Moms

When my mom was about 6 or 7 years old, a woman came to her school, took her out of class and took her to a new home. Over the next few days, weeks, months--I don’t know how long-- my mother learned that the mother and father that she had known all her life were not her biological parents. Rather, they were her aunt and uncle. The woman who had taken her from the life she had known was her biological mother and the sister of her “Ma.” My mom’s biological mother, “Mama,” had been able to get pregnant easily and quickly after getting married, while Ma tried (and failed) to get pregnant for many years. Mama decided to give her first born to her sister to raise. According to my mom, she was born after 3 days of hard labor. Two years later, Mama gave birth to a son, again after struggling through days of labor. Mama got pregnant one more time, again, after 3 days of labor, again, to another son. With this third pregnancy, Mama had hoped for a girl because she longed to have a daughter, but didn’t think she could endure another birth. I don’t know all the details, but I think maybe Mama didn’t believe she could survive another birth. After all, this was 1940’s China, not a technologically advanced period of time or place. Sometime after the birth of her second son, Mama talked to Ma about wanting her daughter back. In my imaginings, there were hurtful words exchanged and many tears on both sides. Ultimately, Ma refused to give my mom “back” to Mama. This led to Mama taking the drastic action of taking a 6 year old girl and whisking her away to a strange home.

I learned the story of my mom’s two mothers in snippets throughout my life. I remember the day when I was 4 years old when I heard my mom call two women in loving yet distinct tones, Ma and Mama. I remember my mom telling me she didn’t know as she was growing up if she had a mom who loved her, because how could two women have given her up like that? I remember when Ma died and my mom cried and cried and cried inconsolably because she was thousands of miles away and didn’t get to say goodbye.

Mama was the only grandmother I knew. I love her dearly and have fond memories of being with her when she took care of me while my parents worked. I remember the smells of her kitchen. I remember catching a dragonfly in that kitchen and putting it in a jar and staring at its glistening wings. I remember wanting to keep it forever. But, my grandmother gently told me I had to let the dragonfly go because it wouldn’t live if we kept it in the jar. I’m sure I didn’t understand what death was. All I wanted was to keep that dragonfly forever. But, my grandmother just gently explained to me again how it would die, how we couldn’t do that to a living creature and we had to let it go. She had me open the lid. The dragonfly flew around the kitchen a couple of times then out the door. This memory and Mama’s love for me was something I held onto in my teenage years when it felt like no one in the world cared about me.

It wasn’t until these last couple of years, that I have thought about Ma as more than my great-aunt who took care of my mom for awhile (Ma later adopted a son and a daughter after Mama took my mom back. ) As I have struggled with my infertility, I have thought about Ma more and more and of her struggles and of her pain. I think about how lucky she must have felt to receive the gift of a child from her own sister and how devastating the loss to have the same sister take that gift away. I think about how IVF would likely have helped her to get pregnant (her infertility was due to blocked tubes), if only it had been something available to her in her lifetime.

I don’t know how Ma and Mama worked out the pain of loving and wanting the same child. Maybe it was never worked out, though I know both Ma and Mama and their two other sisters were all very close to each other later in life. I just know that it was a lucky thing for me that things turned out the way they did. If Mama had not come to get my mom, my mom would have grown up in a different place, probably never met my dad which means I would never have been born. So, I feel a need to have a place in my heart for Ma even though I didn’t really know her. Because the pain she suffered and endured allowed me to be.

Anniversary

Two years ago today, I peed on a stick for the first time in my life and saw two lines. Since then, there has not been a day in the last two years I haven’t thought about babies or pregnancies. According to Google that’s 730.484398 days of hurting, dreaming and hoping.

One year ago today, I was sad that I had not been able to be pregnant again and tired of the monthly disappointment of seeing my period. Mr. Warrior and I began to talk about the possibility of IVF and found we were both ready to try it if we still had not achieved pregnancy after the “requisite” one year of trying. I hoped it would not have to come to that, but felt prepared to do move to IVF if only to secure a larger chance of success.

Today, I’m accepting of the low or no possibility of having a baby with my eggs, even with IVF. There are still bad days when it’s difficult to cope with my infertility. But those days are fewer. I think I am integrating IF more and more into my life and into my identity. And I think I am starting to realize that my life and my family may not unfold in the way I imagined when I was 10 or 20 or 30 years old, but maybe it can still be a good one.

Guess who has a new post?

I know there has been a lack of posting here these last couple of months. One reason for it is that there hasn’t been much going on, on the IF front except waiting for my RE appointment in May. I have been getting my FSH and other levels retested, but that has just added more mystery to uncertainty (which will be a post for another day.) Another reason for the lack of posts is that things at work are on an upswing and I have been spending many hours on my experiments and feeling incredibly motivated. More motivated than I have felt for a couple of years. In fact, so motivated, that I have been working weekends. It feels great to be so productive on the one hand but is quite tiring on the other.

When I do have downtime, I’ve been knitting. Last week, I finished knitting the baby gifts for my friend who is due in early May. I gave them to her and her husband last Friday. Thank goodness the baby shower thrown for her was out of town and only family members were invited so I didn’t have to go to that or have to tell her I can’t handle going to her shower. I know she would have understood, but it’s easier not to have to deal with the issue at all.

I think my behavior modification experiment is doing me some good. I feel good and positive about things most of the time and I am certainly feeling better about myself in general. I hope these good feelings like it here and decide to stay around for awhile.