Pity: Have I Really Overcome Infertility?

I think it's the pity in their voices when they speak with me that makes the little coffee I drank this morning rise up the tip of my throat. The hint of sadness in their voice when they congratulate me, and the clear message they send when they tell me that everyone should be healthy and enjoy many more happy occasions together...

This morning, my brother and sister in law had a beautiful healthy baby boy, truly one of the most beautiful children I have ever seen, golden glowing hair, and stunning blue eyes.... it is almost exactly three months to the day, that my twin sons would have been born. Instead, I went through a double miscarriage, and several months of grieving and mourning does not seem like a strong enough word.

I wonder, will the pain ever go away? Lately, I have been hearing this song in the back of my mind "It's the darkest part of night before the new day begins, yet there shows the promise of another morning..." It's an old camp favorite. Camp seems now so many years ago when I was still naive and young, and I thought that a little bit of prayer and hope would make the world go right.

It's the darkest part of night before the new day begins. Yet, there shows the promise of another morning. It's the promise that we will never be alone. The sun will rise again.

What a crock. When depression hits, it's always dark, and the sun never seems to rise.

I have two beautiful children, and as a survivor of primary infertility, I'm asked how I overcame it. My response? I didn't. I am currently experiencing what is called in common circles "secondary infertility". It's just as painful as primary infertility, although the frequent losses and miscarriages that I have experienced are painful to the point where I've actually asked friends who have never been able to have children if it more painful to not have children, or to be able to get pregnant and then lose the baby.

Most of the time I know I am ok. Then someone has a baby. A friend, a coworker, a family member, and the yawning hole that is hiding within me comes out and says hello. That hole swallows up everything about me, who I am, what good I am, and becomes a giant black hole of depression. It's not that I am a bad person. I'm not; it's actually that one little piece of me that wants to crawl into a hole somewhere and be left alone, forever, and it only hangs around until the birth of a child, until that child is, well, grown...

So, does one ever actually overcome infertility? Probably not: Even with the birth of children, the holes that are torn with each miscarriage never fully heal, and the loss of a child, whether as an idea, a fetus, or a full born individual, is still the loss of a child