It still sucks...

I feel like I started this blog to tell and honest story, of life and not sugar coat things, to start conversations about stuff others want to leave unsaid. I started posting about surrogacy for the same reasons. Infertility is a huge thing with very little discussion. So I wanted to pull back the curtains on our experience and let people into a small part of that world. I haven’t posted for a few months, because I was embarrassed and hurt and I just couldn’t hit publish. I didn’t want to expose more of my feelings and more of my failures. I didn’t want people to think I was trying to garner sympathy or bemoaning a my life, that really is pretty good. I think though, I wasn’t doing this blog, or it’s origination justice. Here is the thing, five months ago a baby died when it was growing inside of me, and it still hurts. It still sucks. The pain is a little duller, mornings are a little easier to get through, but it still hurts and I think that needs to be said.

It’s not just that punch to the gut pain of grief that hurts either, it’s the sting of shame and embarrassment. Surrogacy is embarrassing in the best of circumstances. I have to explain why and see the immediate judgement in people’s eyes, when they hear that I have made this choice. Repeating the process though, man, that’s rough. Now I have to explain that I failed at it once. I mean I know that everyone says it wasn’t my fault, but again I go back to the language, miscarriage and lost. I question whether the doctors and the parents think my body is capable. As the clinic assures us that only the best embryos are implanted, it just makes me question, if it was the best embryo, then the problem may have been that it wasn’t the best uterus. Surrogate or not, having a pregnancy end like this is embarrassing, and implies failure even if that isn’t true.

There is a new pain with new shots. I wanted so badly to have another opportunity to get pregnant for this family, now that it’s here, I hate it. Last time the excitement of the adventure made the shots less painful. This time every shot hurts with a new sting of defeat. I wasn’t supposed to have to do this again. And what if this doesn’t take, can i really handle a third attempt?

All of it too calls into question the whole decision to do this in the first place. Is it worth putting my family in emotional harm’s way again? Is it worth putting my body through this again. Am I crazy for trying this? Is God even calling me to do this?

This is beyond hormones too. Yes the chemical equations of my body are out of whack, but this can’t be excused away with that. Those may magnify it, but the emotions are real. There was trauma here.

So yeah, I am functional, I am moving forward. I do find happiness in everyday, and I am excited about life still, but in the background is this massive sea of grief, shame and doubt. Sometimes the waves roll in and they are just tiny, and you can almost ignore them, but sometimes, they are huge, and briefly crippling, as they knock me down and disorient me.

Again, I don’t post this for sympathy, it’s not a cry for help. I just want to be a voice, for all those moms out there, surrogate, birth, adoptive or whatever, that have loved and had to say goodbye to their babies. It’s okay that you are still sad, days, weeks, or years later, and it’s ok to share that. if there is anything I find positive about this experience, it is that so many women have had the opportunity to tell me their story and to have their feelings acknowledged.