Childless, Not by Choice

Nine years ago, on Mother’s Day weekend, I lost my one and only pregnancy. May 13, 2006. Approximately 30 days after finding out I was pregnant, I lost it, due to an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured. I like to believe it would have been a girl. I always wanted a daughter. So Mother’s Day weekend is always hard now.

When I realized that having children was not in the plan for me, I told my husband I was going back to school. I half-joked that my PhD was going to be my baby. This week, on May 15, 2015, that pursuit comes to completion. Nine years later, almost to the date of that horrible miscarriage, I will graduate with my PhD in Human Sexuality. I will become the first doctor in my family.

I find myself asking “So now what?” Being a student was a way to channel my energy into a goal, and ignore feelings about motherhood that still bubble up now and then. This is a terminating degree. So I wonder what the next distraction will be, to take the place of feeling the emotions, when they bubble up again, which they will. They always do. Especially on Mother’s Day weekends.

My friend, Dr. Jill McDevitt, wrote the piece below. I read it mid-day. It was the first time amid all the social media Mother’s Day greetings and salutations that I saw myself, and my mother experience, reflected in the day’s celebrations. These four words, “experienced a devastating miscarriage”, allowed me to be seen, and acknowledged. She created the space for me, and I felt compelled after sitting in that space, to share my experience. I know I am not alone and that miscarriage is a common part of the human experience.  For others who share my experience, I want you to know that I hold space for you, and I acknowledge you as mothers too.

TW: miscarriage, losing a child
When I was a kid, I made my mom breakfast on Mother's Day. As an adult I send her a card, and I've mostly had the privilege of not having to think about Mother's Day beyond that, and as per the nature of privilege, I've had the privilege of not realizing that for so many people, it's not that simple. But being Facebook friends with such a diverse group of folks, I've come to understand from scrolling my feed every year on this day that for so many people, Mother's Day is fraught.
There are people who have lost their mother. There are people who are estranged from their mother, were abused by their mother, or otherwise have a painful complicated relationship with her.
There are also people who have lost a child, experienced a devastating miscarriage, or very much want to be a mother but can't conceive.
There are people who are struggling with motherhood; financially, emotionally as a single mother feeling isolated, as a mother of a sick child or child with special needs, frustrated by the lack of support they receive from a society that claims it values mothers but clearly doesn't.
There are people who lament how far we've moved away from the origin of Mother's Day as an anti-war, Feminist, and devoutly anti-consumerist holiday honoring the thankless role of women in society, and bringing together women whose families were destroyed when their sons went off to war. There are people who express their sadness that we "celebrate" motherhood today while we still allow pregnant people to be fired from their jobs, remain the only country on earth without paid maternity leave, and continue to deny access to affordable birth control so people can choose if and when they want to become a mother.
All of this was in my newsfeed today.
For everyone for whom this day opens wounds, I'm sending love and compassion your way.