got to celebrate with friends and family, but a day before, my sweet cat Sadie passed away.

Sadie was my roommate's cat. I moved in with Dana in early 2006. She had a cat, and I had a cat. Somehow, when she left, I had both kitties "temporarily". That was nine years ago!

Sadie and Scout

She was a quirky little feline. She had the most delicate bones and features of any cat I've had. She was extremely skittish and afraid of men. When I started dating Gil, she would hide every time he came by. He didn't believe that I actually had two cats. She gradually got curious, and would sneakily try to check him out. In my old condo, the kitchen and living room were at street level, while the bedrooms were downstairs. We would be sitting on the couch talking or watching TV, and she would stand on the stairs and poke her little head up like a periscope, scoping out the situation but able to run away at the first sight of danger. The only male that she never seemed wary of was my mom's partner Brian. Somehow she loved him from the get-go.

Sadie taught me things about myself, and about love. She had a weird habit of sticking her butt in your face if you were patting her. This made it difficult to cuddle with her and have anything in your hands. I remember one time, she was walking all over me and sticking her bum in the air, and I blurted out, "Why don't you just let me love you?!" It made me think about how easy it is to love those who do what we want them to do, but the nature of real love is selfless, loving others even when we don't understand them or their motivations or they drive us crazy. I'm so blessed to be loved by people even when I am not always the most lovable.

Hiding in a box, as one does

Some people might say that she was only a cat, and I guess that's true. In the past few years, however, she was just what I needed. Sure, she didn't speak or understand my situation. But because she didn't speak, she couldn't say things like, "Sure you're infertile, but at least you get to sleep in on weekends" or "Don't you know that parenting is hard?" She didn't understand, so when I was weeping about my infertility and she walked away, I knew it wasn't personal and she wasn't choosing not to care. She never made me feel like I couldn't be sad over my infertility unless I'd exhausted every single option, or like I had to justify my infertility decisions before I could get any sympathy. Unlike people, she never snubbed me or ignored my pain any more than a cat does naturally. Unlike people, she loved me for who I was. She didn't say anything, but her presence was more than enough. So she was just a cat, but sometimes that made her the best friend I could have had in this messy, ugly, lonely ride through infertility. She was just a cat, but she was my cat, and I will miss her terribly.

I love you, Sadie Lady.

I'm Tired

I thought I'd be blogging up a storm when I finished university, and I haven't. I'm sorry. I'd like to say that life got hectic, and there were certainly some hectic weeks, but the truth is that I ran out of words to say. I've found myself emotionally exhausted.

I'm just so tired. I'm tired of infertility. I'm tired of talking about it all the time, and I'm tired of *having* to talk about it because if I don't, hardly anyone is sensitive.

I'm tired of feeling guilty for a million reasons: Guilt that my husband isn't a father yet and my mother isn't a grandmother. Guilt that I still struggle so much emotionally. Guilt that my depression has left me unable to do as much at home as I should. Guilt that people have to walk on eggshells around me and that I can't just "get over it". I know this is not good, because my mom struggles a lot with guilt and it hasn't always been the best for our relationship, but I still walk around with this rock on me.

I'm tired of nosy questions and having to grit my teeth and smile when yet another person asks why we don't have children. It is not your business.

I'm tired of being phased out of friendships, either because I'm not positive enough, or because I can't maintain relationships where I am expected to listen to every detail about their children but honest discussion of the deepest issues of my heart is off-limits because it's too "uncomfortable".

I'm tired of the cycle of hope-and-disappointment, month after month, year after year.

I'm tired of being afraid that I sound down and sad on my blog, and feeling like I ought to end on a thoughtful or positive note, when some days I just can't.

Infertility Chat: Don't Be the Feelings Police

I've been thinking a lot about my infertility situation lately. Maybe it's because I'm finished school (woohoo!) and not working yet, so I have more time in which to really contemplate the past few years. At any rate, today's post is about something I wish more people could grasp, not only in the infertility world, but in any situation where someone else is having a difficult time.

Feelings. They're a big mess, honestly. Sometimes they make no sense at all. Why can't we just be like robots? Sometimes we're faced with our own emotions, and we're sitting there going, "What are you doing brain? Why am I feeling this way?" because we can't even make sense of our own emotional reaction. Other times, we're trying to help someone, but their feelings are so deep and scary and weird to us that we're tempted to jump in and say things like, "Calm down" or "You need to be hopeful" or "You should be excited about X". It might even seem like saying these things are helpful, because you're directing that person to be more positive, but you know what, it's time to check these phrases, and here's why.

1. Policing a person's feelings tells them their emotions are wrong. You may not mean it like that, but that is how it is experienced. I struggle daily with my feelings of sadness, bitterness, and anger. I hate that these emotions surface again and again with regards to my infertility. If I tell someone that my infertility is making me angry and bitter, and they tell me to be hopeful instead, I feel like that little voice in the back of my head is validated, the voice that says I'm weak and that if I were a stronger and better person, I wouldn't be so angry. And now, instead of being hopeful, I'm wallowing in shame.

2. Correcting a person's feelings does not encourage them to keep sharing. I've talked about my infertility to a lot of people. Some of them have been helpful; others have not. When I go out of my comfort zone to open up about a deeply personal subject, the reaction of the other person is pivotal. If that person listens and mourns with me, I feel like I have found a cog in my support network. If - as often happens - the person shuts the conversation down or corrects me, the message that I get is that I need to keep these emotions to myself because no one wants to hear them. Sooooo many infertile women feel like they have no outlet to share, and it's so unhealthy for us.

3. You are only seeing a slice of their grief. It may seem to YOU that this struggle is not worthy of the bitter sadness that they are experiencing, but you don't know. You haven't walked in their shoes. Often, when I share with my mom friends, I realize that they have no idea the levels of grief that I experience as an infertile person. It's not just the disappointment that comes month after month. It's not just wanting something I can't have. There are so many ways in which our society and especially our churches are structured around the assumption that women are mothers. There are so many other griefs that come with infertility: Isolation and social exclusion; marital struggles; finances; the loss of dreams; questioning the life decisions you made when you assumed you would be parents. It's hard, and you don't truly know all the reasons your friend is sad, so when you encourage her to perk up, you are invalidating things you may not understand. And on that note, please do not say, "At least you're not...." to a person struggling with infertility. Yes, it could be worse, but the pain they are in is genuine grief, and it's okay to express that.

4. You may be bringing bad theology into the mix. People love to throw lines into the conversation like, "You should be hopeful. I know God will give you a child." Do you? Really? Did you have an angelic visitation that you didn't tell me about? I've read the Bible many times, and there is no guarantee that we will get everything we want. As far as I can see, there are plenty of people in the Bible who served God and lived lives of difficulty and unmet needs. So YES we can have hope in heaven, but don't tell people to place their hope into something God has never promised us. I can say honestly that I have less of a struggle with the idea that God may never grant my desires than I do with Christians who try to encourage me with bad theology and false promises instead of coming alongside me to really go deep into the spirituality of suffering.

Soooooo, where do we go from here? What should you say if your friend is expressing feelings that are deep and heavy and you don't know how to respond. Here are a few thoughts on responding to your infertile friend, but I still think the heart of it all is just to listen and say, "I love you and I'm sorry you're going through this pain." You don't need to make her feel better (though in my experience, ice cream is never a bad idea :D ). If she's angry at God, you don't need to jump in; God can take it. You just need to be there and care.

Infertility Chat: Practical Ways to Support Your Infertile Friend

Infertility. It's hard. As I talk to people about infertility with people who have not experienced it firsthand, I hear the same thing again and again. "I just don't know how to relate. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to help. I'm so afraid to say or do the wrong thing that I do nothing."And I get it. I don't know how to help others sometimes. I feel like every word that I say is the wrong thing. On the other hand, when we get paralyzed with fear and decide not to speak at all, our friends get the message that their pain is unnoticed, that their sorrow is not shared. I think that many who have not gone through this journey feel helpless. They feel like they can't open the door because it makes their friend sad or because they're not qualified. But you know what, YOU ARE. You are qualified to speak *because* you are a friend, *because* you love this person. So if you're looking for some practical tips that don't involve becoming someone's personal psychotherapist, here are a few thoughts. These are mostly geared towards female friends, because I'm a female and I'm writing from my own experience.

Start the conversation. It's okay to say "I don't know what to say": It's okay that you don't have the right words, but saying that you want to say something is huge and meaningful and shows that you care. Once someone has opened up to you, it can be hard to know how to bring the subject up again without prying, but it's important. Often, I've opened up to someone and it was awkward. If they don't bring it up again, I figure that it was uncomfortable and I should never mention it again, so my friend never has the chance to say what she maybe wished she'd said the first time. I would suggest saying something like, "I know you shared earlier about your struggles to have a family. How are you doing, like *really* doing?" Then you allow your friend to share if she wants to, but the focus is on *her* not on the infertility.

Listen: This applies to pretty much every situation. Most people in a hard time just want someone to listen to them without judgment or advice.

Ask if there are some ways you can be helpful: Then you don't have to guess. It is highly unlikely that they will ask for the moon, but you are showing that you value them and their choices.

Remember her due date: I've never had a miscarriage, but I have heard this from many friends who have. After the miscarriage, some people are sympathetic, but then they forget. Meanwhile, the woman is walking toward a day that was supposed to mean life, and now represents death to her. If your close friend has had a miscarriage, write that day in your calendar or set an e-reminder, and give them a short note on that day or the week before knowing she's in your thoughts.

If you know the name of a child that was lost, use the name: Some couples do not choose not to share the name of their unborn child (or do not give a name), but if a woman shares the name with you, remember it.

Remember her on Mother's Day: It doesn't have to be a lengthy tome. Just a short email saying, "Hey, I know this day is hard for you. Just letting you know I'm thinking of you." It took me less than a minute to type that sentence, but it could touch someone more than you know. Mother's Day is hands' down the hardest day of the year for me, and when someone remembers that, it moves me more than you can imagine.

Be her wing-woman at gatherings: In my *cough cough* wilder days, if I went to a club with a bunch of girlfriends, we had each other's back. If it looked like a creepy dude was getting too close to Susie, one of us would swoop in and make sure she was okay. That's being a wing-woman, and you can totally do this at baby showers, kids' birthday parties, etc. If you see Nosy Nelly swooping in to ask your friend if it isn't high time she had her own baby, jump right in and change the subject. If your infertile friend has been dragged into a convo about baby poop for 10 minutes and you can tell she wants to get up off the couch, be the one to pipe in and ask who has been watching Fuller House, or ask her to help you with the punch to give her an excuse to exit gracefully. Yes, your friend can do this for herself, but some of us are shy *raises hand* and even if you're not, it's always nice to feel like someone really understands that you're in a rough spot.

If you're thinking of her and/or praying for her, tell her: Often we have a friend in a tough spot, and we think about her often and remember in our prayers, but then forget to actually touch base. I've had it happen where I reached out to update someone and was told, "I think about you all the time." Except I hadn't heard from this person in months. I had assumed s/he had forgotten all about me and my struggles. No one knows that you care unless you tell them. Again, this can be done in a two-sentence email. [Note: I know that some non-believers are uncomfortable with being told they are in your prayers, so only say this if you know the person will appreciate it; otherwise, it's perfectly cool to just say she's in your thoughts.]

Celebrate her life: Often, milestones related to children are celebrated, while our own personal ones are ignored. In fact, we women should be celebrating *all* that we accomplish, not just made to feel like our uteruses (uteri?) are the only important part of us. It makes me sad that I speak several languages, have just completed a second Master's degree, and take part in a fabulous practicum project, yet most people only seem to care whether or not I have children. That's all they ask about. It leads me to feel like my whole life is a failure when actually I'm successful in other areas. Don't get me wrong: Being a good mom is a great accomplishment, but it's not the only accomplishment out there.

Offer to drive her to appointments: Only if you have time, of course, and she might not say yes, but at least this says that you want to practically care for her.

Food: I mean, we all have to eat, right? Infertility treatment can be incredibly draining. It is not uncommon for women undergoing IVF to be exhausted and not feel up to cooking. In addition, shuttling back and forth to extra doctor's appointments can take over your life and make it harder to do all of your regular errands, like grocery shopping. If you know your friend is starting IVF, bringing over a couple of freezer meals that the couple can eat if they don't feel like cooking, or a gift card for take-out could be really helpful.

Organize a girls night: One where you laugh and watch movies and eat junk. If there are mostly moms there, make a point of talking about a variety of things, not only kids. Kids are great. Other things are great too. Balanced conversation is key.

Ask if she want to hold your baby; don't just hand the baby to her: Some infertile women have trouble being around young babies, because it's a constant reminder of what they may not have. Other women who have had miscarriages find it difficult to be around babies born around the time of their due date. It is too close of a reminder of the baby that they will never hold in their arms. Personally, I have no issue being around babies, but it never hurts to ask someone before you hoist your child into their hands.

Remember that infertility is grief: You may not understand it, but your friend is grieving a dream, a child or children that she imagined she would have. Grief takes a thousand different ways to manifest itself, and it may not always make sense to an outsider, but it is very, very real. Think about a grief you have experienced or you can imagine, and the myriad of ways that that grief can show up in your life. Now remember that infertile people are grieving too, and even though you may not understand every trigger, what you *can* do is hug her and tell her you are sorry she is going through this.

Miscellaneous Updates

It's been several months since I did an update post, so in case you've been on the edge of your seat from some scintillating details about my life, here you go! :)

I'm so, so close to the end of my degree. We have three - count 'em, three - weeks of class left and I'm somewhat limping to the finish line. I have four more assignments left and I think I lost my motivation some time in February. No, really, I'm working hard to be done. I had to fill in my "intent to convocate" form recently, and it's sinking in that this is really happening. It's a bit of a bittersweet feeling, to be honest. It's been a great program, but this was always Plan B. Not a day goes by when I'm not sad that I'm in grad school instead of being a mother, and when the success of school is not a reminder of the failure to become pregnant. I'm happy, but I'm sad, and I can't look back at the last 18 months of school without also being aware that they were some of the hardest times of my life. Nevertheless, I'll keep swimming.

On the job front, I don't know if I actually posted about leaving my job at the church. It was a great run, but it was time. I was finding it increasingly difficult to juggle those responsibilities with school, and increasingly difficult to be in a family-centred workplace without children. Please, please, please do not badger your church receptionist about when she will have a baby. It is never fun to be asked about excruciatingly painful personal details when you have to put on a brave face and answer the ringing phone. Anyway, I still love the church, but it has been good to have it just be my church and not my workplace. Moving forward, I've applied to a few librarian jobs and even had an interview, but did not get that job. We will see what the future holds.

I posted a few months ago about the reality of my depression. I wish I could say that things are looking rosy, but at least I do truly believe that I am slowly getting better after finding a therapist. I'm talking about it more too. It still hurts every day, and I'm not sure it will ever stop, but the dark days are fewer than they used to be. Thank you to everyone who got in touch and extended their love.

As far as infertility goes, we may be moving forward, but I'm not ready to put it all in words yet as it's still not certain. I feel like recently I've finally accepted the fact that I will not have a big family. I always wanted 3 or 4 kids, but now that nearly 3 years have gone by trying, it's time to realize that just one child will be a miracle for us. Moreover, I can't do these three years again. I lost myself too completely and for too long to think about going down this road while trying to parent a child, so now I pray that God will give us just that one child. Gil and I have not talked much about this, but I feel like we have gotten closer in the past few months as I've been more vocal about how much I am hurting, so maybe we can be a family of two and be okay with that, one day.

Star Wars kitty. The Force is strong in him.

The only other thing worth updating about is my lovely cats. They make me smile every day, even though they also drive me nuts. Neville likes to chase Sadie around the house to play with her, which she does not particularly enjoy. They are our cuddly little furbabies and I don't think I could have made it through the last few months without them

Infertility and Depression: Let's Talk

I am writing this as part of the Bell "Let's Talk" campaign, which aims to reduce the stigma of mental illness.

Let me give you a hypothetical scenario: Imagine that for about 18 months now, your friend has been intermittently complaining about pain in her leg. She doesn't mention it every time you speak, but often enough that you realize it's an ongoing problem. You start to realize that she's actually cut back on social engagements due to this pain. She has not seen some of her friends because they always want to go out and do active things, but she can't go with them because of this pain. She seems to have given up on it ever getting better, and you get the sense that this is something that troubles her most days, if not all the time, and it seems to be getting worse.

What would you do? If you were her sister, or her close friend, you would probably be nagging her to go to the doctor. You would point out that this could be something serious, that you are really concerned. You might even offer to take her to the doctor yourself. If you knew a specialist, maybe you'd call them to try to get her in. You wouldn't just accept it or tell her to figure it out herself.

Yet, friends, this is what we do with depression. It happens all the time. It has happened to me. I cannot tell you how many people that I have talked to in the past 18 months, how many times I have said that I'm sad, that I cry most days, that I feel hopeless, that I struggle with feeling like I've lost many of my friends because I can't relate to their lives as parents. Some people act sympathetic, while others are clearly uncomfortable. Even my former doctor said she was concerned that I was showing signs of depression, but her response was to tell me to come back in 6 months and we'd talk about whether it was worse. (This is part of the reason why she is my former doctor and not my current one....) Yet no one ever stepped in. A few people suggested counseling, and one promised to follow-up with some contacts and never did. I'm not saying this to blame people, but rather to point out the difference in how we treat depression versus physical illnesses. If I had cancer, all of these people would be bending over backwards to help, bringing meals, driving me to treatments. I know this because I know and love these people. But when it's mental illness and not physical, we step back, because it feels so personal and we don't know how to help. As a result, those who are suffering in darkness get the message that it's "their" problem and that, as one person recently told me, "Only YOU can figure out how to help yourself." Is that true? Maybe, but would you say that to me if I had diabetes or cancer? Probably not.

The truth is, infertility and depression go hand in hand. Lots of sources corroborate this. It is hard to describe how debilitating the emotions surrounding infertility can be. There is something spectacularly awful when you fail at a reproductive norm; it's like you have actually failed at being a human being. Then you go into tests that are often embarrassing, and you often end up with hormonal supplements that play with your emotions. To add to that, for women especially the culture around motherhood is all-encompassing. It can be hard to make friends, because after a certain age, women's lives often revolve around children. This leaves childless women and single women out. It's hard. It's isolating. It is honestly a recipe for depression, and yet so many people brush it off with comments like, "You don't realize how hard it is to have children" or "You'll get there someday." Maybe, but a person struggling in darkness doesn't need someday, she needs help right now. She needs a hand to help her get out of the pit.

"Why can't you ask for help?" many will ask. "Why can't you pull yourself out?" The answers are as varied as the sufferers. Sometimes we ask, and are rebuffed, so we learn not to speak up. Sometimes the pit is too deep and too dark. When you are infertile, sadness and futility can easily become the norm. It's not as though I went to bed cheerful and woke up deeply depressed. My walk into depression was like walking into the ocean, where before I knew it, I was in over my head. It became normal to feel low, and then to feel sad. Treatments were difficult, and disappointment came month after month after month. After a while, it seemed incomprehensible not to be sad, to think that I could ever be happy when the dream I had had for my whole life had collapsed. After a while, it felt like the pit was all I knew.

If you are in the pit, please please keep speaking up. You may have to scream and shout, but do it until someone listens. If no one else will listen, I will. Email me if you need to. Being depressed does not mean that you are weak or that there is something wrong with you. It just means that you need help finding the light.

If you have a close friend who is infertile, really listen in to what he or she is saying. Don't ignore signs of depression or other mental illness. Come alongside others, urge them to see a doctor or to look into counseling, and don't let it slide. Many people like me are just waiting for someone to really see them, to realize that they are losing part of themselves, that this isn't normal. Don't let it happen without a fight. Sometimes the most loving thing you can say is, "You need help. Let me get it with you."

What's the end of my story? I don't know yet. I've seen two counselors, and neither one was a great fit for me, and I wasn't able to get another appointment until the end of February. I am strong enough to advocate for myself, but I know that not everyone is, so I want to keep the dialogue alive. "Let's Talk."