Infertility, The Pandemic & Mother’s Day

In other words, an emotional clusterf*ck

Photo by Trym Nilsen on Unsplash

I’ve been writing this piece in my head for weeks, as is so often the case. Originally it didn’t involve Mother’s Day, so in a way I’m glad I waited. I considered writing it during National Infertility Awareness Week, but felt like a fraud. After all, I stopped trying to get pregnant over a decade ago. I felt the stories shared that week, every single one of which I saw I read, were about people in the thick of it, or people who had been through “worse” than I had. This wasn’t my most logical thought process, but there’s little logic to the demon in my head that is infertility, one I’ve come to accept I will never fully exorcise.

When this pandemic began I remember thinking, at least I don’t have to worry about my children. This was very early on, before we knew children weren’t its primary victims. But I’d still have worried because I have generalized anxiety disorder and worrying is one of my superpowers. There was a definite sense of relief of not worrying about one more person, especially one that I’d brought into the world.

I call this type of thinking my “silver lining thought process.” I’ve had it a lot in the decade or so that I’ve spent coming to terms with infertility. “Oh, we can travel whenever we want (okay, so not currently, but you know what…