Grief + Things I'm Grateful For + The Babies Have Taken the Pain Away

Note: This post is written as part of PAIL Bloggers September Monthly Theme Post. You can check out PAIL here.

I don't talk about the whole infertility thing much anymore, but I have been turning these questions over in my mind for the past few day. In relation to infertility--what did you lose? What do you grieve?

My experience in a nutshell:

• Tried to have a baby in the late 1990s and wasn't able to, but never went to the doctor
• Then, spent the past 5 years to get where we are today, with 2 surgeries, 5 IVFs, 2 early miscarriages, 1 late miscarriage, and finally, finally our perfect and magical six-month-old twins

The babies we lost, especially the late miscarriage--obviously, very hard.

But the other stuff--things I grieve--is more subtle:

• I wish I'd been a young (even very young) mother
• I wish I could have spaced my kids out more
• I wish I hadn't listened to the feminist rhetoric that said put marriage and kids last, your education and job first
• I wish I'd married the right man the first time around...I wasted so much time with that whole disaster
• I wish I hadn't had to work all those hours to pay for fertility treatments (I freelance, and in order to pay for everything we did I worked insane amounts of hours for months at a time)
• Etc.

But with all this, I keep thinking of everything I'm grateful for, too, because for each of these there is a flip side:

• I'm grateful for the fact that I know my marriage can withstand difficult losses and tons and tons of pain
• I'm grateful to be older and mellower--I know I make a better mother at this age than I would have at 20 or even 30
• I don't really mind having my kids close in age...we have the baby twins right now, and are hoping I can get pregnant with one more next year. It's going to be crazy, but so amazing..a great and chaotic adventure
• I'm grateful to have a good, solid, well-paying job--something I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't been so career focused for so many years
• I'm grateful that the traumas I've gone through, like what happened with my first marriage...they have made me a kinder, less selfish person
• I'm so grateful I was able to work all the hours I did, was able to pay for the treatments we needed. A lot of people don't have that option

And also, these things I grieve, I don't really feel the pain of it day-to-day.

A friend of mine who had gone through IVF before me, when I was in the thick of things, she told me that once I have a baby I'll forget all about the pain of it all. When she told me this, I didn't believe her. I'd been sad for so long and, although I didn't know it, there was still a lot more to come. I didn't see how anything could take all that pain away.

Nine whole years I was sad, I can tell you the first day, spring 2003, the azaleas blooming in Portland when my boyfriend--my first serious relationship since my marriage had ended--broke up with me. I was living in San Francisco at the time, he in Oregon, and I remember thinking as he drove me to the airport, "This is the end of me being happy." Little did I know how true that was--it wouldn't be true forever, but for a long, long time.

That was the worst breakup ever.

And then my brother dying.

And having to leave California and the life I'd lived with him (my brother), because it was too painful to stay.

And then all the infertility-related things my husband and I endured...five whole years, that's such a long time...

I'd been sad for so, so, so long...I mean, even the name of my blog is about trying not to be sad. I just can't do it anymore. With the babies, I don't have to do it anymore.

So are there things I grieve and regret? Absolutely. But there is also a lot I'm grateful for, and those feelings of grief aren't part of my everyday life.

I am so incredibly happy right now.

My friend was absolutely right--the babies, they help to wipe out the pain*.

*Except for the pain I feel in relation to what happened to my brother. That pain's still electrically raw, when I think of it. I just have to try not to think of it.

XOXO