It’s only fitting that National Infertility Awareness Week should coincide with what would have been my due date.
Nothing makes you more aware of your infertility than a baby you loved, but never got to meet.
***
Last August, the most amazing thing happened.
The pregnancy test strips I was using to test out the trigger from my first Femara/Menopur cycle started getting darker, instead of lighter.
I was pregnant.
It was amazing and terrifying and brilliantly exciting.
It was surreal.
In that moment, alone in my bathroom and surrounded by peed-on paper strips, I experienced more joy than I had in my entire life.
Our Gummy Bear was on his or her way, and I suddenly had everything I had ever wanted.
I didn’t know then that seven weeks later, it would all come crashing down.
I miscarried.
The miscarriage was physically, emotionally, and psychologically the most difficult thing I have ever had to do.
The physicality of it only lasted a few days, but there are some aspects from which I may never fully recover.
I was a mother that night, and the next morning, I wasn’t any more.
I was empty.
Today is my would-be due date.
Today is the day that I was looking forward to, so intensely, and for such a short period of time; it’s also the day I have been dreading for so long.
Today is when I remember the tiny life that never got to be, and yet was loved so incredibly much.
I’ll never forget my first baby.
Gummy Bear gave me hope that I may one day hear that faint heartbeat, feel kicks and flips from the inside, and hold a wiggly, screaming new life in my arms.
Today, although my belly is flat, my heart is broken, and my arms are empty…
I am still standing.
I am a mother today,
and I will have hope, always.
Just as I will hold that baby in my heart.
I will remember.
Celebrate.
Grieve.
Mourn and memorialize.
As long as I remember, my baby lives on.
Love lives on…
.
Always.
.
