The loss world celebrates rainbow babies like nothing else. They talk of rainbows and the joy after the storm often. Keep the faith. Have hope. The happy ending will come. The story of the whale seemed to reinforce this. I admit when I saw the story, I didn’t immediately feel happy for the whale, I was jealous. I was frustrated when I noticed that feeling. I honestly haven’t struggled with jealousy often since Mira died, but infertility treatments seem to be bringing it out. It is usually a short-lived flash, but it is there. With Tahlequah the whale though, it was a deep painful rage of jealousy. Maybe because it Tahlequah isn’t a person, and not someone I know personally, my heart felt a little safer feeling angry and jealous. My first, shameful, though was, “Seriously, the f’ing WHALE gets another chance at a baby before me?!”
The loss community loves rainbow stories, human and whale, because they give them hope. This blind hope has never been my thing. It honestly doesn’t give me hope to hear stories about other people getting their happy ending. I mean, so many of them start with “After 7 years of infertility and 6 pregnancy losses...” but then they get the healthy baby and it is supposed to give me hope. Really, what the hell? Years of pain and suffering until, finally, finally, they get to love a baby on Earth. That doesn’t give me hope. That scares the crap out of me. And even the really good stories, like, “She got pregnant on her first IUI even though there is only a 15% chance of it!” That honestly doesn’t give me hope. The chance for me is still 15%. Other people (or whales) getting babies doesn’t make me any more or less likely to get a baby. Hearing other people’s stories about how they got through the hard times, stories I can take something from to learn how to get by, that inspires me, that teaches, that give some hope. But just knowing everything works out for some, knowing that a beautiful whale is getting another chance to mother a calf, that doesn’t change my hope.
The dirty secret of the loss community, the unwelcome, brutally honest truth is that not everyone gets a healthy baby in the end. Not every loss Mom gets a living baby. Tons of storms do not end with rainbows. “After every storm there is a rainbow.” It’s factually inaccurate. Have you seen a rainbow after every single thunderstorm? I certainly haven’t. And there isn’t a rainbow baby after every loss. The hard truth? I could be one of those loss Moms. It is possible Mira is my only child. It is possible I am one of the Mom’s that don’t get another baby.
It is also possible that Mira is only my first child. My perfect, loved beyond measure, oldest child that could have a little brother or sister someday. And then that little word comes back again, hope. I know all the above may have sounded pretty bitter. You’ll have to forgive me, I am truly not a bitter person. But infertility treatments, well, you get a lot of hormones running through you that combine with the stress of it all, and a lot of emotions come with that. Combine that with the ongoing grief that is sewn into the threads of the life of a loss Mom? And well, my emotions can be a little all over.
But I am not a bitter mess. I have hope. I really do. I talk about what theme the next nursery will have. We never got to actually create the woodlands/fox nursery, but that will always be Mira’s, so we talk about what theme we could have next time. I give myself shots, I take my pills and supplements, I dutifully go in several times a month to be probed, stabbed, and tested at the doctor’s, I pay them huge chunks of our pay checks. Let me tell you, you have to have a ton of hope to be willing to do these things to your body. In fact, I have found it absolutely amazing what women (including myself!) do to our bodies and put ourselves through just for a sliver of hope.
Hope can raise you up. It can make you excited for this next cycle- it could be the one! Hope can give you strength. It can make you push the needle through your skin- it will all be worth it! Hope can give you resilience. It can make you push through the pain- maybe you are in the ER with a giant ovary covered in cysts, but you keep going because Moms can do anything. The thing is hope can crush you too. You have to hope to keep doing the treatments, you have to hope this month is the month or you would quit. But when you have hope that this month is the month, and the stick has one damn line again day after day, way past when there should have been two, the hope that got you through the last 28 days, crushes you now. It makes you want to crawl into bed and never get back out. It makes you want to throw out the bulk box of pregnancy tests and burn the folic acid pills. If there had been no hope these past 28 days, it wouldn’t have hurt like this.
Like I said though, hope is resilient, so a few days later, it shows up again as your period starts and you pick up the phone and schedule the next set of tests to do it all over again for the next 28 days.
For me, hope is trickiest in the waiting time. I am sure I am not pregnant. I think this is the month! I’m sure! But then, there is no way this is the month. A cramp means the embryo is implanting! Nah, that was my period coming on. It goes back and forth, back and forth. I know I need the hope to keep going. But, I know I have to stay realistic too. It is such a delicate balance.
My deepest hope comes from knowing, no matter what this cycle holds, or the next, or the next, I can get through this. It might break my heart, but I can keep going. I can try again. And if some day, there is no try in me left, Joe and I can get through that too. That is hope that is also realistic. I know we can do it. On the hardest days, Joe reminds me of this. We can get through this; we have already gotten through worse. I can keep going. I can get a 50th ultrasound. I can get another blood draw, right where the bruise still is from last time. I can do it. I can keep physically and emotionally healthy as we go through all this. I can take care of myself and support my husband. That is the ultimate kind of hope, it is faith even. And the big faith is there of course too, the most important faith. The faith that I know, I KNOW, that God is holding us through all this. I know that He hates seeing our pain. I know He is hurting to see us go through this. I don’t know why we are facing this pain, but I do know God loves me through it. And I know He is holding my daughter while she waits for me.
Hope may end up breaking my heart over and over, but I still need it. I will cling to it and pray one day I can say, “it was all worth it” as I look into the eyes of my healthy baby. I will always have the faith that Joe and I will survive, even if that hope is crushed.
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