Who I Was Born To Be

They say that from the moment you are conceived, as a female we have a distinct number of eggs that our body will produce.  No where did they say that those eggs can have minds of their own.  As a born and bred Catholic, I have always believed in God and the concept that he has a plan for me. Most of my life I have spent trying to find where I fit in this world, what God's plan was for me and basically and who I was born to be. 

Ever since I was a little girl I have wanted to have a family, even though I felt for a small time that God was wanting me to be a nun.  I struggled with the decision to enter because I knew it meant me never having children.  But I went forward and entered anyways.  At some point I knew it was not meant to be and I left.  My dreams have stayed the same.  I have still remained steadfast to the idea that I am to be a mom.

My journey on this path of infertility has helped me to grow into the person I am today.  I gain my courage from this journey and the people that have been walking with me along the path.  I wasn't always this courageous...and I wouldn't even see myself as courageous right now.  I see myself as living my life for me now.  While the "breast cancer" awareness facebook joke has been insensitive, the positive that has come out of it all has been that I see the importance of standing up and becoming public with this journey. 

As a Catholic and infertile, my journey has been challenging.  I was the "good" Catholic girl.  I remained a virgin till the day I got married at that age of 30.  This was something important to me and of which I was a minority with amongst my friends.  It was what I was taught but more so it was what I had decided to do.  It was the one thing I could control in my life.  I say that I was a virgin but I was a virgin by means of any sexual encounters I had choice in.  You see, I had been sexually molested when I was a child over the course of a year. (From who and why is not important for this blog.).  However, in regards to all other sexual encounters in my life where I had the choice, I chose to wait till I was married to engage in sex.  According to the Catholic Church, the act of sex was to be used with the idea of procreation.  I believed in this truly.  So I waited.

I continued to watch my siblings get married and start having their own families.  I was one of the last to get married yet I was the third oldest in a family of five of us kids.  I was criticized when I was a kid by my peers because I chose not to "give it up."  I was bullied in grade school by the popular kids, even getting beat up on at least one occasion.  I spent high school alone because I couldn't participate in the sexual stories that my classmates were sharing.  My body image and sense of self esteem was shot. I just never fit in.  Now here as an adult I was fitting in less because I had not children and couldn't conceive as all my friends and family were. I never felt like I had become an adult.  It was as if becoming a parent gave you that transition.  But I never have experienced having my own child.  How could I become an adult now?  I turned into the Aunt and the daughter that had to do everything asked of her because I didn't have any "so called" responsibility so I must have a lot of time.  I wasn't allowed to comment on situations going on within the family because I didn't know what it was like because I didn't have any children.  The words and comments would keep coming.  Yet no one wanted to hear what was going on with our infertility journey. It was hushed.  I was told that it would happen and to just be patient.  People would roll their eyes when I talk about it.  They still do.  I would leave parties and houses in tears with many a night crying myself to sleep.  Even making love to my husband became an emotional task as the realization that this act would notSo...for a long period of time I hushed and kept it inside, only sharing small parts of it with my husband.

Then, last week hit.  The now famed Breast Cancer awareness joke hit facebook.  I cried after a friend who had posted it told me that it was a joke.  It was someone who I cared deeply about.  Here I had been struggling with my infertility and many of my friends knew this.  Why hadn't they thought about the fact that this would affect me.  Had they not thought about me?  I felt alone and started falling right back into the "little girl" world.  Then something happened.  Overnight I transitioned. 

The next morning I came to a realization that I was a woman.  That I had rights too.  That I could no longer be bullied.  I became a stronger version of me...stronger than I ever have before. It was time.  I could no longer remain hushed and live behind the taboo that the word "infertility" is in society.  I realized though that there could be backlash.  Yet, I knew that a true friend, like the one who had originally posted the joke on her status, would right the wrong if the friendship meant anything. (For this friend, I say "Grapes."  She knows what this means even though it will mean nothing to the rest of you.) 

I could no longer live behind the bullying.  People who claimed to be friends but who got defensive when asked to take it off their status and wouldn't see the damage it was doing to me and my friends got deleted out of my friends account.  I even had a couple people tell me to shake it off or move on.  But how could I move on from infertility?   I will live this infertility 24/7.  I will go to bed childless and awake each morning childless.  Some of my friends won't.  To know that you may never hold a child of your flesh and flood in your arms creates a pain that is indescribable.  Kelly Coffey in the song , "I would die for that" says it best when she says, "What I want most, before my time is gone, is to hear the words, "I love you , Mom."

It's not that I don't support other causes, cause I do.  I have every silicone bracelet imaginable under the sun and wear them proudly.  But when it comes to infertility, who wears the bracelet?  Who sports the teal ribbon?  Who wears it on their shirt?  For so long, infertile men and women like myself have hidden their infertility.  And where has it gotten us? Hushed and in a corner, living in a world where everything is focused on the family.  Looked at weird by families as they assume we choose not to have children when in reality it is that we can't. 

For these reasons I am not longer silent.  For these reasons I am standing up for each and every one of my sisters and brothers in this world dealing with infertility.  I am standing up for those who don't feel they have the courage to stand up and speak for themselves out of fear of being pushed further and further into the abyss of aloneness that we get pushed into with infertility when family or friends just don't understand our pain.  I am standing up for those who cry themselves to sleep every night because they know tomorrow that crib will still be empty when they wake in the morning.  I am standing up for each of those women who lose their child to a miscarriage.  I am standing up.

It took me 38 years to realize that this is who I was born to be.

Join me.  I am no longer the young girl that was bullied.  I am now a woman.  A woman on a journey.  The road is not easy, but together we can accomplish things together and get the awareness out there. 

Join my journey.