Watching a re-run of "Super Soul Sunday" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuBnKBz8cgM this morning with the famous basketball coach, Phil Jackson, I had my own "aha" moment. During the interview Oprah asked him about how the players felt about him "bringing in all this zen stuff" and he said he was very careful about what he introduced to the players because he wanted to be sensitive to whatever religion they had been brought up with or whatever religious practices they already had. Jackson was sensitive to that because as a child he grew up in a very strict religious home that was not tolerant of other religions or religious practices. He also said he could relate to his players and their fears and/or anxieties because when he was a player himself, he had been benched for an entire season due to severe back injury. He also said he got pretty close to his coach during that time when he was injured, which had given him the experience and knowledge of coaching that he used later in his own coaching career. To which Oprah responded, "No experience is wasted."
Those of you who read my last blog post http://saratate3.blogspot.com/2018/06/release.html , know that I shared my deeply personal struggle with infertility and this journey we are on to have a child. There's an interesting thing that happens when you share your story with the public (700 folks in my case, so it's not exactly Oprah's international viewing audience, but hey, everyone's gotta start somewhere).
First, people have come out of the woodwork telling me their own stories and that has been amazing and comforting, as well as reassuring that I am not alone. It also made me feel awesome that what I wrote really spoke to other people in a way that made them feel less alone. It also let me know how many people really DO care and really are rooting for us and just even asking, hey are you OK? has been so sweet, amazing and reaffirming. It's simple, but it's so kind and it has meant the absolute world to me. Everyone wants to feel seen and heard, especially in their most vulnerable and painful experiences.
Second, there's been some mixed emotions to people's lack of response. I don't care if I ever hear from a stranger about what I write, but when you put something out there that's a real look into your heart and soul - and there's silence from friends and family - you cannot help, as a human being to feel like - wow, OK, so I bled all over the page there and you said nothing? Not. One. Thing. It's hurtful at first. Then you just breathe and say, well not everyone reads your blog and not everyone knows what to say, and frankly, not everyone cares. I've noticed since I began this venture of writing and blogging and putting it out there to begin my career as a writer that not everyone will be supportive. That's the facts and I'm learning how to not take it personal, even though, that can be a challenge sometimes. You cannot control anyone but you.
Third, I've also received some lame and insensitive comments too. I think it's mainly because people want to be "helpful" or "supportive", but in fact, a lot of them have been hurtful. Mostly people I think don't know what to say - just a simple - I'm sorry and I'm here for you would suffice - honestly. Just knowing that you actually care is so much better than a flip comment. I do not want to step on anyone's toes or "call anyone out" because it can get tricky and people can be jerks if they think you're writing about them - and people take things as it's about them half the time - even if it isn't.
Finally, I've gotten some outside response that has been really exciting and cool for me. I've been reaching out to and finding others who have experienced the horrors of the insurance companies and I reached out to a group called Patients Rising https://patientsrising.org/ to find out how I could help. I was then asked to share my story and they liked it and want to publish it! I've written the first part of the article and there will be a follow up to it. I'll definitely let everyone know when it comes out and I'll share the heck out of it because 1) I'm proud and 2) It's going to help A LOT of people and maybe, just maybe, it will help some change happen.
SO - although this infertility journey has been a roller coaster of emotions - this experience is already helping others. This experience is not wasted. I thank God for the ways I'm continuously shown how my pain can be used for a purpose. What I thought at first would take me out, has actually launched something amazing. I'm not at a point where I can say I'm grateful for what we are going through, but I can see how it's being used to help others and for that, I am thankful.
Thank you to anyone and everyone who has thanked me for writing it, it means so much to me.
No matter how much someone says they understand what you're feeling, they don't unless they truly have experienced it. Even then, I feel sometimes as if that's just not possible, because they aren't you so they haven't felt it in your body. I'm going through something right now and I feel the most alone I've ever felt through an experience.
Even when I was down and out - divorced, jobless, homeless - it did at times seem bleak, but it never felt hopeless. It felt like something I had to go through and eventually I knew I'd be on the other side of it. I have worked since I was a kid - formally, since 17. I substitute taught, I worked administrative temp jobs, and I worked at Target as a cashier. I remember the guy hired me because I answered the question, Why do you want to work here? with "I need the money." He laughed. I guess that's not the PC answer, but it was the dead honest truth and after he chuckled he said, "Good, we need people who actually want the hours and want to work. People come in here and say, oh because I love the store or because I love people, etc. That's about the most honest answer I've heard all day, so you get the job. Start tomorrow." I never doubted that I'd get back on my feet. I doubted I would ever get married again...but I never doubted I'd find someone to spend time with or that I'd get a new place to live or any of that. It was sad, it sucked, but it was somehow, I don't know, doable. It was just a "tough spot" or a "rough patch." I learned a lot and grew a lot. The marriage I saw as an utter failure, turned out to be a true blessing because it forced me to be honest about all my sh** I hadn't dealt with and the amount of demons I was still battling that I truly thought I'd conquered. So, in the end, it was indeed resolved.
I'm sitting here with my teaching job, my beautiful new house, and my very real and happy marriage. So, what's the point of this post you're thinking? Well, I've found myself in a place that I cannot quite bring myself to talk about with really anyone because I feel truly as if no one "gets it" - at least no one in my circle. Even people in my circle that think they get it because they've experienced some of what I'm feeling, do not actually get it.
We've been "trying" to conceive a child for three years. We've done all the tests, we've been through a couple of procedures and yet, here we sit. Childless. I'm "like a mom" to a lot of people. In fact, every single day to 19 little people, I'm "like a mom" and to some of them that's no small thing because they do not have their biological mothers in their lives at all. I do not take that lightly and I thank God for it daily, sometimes even throughout the day I will think, wow, how could your mom have let you go? I won't ever pretend to understand. I know there are countless circumstances and situations that are desperate and they aren't anything I could comprehend because I'm sitting over here willing to go through needles, appointments, prescriptions, violations of privacy on many, many levels, and thousands upon thousands of dollars...not to mention the evil dealings of the insurance company, just to prayerfully conceive a baby.
I've been "like a mom" for as long as I can remember - starting with my little sister, then babysitting, then my niece, then my nephew and of course, for over ten years off and on, an elementary school teacher and tutor. Like a mom still isn't a mom. I know people think that somehow that's comforting to me or that somehow that is my consolation prize, but it isn't.
I know people who struggled to conceive and give birth and to even continue on the journey of motherhood and raising kids, teens, young adults. I know people who have done all the tests, the procedures, the doctors, the agonizing waiting. I know people who have conceived and lost babies. I know people who have lost children. I know people who have been to hell and back with their pregnancies, their kids, etc. None of it is "easy" and none of it came without a cost. I am, by no means, equating anything I'm about to say or emote, with any of it. There is no comparison in pain.
Let me reiterate that: there is simply no comparison in pain. It's your pain. It's your struggle. It's yours to deal with. And this is mine. I'm having to grapple with and struggle through this reality: I am childless. I do not know what the future holds, this is true, but I know in this present moment, I am childless in the sense that we do not have our own child. And there's a pain in coming to terms with the idea that this simply may be my reality. Period. I am 41. My husband is older than that. People sit with their children or child and tell me - oh yes - I know how you feel, etc. No. You have children - you're on the other side of all of it. You do not have to sit in your car after a workout that was supposed to make you feel good and didn't and reminds you that your body is getting older and that you are trying desperately to release it, release it, release it .... crying with the thought: It may not happen. Ever. You have got to be able to accept it. This is the reality. To watch your niece and nephew grow and grow and remember that you were going to raise your one with them so that your one wouldn't grow up without a sibling, but at least with cousins. To know that time cannot be stopped and the clock cannot be turned back. To wonder, what if I'd done this or that. To wonder, what did I do that this is my punishment?
I've sat in my therapist's office and had her tell me that it doesn't hurt less to not be hopeful. I think that's a lie. I think to be hopeful is to continuously stab yourself in the gut and slowly bleed. To be hopeful and have your period start again, another month. To sit and say, why? And to listen to stories of abused kids, and to read your files on your students, and to hear about moms on drugs or just vanished or who knows what happened to them. To say, God, I know I'd be a good mom, I've had a lot of "like a mom" practice...just give me one...just one. To bargain. To plead. To cry. To wish and hope and wait and think, maybe this month will be my miracle no matter what the doctors say. No. No. No. To have people say all the insensitive, hurtful, unaware, cruel and ridiculous things they say to you (which is why I never talk about it because I don't want to to hate well-intending people and I've already lost 'friends' over it) and to still be "hopeful" is just - a pain that's sometimes too much to hold.
I know I must release it. This is my only chance of being free. The trouble is, I play games with it...I throw it and then pick it back up. I throw it and get hit in the face with it or the stomach. I throw it and run after it. The letting go feels impossible - the dream of motherhood that I must grieve - but I'm learning to somehow "let it be." I've not succeeded, but I'm learning and growing and I guess that's better than nothing at all. To try and end this on a "positive note" - I do love my life and I do count my blessings and I do not take one thing for granted - not even this journey. I am learning one thing for certain - life is short and there is joy even in sorrow and there is beauty even in pain. Someday I will know the answers and for now, I just pray to move forward.
