Let Her Be
It’s been months since I’ve last seen my college roommates and I can’t wait to catch up with them. We settle on a restaurant equidistant from us, as we are now scattered across the state. We decide this will be a “no kids” night, which makes me giddy with anticipation. We have seven kids between the three of us so a night out, a night with wine and girl talk and reminiscing, sounds blissful. Cathartic even.
Except I’m dreading the one question that I know I’ll get asked:
“When are you going to have another?”
It’s a question I’ve been fielding ever since I had my first (and currently only) child – from close relatives and complete strangers and everyone in between. And, until recently, it’s also a question I found myself asking my fellow mom friends.
It’s funny because I know not to ask my childless friends if they plan to have children. I know what a loaded and quite frankly, intrusive question that is. I know that maybe they are choosing not to ever have children, a choice I more than respect. I also know that they might be having trouble conceiving (or have received an infertility diagnosis) as I’ve witnessed time and time again in my close-knit circle of girlfriends. So I choose to keep mum – not wanting to cross some sort of invisible line.
However, I used to think it was fair game to ask my friends who already had kids if they wanted to have more. The way I saw it – those two sensitive areas – “do they want kids” and “can they have kids” were no longer in question. And I’m always curious to know how people decide on the family dynamic that works for them. I like to pick my one friend’s brain who decided to stop at one child as much as I like to understand the chaos and joy that consists of my other friend’s life with four kids. I viewed these conversations as innocuous bonding moments – the ties that bring new mothers together.
Then, I began to experience secondary infertility, and my perspective completely changed.
Now, whenever anyone asks me “when” I’m going to expand my family, I am reminded how cruel these social niceties can be. I find myself giving fluffy and vague responses as a defense mechanism for the true internal pain. I force a smile and say things like:
“We’d love to give our big guy a sibling one day.”
“We’re working on it!”
“Hopefully sooner than later. I’m not getting any younger.”
I hope they get the hint and change the subject. Because there are too many things I want to say but can’t. The last thing I want to do is burden anyone with the complicated truth. It’s not exactly “ladies night out” fodder; it feels heavy. And it’s also deeply personal.
Hidden behind my smile is a story of months and months and months of trying and failing to get pregnant. A story of more negative pregnancy tests than I ever care to count. A story of ugly crying in the bathroom every time I get my period. A story of immense guilt when my almost-four-year-old tells me he wishes he had a friend to play with on the weekends. A story of dietary and lifestyle changes and supplements and acupuncture and every “natural” remedy under the sun. A story of false hope. A story of wanting to give up. A story of feeling like I’m broken and can’t be fixed. A story of perusing “TTC” message boards when I should be sleeping. A story of stressing out over an imaginary age gap between my kids. A story of readjusting what I thought my family would look like. And right now, in these moments of frustration and failure, I don’t really feel like sharing these stories in the check-out lane at Target or over dinner with friends, even close ones.
Every single woman has her own story, and it’s her choice, and her choice alone, if she wants to tell it. These questions, asked so casually, innocuously, require an answer, and the answer might just be the one thing that’s about to crack her wide open. Let her be whole. Let her be.
– Kaysie, Woman of a Certain Rage