It is officially Mother’s Day, and I wanted to write a quick note to all of you moms-in-waiting who are struggling with this day due to reproductive challenges that have made it difficult to become a mommy.  I am with you in mind, heart and spirit today.  I was a childless mommy for 9 very painful Mother’s Days…each one worse than the year before.  All of the holidays were difficult, but this was the worst.  One year, after going through invitro, and hoping and waiting and hoping and praying and hoping that THIS was the time it would work…I had gotten my period on Mother’s Day.  A very mean trick played on me by God or the universe or whomever….but of all days!  I went to church, and I saw the many women with their many children, and I could not bear it.  I cried throughout the whole service.  I actually should have left.  When I came home and got out of my car, a neighbor came up to me and said, “Hi Barbara!  Beautiful day!  How are ya?”  Well, they were sorry they asked.  I immediately began ranting and raving and crying and stating how this was going to be the LAST Mother’s Day I was going to go through in this deepest of pains!  I went into the failed invitro attempts, and the fact that my period had come on Mother’s Day, which was just too cruel!  I cursed God, and I’m sure that I seemed in urgent need of being committed.  And I actually became committed that day…in another way.  I was re-committed to doing WHATEVER it took to become a mommy, and nothing was going to stop me.  I was angry, hurt and so very sad.  But fuel was added to my flames, and this was unacceptable to me  I was waging an all-out war on my infertility…and I was going to come out…somehow…a winner.

I pray for all of you today that are in that same ugly place.  And I hope that some of you can face this in a healthier way than I….realizing that if you choose to just KNOW that your baby will come to you, he or she will.  There is power in the KNOWING, and once I FINALLY subscribed to the KNOWING, and allowed my heart to rule, I felt empowered, and I knew that nothing would stop me.  No failed invitro attempts, nor failed surrogate attempts (which I hadn’t even gone through yet, at that point), was going to do me in.  And somehow, I felt better, felt like I’d just handle it as it came, and went onward as the infertility bullets kept coming my way.  I would continue to wear my armor and fight my way through the battle zones of this infertility hell.  And I won the war.  It almost ripped me to shreds; I didn’t want to live any more, on more than one occassion.  But now I have the angel I had dreamed of.  And I know YOUR angel will come to you too!  So Happy Mother’s Day to ALL of you mothers, especially those of you that are still waiting.  Keep the faith!  Don’t EVER give up!!  I love you!…and so does your future baby!  Stay strong for his (or her) sake!  And the first smile your baby gives you will make this all worthwhile.