I walked into church one Mother’s Day thinking I’d be perfectly fine. I was not.
For years, I’d wanted to be a mom more than anything. But this was the first Mother’s Day we had undeniable knowledge of our infertility. Barring a miracle from God, I’d never give birth.
My husband gave me a card that expressed the joy of “bringing a child into the world.” He’d scratched out “the” world, and wrote in “our” world. After all, someone else would bring the child into “the” world. Through adoption, we’d bring it into “ours.”
For years, I’d wanted to be a mom more than anything. But this was the first Mother’s Day we had undeniable knowledge of our infertility. Barring a miracle from God, I’d never give birth.
My husband gave me a card that expressed the joy of “bringing a child into the world.” He’d scratched out “the” world, and wrote in “our” world. After all, someone else would bring the child into “the” world. Through adoption, we’d bring it into “ours.”
Sometimes I felt like an expectant mother (technically, I was expecting to be a mother relatively soon), but many times I felt like someone wandering the baby aisles at Target in search of a shower gift.
Like us, most couples come to adoption after infertility. “After infertility”, they say, like it’s a condition that goes away, like “after” the flu. For most of us, there is no “after” infertility. There is just infertility, and what you do as a result of it.
In our adoption classes, we talked about “resolving” our infertility issues. To resolve something, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is “to make a firm decision about” (as if infertility is something we chose), “to decide or express by formal vote” (if God asked for our vote, we were definitely overruled), and “to change or convert; to remove or dispel” (if we could remove our infertility, we wouldn’t have been sitting in an adoption class). How can infertility ever be “resolved?” It can be accepted, but it never goes away.
I took hold of Irish’s hand. “I’m having a hard time,” I whispered in his ear. He moved closer. The warmth and security of his shoulder against mine brought me comfort, but tears still flooded my eyes.
Then the minister asked all the mothers to stand and be recognized. He instructed the teens to give a carnation to every woman standing.
My husband looked at me expectantly, letting me know that he’d approve if I chose to stand. But how could I?
If I was pregnant, I would have stood. After all, there would be no question that I was a mother. But “paper pregnant” doesn’t count. We weren’t even in a match. It could be weeks, months, or even years before a birth mother chose us. And even if we were in a match that very day, it’d still be her baby. She’s the mother until she signs the adoption forms.
What right did I have to count myself among those great women, who changed diapers and wiped noses, or dealt with swollen feet and morning sickness for months on end? How dare I stand?
Everyone knew we were adopting our first child. They would all know I was a fraud, that I wasn’t a mother yet and didn’t deserve to assert myself into their honored group. I remained seated, tears streaming down my face.
A girl walked up our aisle. I stared straight ahead, not daring to meet her eyes. Suddenly she was in front of me, resolutely and unapologetically handing me a pink carnation.
Maybe she saw my grief and thought I’d lost a baby to SIDS or miscarriage. But to me, it felt like God’s uncompromising affirmation that I was, indeed, a mother, even though I didn’t have a baby in my arms yet. The thought was more than I could handle.
I tried to sing the next song, but no sound came out of my mouth. I bolted out of service.
Two friends followed and threw their arms around me. I clung to them as I sobbed.
When I returned to service, I stood at the back of the auditorium. My husband held a wad of tissues and frequently wiped his eyes. He was hurting, too. When he saw me, he walked back to join me. We held each other until the sermon ended.
The final song was about overcoming.
“Your light broke through my night,
Restored exceeding joy.
Your grace fell like the rain
and made this desert live.
You have turned my mourning into dancing.
You have turned my sorrow into joy.”
The words poured out of me. I thought of the many times that God has rescued me from painful, seemingly hopeless situations; times when he has, indeed, turned my mourning into dancing and my sorrow into joy. He’d done it many times before; he would do it again.
I didn’t expect to lose it over a carnation that day.
But grief overtakes us when we’re not expecting it. It rears its ugly head and says “Here I am; you cannot ignore me.” It slaps us in the face, sometimes at the most inopportune times.
Maybe that’s because most of us don’t schedule time for grief on a regular basis. We’re too busy living our lives, trying to “move on.”
And this is good, to a degree; we can’t become stuck in our grief. But that doesn’t mean it goes away.
It will always be a part of us.
But when we confront grief head-on, when we allow ourselves to feel everything we need to feel, we can work through it. It doesn’t happen right away, and everyone comes to this point at different times and in different ways.
If you find Mother’s Day difficult, whether due to infertility, placing a child for adoption, losing a mother or a child, or some other hardship, here is my prayer for you: that you find space to grieve and support when you mourn. That you feel God’s presence in the pain. That, within the sorrow, you also find a measure of peace, acceptance, and even joy. They can all co-exist simultaneously. It’s all part of the healing journey.
You are seen, my sister. You are understood, and you are loved.
