I wrote these poems while on my long (10 year) journey to becoming a mother. Over those 10 years, we lost 4 babies in 3 pregnancies and although those losses were devastating, along the way I discovered I truly found out what Love is. The determination, tenderness and endless enthusiasm of my husband, the astonishing offers of help from my sister and best friend, the village of women whose support and efforts to help buoyed my spirits, and the courage and vulnerability of those who shared with me their stories of what it took to finally hold their baby in their arms; all of these enabled me over that long, dark passage to still believe in the goodness of the world and my place in it.
Infertility and babyloss is one of the least understood and least talked-about of all losses. It exists at the intersection of silence and deepest grief. Although we in the ministry are encouraged never to “compare” bereavement and suffering, many people acknowledge that the loss of a child is the most painful of all losses. Yet the loss of a much-desired child before birth or the inability to even become pregnant or be a family too often go unacknowledged as loss at all. But to the hopeful and expectant parents, that child is as real and as loved as any child has ever been, perhaps even more so.
This leaves women and couples who have lost a child or those who endure an endless struggle to become a family in emotional limbo; feeling the sharpest pain of all with the least amount of understanding or support. My hope in sharing these poems, written in the deepest well of infertility and baby loss, is to let people know that the way you are feeling makes sense and is true to the love you have for your child.
Our story had a happy ending with two beautiful daughters adopted as toddlers from China. But whatever path you take, whether you become parents or make the world a better place simply by being who you are, I hope it helps you know that you are not alone.
Infertility
In the mirror
I survey a landscape of loss
tiny tummy blue bruises
the outline of thigh hot red welts that will not really go away
a scar in my navel – a further knot
severing mother from daughter
as if to say – you will be a point, not a line.
Grey at my temples
two lines between my brows
sad rivulets of tears still visible on a good day
like dried up riverbeds in summer
This is not the body of a young, strong woman
but a battlefield of hope and despair
the scars roads leading nowhere
the woman who walked them
worn down by unending grief
shorn of all faith
silenced by unanswered prayers
Where are you, my little one?
I am losing myself searching for you.
To My Little One
No, not yet here
Not born or even conceived
Yet you are on the way
As surely as someone
Who has set out on a long journey
The day will come when
Your weary feet will find your way to my door
You will curl up in the comfort of my arms
look up and know that you are home
Till then you live in my heart
In my mind’s eye
In my determined spirit and stubborn body
In my refusal to give up
In the candle shining in the window
In this resolute struggle to wrest life out of death
In the dark and the cold,
Alone with no compass
I will go out to meet you
I will carry a light
And I will keep walking
I will narrow the distance
Meet you more than half way
I will not rest
Until you are safe
No mother leaves her child
alone in the dark
When I have found you
What will I offer?
I want to give you the world of my choosing
But the hard lessons of mothering
begin before you arrive
I cannot give you the world
I would wish for you
Only the world as it is
I cannot give you my big brown eyes
But I can give you eyes that look on the world with wonder
I cannot give you my happy spirit
But I can give you the delight of a mother with a happy spirit
I cannot give you my musical ability, or love of dance
But I can raise you in a house filled with music
I can dance with you in my arms every day
I cannot give you my intelligence
But I can show you books and nature,
Ideas and people;
Tell you stories and poems;
Unlock the mysteries of learning and thought,
And awaken your Spirit to awe
I cannot give you what was born in me,
but what I made of it
It is not all of me,
but it is a good gift,
one worth giving.
The rest will be you.
As for the world that I do offer
It is not a perfect place.
It is a place where
sadness sometimes comes before joy
and other times after it
Where sometimes things work out
the way you want
sometimes another way
and sometimes, not at all.
It is still a beautiful world
And I still want you in it
And I am still walking toward you
With my small light shining
Through this endless dark night.
