Heartless

It’s because you experience horrors that you can see beauty. I never expect joy but I can recognize it in others because the grass is always greener on the reproductive side. No matter how I wish it weren’t true I can describe how it feels to be fruitless. As a military wife, I learned when someone you love is far away half your heart is missing. I can’t get my children back so I have nothing to give away.

When my husband asked me to expect less and do more my first question was, “How?” My dreams are crumbling and I’m still sulking about that. He asked me again a few weeks later and I knew it was important to try. Not long after I sat in a room with a foreign breed of women. Every one of them has kids but me.

That experience is my new normal. While supporting military families I talk about kids. When visiting a friend I’m playing with them. On the phone with family or in a classroom that is what people talk about.

Though I may never be a Mom I hope to surprise you. The things I am learning are useful. People have trials and they suffer through them alone when the answer is community. Society can’t be aware if you never talk. Babies die and parents aren’t vocal. That is worse. Two million women and their families experience the death of a baby every year. About 750,000 women will get breast cancer every year. This is not a taboo topic. All of us need to stop being squeamish and end the excuses’. There is no reason any woman should feel guilty or suffer judgment through infertility, pregnancy or child loss.