Some and Others

Some friends become pregnant at the drop of a hat.  They seem to *think* about pregnancy, and violá!  Pregnant they become.  Other friends have multiple miscarriages while trying to conceive their first child, their second child, their third…  Some friends have uneventful, easy, blissful pregnancies. Some friends have high-risk pregnancies that require constant monitoring and attention and induce crazy-making levels of stress. Some family members are struggling.  Some are at ease.

Some friends ask how I deal with news from other friends. How can you be happy for this person, when you know how hard it can be to conceive?  How can you be happy for that person, when you know what it’s like to lose a child?  

It has me thinking.  Thinking about what makes a person strong, what makes a person empathetic, and what makes a person capable of feeling joy for others.

It pains me to say this, because I KNOW that there are women and men, families out there with huge holes in their hearts just praying and continuing to experience soaring hopes and plunging depths as they wait for either a first child or a rainbow baby. I know because I’ve been there, I’ve been in that childless place where it seems that everyone around you is pregnant or content in raising their children.  It pains me to say that what has truly allowed me to move on and feel joy for others again is…Tatum.  It’s just that simple, that selfish, and that hard to say knowing that Tatum doesn’t exist for many families still caught in the struggle between wanting children and not having them. 

I find it hard to fathom what kind of person I would be right now if Tatum hadn’t been born.  If we hadn’t had the successful IVF cycle following the loss of our triplets in 2008, would I be able to feel joy for others who are pregnant ?  Possibly not.  There are probably people who would not be my friends on Facebook.  There are probably people I would find it very difficult to see in real life. There are probably people I would occasionally e-mail but keep at a distance, because the pain in my life, the huge gaping chasm where my children should have been, would cause a closer friendship to hurt too much. I can imagine that alternate reality and it terrifies me.  It terrifies me, and it breaks my heart to know women and men—families—who are contending with that day by day.  

We are among the unimaginably lucky—the fortunate ones who have been blessed with a rainbow baby and now have a living child to enrich our lives. Along with that gift has come my ability to feel true happiness for those who are building their families easily, who have never experienced a loss or seen their dreams dashed by miscarriage or stillbirth.

I wonder, sometimes.  Is it only the warm, fuzzy aftermath of having Tatum that allows me to say, “Oh, good for her!  She’s pregnant again, how wonderful.”  Were it not for Tatum, would I be bitter and bereft and utterly lacking in joy?  I don’t know.  Maybe I’m stronger than I think I am.  Maybe I could have found my way to a place of balance without a child.  But … maybe not.  I think about that, and I think—what if we try again and aren’t successful?  If we experience child loss again, miscarriage or stillbirth, will I plummet right back into that dark space where the happy news of friends and family brings with it primarily pain?

I don’t think so.  I like to believe Tatum’s presence in my life has given me all that I need to be…well, normal.  But I’m a little afraid to find out. I’m afraid that my balance, my supposed strength, the pleasure I currently take in pregnant friends and growing families—they might be more fleeting than I’d like to believe.

Others who've struggled with child loss and/or infertility...how's it going for you?