Not Angry Anymore

I realized yesterday that the only thing worse than someone pointing out a zit on your face is someone pointing out a zit on your child's face: 

"What is that?"

"How did he get that?" (I particularly liked this one, as it suggested that acquiring pimples was something one does on purpose; the alternative being, of course, that I have been smearing butter on his cheeks nightly in search of the most cherubic rosy sheen, only to find this unpleasant side effect instead.)   

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I've thought a lot lately about how different I am today from three years ago.  Knowing the ending now, I have been tempted sometimes to gloss over those infertile years, to wave them away with a wry smile and shrug of the shoulders.  Looking at one of my archived entries recently--a very maudlin, dark, sad one--I thought, "Wow, I must have exaggerated that for dramatic effect."  But then a small voice said, "No.  If anything, you edited down your feelings, made them smaller on the page than they actually were." 

When I was struggling with infertility, I struggled most with bitterness, with that mean smallness that overtook my most generous of impulses.  Yet even in that worst time, I felt that the bitterness was the result of an overabundance of  love that I held for a child not yet my own; a love that, without direction, turned dark and ugly and stagnant. 

And I was so glad to see that once I had a tiny face upon which I could focus all of my attentions, once I had lilliputian socks of my own to match, the anger and the bitterness dissipated.  Not only did I have this incredible ebullience of the miraculousness of A., but I was also free from the anger.  I am still surprised sometimes by how the vision that sustained me in the darkest days has actually come to be--how every single ugly cry, every single bruised injection site, every single dollar in the RE's till, was so utterly worth it.   

I am reminded of this now, because of a dear friend going through her own infertility hell.   When I see my friend struggling, I want to tell her that this will all be a box of memories one day, a box she no longer has time to visit because she's so busy chasing her toddler outside.  I want to tell her that those pregnant friends she envies now will become her peers sooner than she can know, that their children conceived a seemingly impossible six months before hers will be her child's favorite playmates. 

Most of all, I want to tell her that she won't always be so angry.    

Comments

[Bev]

I could have written this post! I struggled with anger, bitterness. Oh, how I struggled! How right you are when you say that those women who conceived 6 months before your friend will become her peers, and their children her child's friend. Oh, how true! I also agree with you that every bruise, every sob, all of the money spent was so very worth it! Some days I forget how infertility feels, which is good I suppose since it was all I could focus on years ago. I will never forget the IVF, though. Everything was worth it to see my boys' faces and hear their laughs (or screams). I thank God for them every day.

[Bev]

I could have written this post! I struggled with anger, bitterness. Oh, how I struggled! How right you are when you say that those women who conceived 6 months before your friend will become her peers, and their children her child's friend. Oh, how true! I also agree with you that every bruise, every sob, all of the money spent was so very worth it! Some days I forget how infertility feels, which is good I suppose since it was all I could focus on years ago. I will never forget the IVF, though. Everything was worth it to see my boys' faces and hear their laughs (or screams). I thank God for them every day.

[maggie]

sigh. so true