Almost a Mother, Not Quite
It is from the other side of these feelings that I decided to post something I wrote a few weeks ago. I have had friends visit since then and have put away most of the things we had set up for the twins. I'm mostly doing better, but it felt important to me to share those thoughts I had in the hopes that you will share with a friend or that if you have a friend who suffers a similar loss you might have a better sense of how to help. I'm not ready to have a conversation about this online, though, so I'm closing the comments. If you'd like to share your experience around loss or to share something with me, please send me an email. If you'd like to tell me that "it will all work out," please don't. I do appreciate all of you who hold our hope for us; we'll need it when we're ready to hope again.
This is the nursery that we built. These are the freshly
painted walls, the star light on the wall. These are the twin cribs, no
bumpers, organic sheets, organic mattresses, one borrowed, one purchased. They
said that if this happened, it would hurt less that way. That way, the story
goes, you can "just" return the borrowed one to your co-worker and
keep the other one for "another baby." Insert image of myself
carrying the empty, borrowed-but-unused-crib into my office and depositing it
with stunned co-worker (mother of three under three, got pregnant on her honeymoon).
Nono, I'd say, I'm fine. After all, the story goes, "there's a plan for
me" and "I'll be a mother one day." That's the thing, I've
found, about the Motherhood Story or the Journey to Motherhood or whatever epic
title you'd like to lend it. It's an unspoken club that you never wanted to
join, those of us for whom (not) becoming a mother has more to do with
ovulation strips and timed intercourse and parenting seminars and homestudy
interviews, finger prints and finger pricks, and writing checks than with
honeymoons. "Just get really drunk!" they say casually because, I
know, I know, they're not sure what else to say.
The story we all learned is far easier to spout off. I lived
for more than two and a half decades (you're all calculating my age now and
wondering if that's why we haven't conceived. I don't blame you, I'd have done
it, too, before) believing, truly believing, what I learned in sex ed: all it
takes it one sperm and BAM! You'll get pregnant. The "watch out!" was
both implicit and spoken. If that were the case, then my nursery would be full
of friends oohhing and ahhing over the stars on the changing pad and the little
outfits I sewed from well-loved shirts representing the places we've visited
and the sports teams my husband loves. (Yes, we've "taken advantage"
knowing that "once the babies come, you won't be going anywhere!").
Instead, these are the twin Bumbos with trays, and these are the preemie hats
and socks, and this is the empty nursery where no one visit and no one coos.
"Write your own story," they say, and I do. I
write letters in my head that start with things like "Dear Ovaries" and end with the words "F
you." Or I find anyone else who has ever suffered a loss and tell them the
things I want people to be telling me: You've suffered an enormous loss. You
never held them, but those babies were yours. You must be so sad. You must be
so angry. And those feelings make perfect sense. Can I take you out to dinner?
How about watching a movie, something funny to distract you or something sad so
you can cry? How many gluten free cupcakes can I bring you after work? Do you
need any help with the things in the nursery? Did you get the flowers I left on the porch?
Because I have my own stories I'd
like to tell about what their lives will look like or how they would have
laughed at the play mat I was making them. I'd like to show it off, still.
So no matter the story you're telling yourself about her, if
you have a friend or a neighbor or a coworker who has suffered the loss of a
matched adoption, reach out. Yes, she knew it could happen, but no, she wasn't
prepared, and she's not comforted by the stories you want to tell her, that "there's
a plan" for her. As much as you might believe it, and one day she might,
too, for now it feels like the plan is for her to sit, sad, in a quiet nursery.
You could help her leave there sooner, just by sitting there with her truth.
She was almost a mother, almost, not quite.
