I stayed up until 5 a.m. last night. FIVE. A.M. Like an hour before Corey gets up. I was not planning on it, but I got so enthralled by a good read that I just couldn’t put it down. I have a bit of a habit doing this. I am obsessed with memoirs and I get so easily sucked into the telling of peoples’ lives … their shared vulnerability, their pain and personal growth and always – the theme throughout – is a changing of their hearts and minds that ultimately leave them more understanding, compassionate and peaceful … better inhabitants of this world. Last night was no different. Except it wasn’t a book. It was a blog. This one.
Upon finding her website, I was immediately drawn into her work. It reminded me of how I feel when I look at Jesh de Rox’s work. It’s like the perfect mix of inspiration and escape. Her work is amazing, her writing inspiring, her story … mine.
I started from the beginning … December 2005 and then read over 3 years of her detailed journey through her and her’s husbands fight for a baby. She wrote about all of the same things I feel day in and day out, but am too afraid to share for fear that I’ll look/seem crazy. I so appreciated her honesty. Her expression of feeling one day hopeful, peaceful … believing in God and her body and knowing … knowing with all her heart that her body would one day be alive with life. And, then a post written just weeks or sometimes days later expressing her overwhelming sense of sadness and loss and confusion and fear. She often said that she hesitated being so open, but knew that it was for her own healing and the healing of others that she write so openly. I wholeheartedly agree because I know that her honesty and vulnerablitity day in and day out for over three years helped my heart tremendously make sense of it all last night as I read for hours and hours and hours.
Expressing the difficulty that she faces to always be honest…
Part of me not sharing entirely must be my pride. I don’t want to be pitied or for anyone to feel sorry for me. I don’t need loads of advice or for anyone I care about to worry about me. I don’t want to sound like a whiner or a broken record or appear that I am not growing through this.
I suppose I just want to be heard and understood and cared for.
And, her sharing the heaviness that is a constant companion as she is always longing for a child of her own…
I do have wonderful and exhilarating moments still. This past weekend I belly laughed with my husband as we walked a trail near the beach where we were married. I rejoice every day about the strikingly creative women friends I have made through this medium, as well as my old friends and my family. I do know that I have a plethora of reasons to be grateful. But there is always this longing beneath the surface, the fear of the unknown, the fight to not let these emotions control me – - – the constant, constant conversations in my mind where one side is telling me I am not worthy to be a mother and the other is crowning me queen mama.
This morning, I opened my porch door and the smell of a night of rain swirled around me. My skin felt instantly cool. I felt my body lean against the door and I watched the drips of water trailing down the flower petals and leaves at the same moment as a tear rolled down my cheek. I closed my eyes and listened to the birds. The sound of Spring coming. I took a full breath in and allowed the crisp and fresh air to fill my lungs. I smiled. This tear falling didn’t come from sadness but came from joy, from a release within. Looking at these vines, I was brought back to that enchanted forrest.
It is when I truly sit in a moment and not allow my mind to go anywhere but here…I find peace. I suppose that is meditation, really.
I need to sit more in these moments because they breathe more life into me and those walls closing in slowly crumble around me and let the fresh air in.
And, this post which I must include in it’s entirety. Again, I felt as if she was writing my story. I feel a bit at peace knowing that someone better with writing can put into words what I (and so many other women) feel month in and month out. Titled: Hurts; Written: May 2006
This morning I woke early to such a heaviness in my heart. It hurts. Another month full of hope and anticipation and even more expectation than the other 19 months prior to this. Now that we have entered the phase of fertility treatments, the hope seems more, the anticipation more, the expectation higher, I suppose. I didn’t realize it would also mean the more grief I would feel if it didn’t work.
There are days when I can let go. Really let go and not try to make sense of it. Days when I feel grateful of the time I have available to me to do as I please with my business, my life and I take full advantage of the freedom of my husband and I being alone. Days when I don’t question and just trust, have faith, believe our baby will come when its ready. Days when I don’t allow negative energy about this process to spill into me. Days when I have a great knowing within that it is soon…I will be a mother soon.
Then there are days like today. Where I feel like I am grieving for a soul that I thought was nestling in my womb and turns out wasn’t. A soul that I feel a deep bonding with through meditations, dreams, intuition and just that “gut feeling” that yes…I really think I am pregnant this time.
Oh how I feel tired. I wonder if I can gather the strength to do this again. I feel as though gathering this strength is nearly impossible. I feel angry at the tricks my heart and mind play on me. Today I just can’t go beyond the pain to find the deeper meaning in all this. Today I just want to curl up into a little ball in the curve of my husbands chest as he spoons me. I know he tries to be strong for both of us but I can feel it wearing on him deeply. He feels everything too.
I know I am in good hands with my new doctor and my acupuncturist. I can almost hear their voices telling me right now not to give up, that we’re just beginning, that we’ll just keep moving through this until our baby comes. So I’ll say here what I will be too shy to say to them when I make that call telling them we have to try again:
I know, I know…but it hurts, damnit. It hurts. I don’t want you to fix it for me in this moment. Just let me feel this pain so I can let it move through me in and out, away from my heart. I am confused and scared and angry and full of sadness and grief. I know it will happen someday. I know I need to have patience but please don’t shush these emotions because you are scared for me and don’t know what else to say. Just validate my feelings. I know tomorrow I’ll wake up refreshed and renewed with more insight and a clear mind but today I am full of a heaviness that is taking every ounce of strength that I have. So I cannot be today what you want me to be.
Yes…tomorrow is a new day but today, it just hurts and putting it all here in this space is part of the healing process for me. We will get through this. We always do.
Little one…I know you are out there. I just wish you were in here.
And, only weeks later finidng comfort in the realization of the personal growth that is ensuing…
…As I read these words, a peace traveled through me, a sweet knowing, a voice within that said “yes”. Perhaps throughout this journey I have been pregnant all along. A gestation period marking the growth of my inner child, my raw creativity, my bravery, the baring of my true soul. And what is birthing within me is a new self.
Acceptance.
Weeks later … hope remains…
This is always a tender time for me. The days leading up to the knowledge of whether or not we have conceived. I’ve spent the days previous in a positive mind frame. I meditate on what I desire and I envision myself with a swelling belly at Christmas around my family. I try to truly feel those emotions of joy, pride and gratefulness that all is well in my womb.
But these next few days during my cycle I feel a natural protection mechanism around my heart. Something inevitable as a result of month after month, after almost two years of what I envision not yet coming to fruition. I try so hard to push that fear, that protection aside but it resides within me. So, I am trying to figure out a way to welcome it into my world while still remaining positive and hopeful. I am learning. Forever learning..
Again, a post worthy of being copied and pasted here in it’s entirety…
i’m hurting
cried hard into my pillow this morning
then gazing up to our indigo ceiling
asked for what i wanted so deeply
i want our baby
with our big sparkly eyes
and gentle ways
yesterday i was standing at the post office
a beautiful couple stood near me with their baby
he looked at me with his big blue eyes and curly hair
i couldn’t stop starring
neither could he
i felt the longing so deep
so primal
but i looked away and took a deep breath
this morning, when all was quiet in our home
i searched some blogs because i don’t have time to do that any more
and found out a blogger is pregnant
i was happy for them, so happy
then i shut my laptop and cried
i saw that baby’s face again
with his big blue eyes and curly hair
it hurts. it hurts. it hurts
deep ache
deep moan within
my life is blessed
with an extraordinary husband
loving and committed friends
an unbelievably cool family
and a blossoming career
and more…so much more
these blessings keep me distracted
but i never forget
it’s always lingering…that pain
that longing
that primal need to feel a baby growing in my womb
what is it like?
does it flutter, does it swirl?
what is it like to smell the skin of a tiny human being
that was created by pure uninhibited love?
i will know
this is what i tell myself…every day
does the spirit of my baby hear me crying?
do they know how much we love him/her?
do they know how much they are wanted?
it hurts. it hurts. it hurts.
must.
let.
tears.
fall.
yesterday i felt on top of the world
today it hurts.
such is the ebb and flow of life,
i suppose.
beat your drums
light a candle
play your guitar
hum a song
dance in swirls
burn your sage
and say a prayer, make a wish,
for our future baby.
And, this post … written June 2007 describes just where Corey and I find ourselves today … free of doctors … at least for now…
my husband and i have decided to begin a new refreshing path on our journey to conceive. a path of listening to our own inner wisdom and guidance. just him and me for now. outside influences were becoming too confusing, conflicting and not quite resonating with our hearts. it took time to get to this place but now that we are here…it feels like home.
it its scary and yet so empowering. i feel like i am breaking up with two people that i love so much but have realized they are no longer serving me and perhaps i am no longer serving them. the healing that was once there had somehow been stifled and it became hurtful, not helpful.
you know you’ve made the right decision when your whole entire being feels as though it is taking a deep breath and a sense of pure and divine freedom flows through you. a sense of knowing. a truth. a rediscovering of self and your own voice.
it’s like a whole new way of learning, thinking, feeling, breathing…
I, too, feel like my body is taking a deep breath. Today I feel so sure that we are just where we’re supposed to be. It’s, just as she wrote, so very freeing.
And, so their story continued. She found freedom from outside help and then found herself back on the operating table, having endometriosis removed. Within months her and her husband felt a great peace about pursuing adoption and through opened doors she found the perfect agency and a specific staff member that became a dear friend … an angel in their pursuit of finding their child. They finally arrived and were united with their son this past October. You will be blessed to read more of their intimate story she has so bravely shared with the world. In case you don’t want to scroll all the way back up – which is bound to take you all day since this is the longest post EVER 
– then click here.
This morning I woke up at 11 a.m. and was confused as to why I felt hungover. Oh, yea … I went to bed this morning. But, today has been wonderful – just emailing and reading and blogging and editing a shoot from this week that was so fulfilling. It’s shoots like these that remind me why I am so grateful to be a photographer – which came at a good time since I considered quitting when trying to prepare my taxes this week. :-/
