Taking a pause today in my journey and fast-forwarding 6 years to present day.
This past weekend, in the midst of being isolated now for 4 weeks and counting, something really special happened.
As I’ve mentioned before, my husband and I come from fairly large families… we have a total combined of 17 nieces and nephews! So you can imagine the amount of pregnancy announcements we’ve lived through.
I am absolutely in love with each and every one of my nieces and nephews… they each have something special that make our entire family complete. They are loud, funny, sarcastic, and full of energy. Being Italian, we bring family gatherings to a whole new level and the noise is always about 10 octaves higher than it should be… little kids running all over the place… while the older ones sit there making silly faces on their smartphones for what they think are cute snapchat ops.
You know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Facing infertility hasn’t always been easy in a large family… with each birthday…. each milestone… each holiday…. as much as I love it… somehow stirred up a heightened level of emotions, which tends to result in falling into a pool of tears and self-pity.
On March 7th…. my sister gave birth to my precious nephew – Lucas. This past weekend my husband and I were asked to be Lucas’ God Parents through Zoom. Despite me being unable to hold him and smother him with kisses, I am absolutely overwhelmed with gratitude, honour and joy.
Many people will debate whether or not to ask an infertile couple to be God Parents, wondering how they’d react. How will it be taken? Will it offend them? Will this hurt them? It’s the typical unknowingness that those on the outside will never seem to understand, or better yet, even ask about? It’s the assumption one makes with the feeling of having to tip-toe around someone who is extremely fragile. It’s our own fault that we make people feel this way.
Now, I’m not going to speak on behalf of all my IVF sisters, but what I am about to share, is something that I’ve never ever said out loud and what being asked means to me. As I write this sentence, the tears are already starting to form and roll down my cheeks.
Being asked to be a God Parent actually means more than anything anyone can even fathom! The void of being able to conceive naturally has had a huge impact on my life, my mental and emotional state amongst anything else. I long to have children and grasp at any opportunity to be recognized in some shape or form to motherhood. While, some feel like choosing God Parents is a simple formality and go through the motions absentmindedly, I take the decision process very personally. Emotionally, I feel that if my loved ones truly understood my void and ‘cared’ about the impact infertility has had on my life, they would see this as an opportunity to help me in the only way they knew how… they would see me as someone who longed to have children, be a mother (and a damn good one for that matter), and genuinely relish in the opportunity to help give me the ‘next best’ honour.
OK… so I’m fully aware that the last paragraph was ‘way out there’ and strongly irrational. But something I’ve learned through countless therapy sessions, is that these are MY emotions, right or wrong… this is how I feel. I realize that to the most logical of people these feelings are completely far-fetched, but every time there’s a God Parent announcement, and I was overlooked, it has sent me on a downhill spiral (ironically more than the actual pregnancy announcement itself). It has been no one’s fault except my own personal demons that I battle. I’m utterly embarrassed exposing these feelings… and feel incredibly vulnerable because I don’t want people to think how crazy I am for thinking this way, feel sorry for me, or ultimately make choices out of pity… this is simply about sharing/exposing one of my personal triggers.
Now… I have a 6 year old son and people may wonder why in the world I still have this void and longing. Well, as I continue to share my journey to today in future blog posts, I will be sharing the huge impact that our battle with secondary infertility has had on my life, and how it’s hit me a hell of a lot worse. The intent of this blog is to create awareness, but as I’ve mentioned before… it’s also about the ability to help me self-heal in the process.
The tears continue to fall as I write this blog because I still feel by letting it out, these raw emotions haven’t really captured my true feelings on this subject. I will continue to digest my emotions as this is probably the first phase in my healing.
I am beyond grateful for my lucky #17 and the honour my sister and her husband have given me… it is truly the greatest gift anyone outside my immediate family has ever given me… and I will cherish this opportunity more than anything you can imagine.
My Journey through Infertility 