It was a beautiful, snowy night
You were too warm to feel the cold and you didn't even bother buttoning up your fur coat. You were in an exquisite sparkly white dress with the fullest skirt I've ever seen.
Your husband was right next to you, in a green scarf that is still in your coat closet.
Eyes closed, immersed in the prayers . Focused on breathing in the blessings.
It was a night of dancing, and joy and celebration with family and friends.
A night where it all began.
Dearest couple in this tale,
I know what the past 7 years have looked like for you.
I know that you've been battling with infertility, and that this has been incredibly heartbreaking and confusing for you.
I know that you've had to grit your teeth while receiving unsolicited advice.
I know that you have taken things on that worked for other women, and you cannot figure out why they have not yet worked for you.
I see you choke down the lump in your throat as you hear miracle stories that you are just not ready for.
I know you're wondering when it's going to be your turn for one.
I watch you feel like your relationship with GD is challenged in ways that make you feel unsettled, and present so many existential questions that go unanswered.
And how every time you feel like you got one inch closer, you somehow still feel miles away.
I feel the strength in you, that you never knew you had.
And this strength of yours has so many complex layers to it, and sometimes it's not about the stoic front. Sometimes it's about the sheer vulnerability when you just can't take the emotions anymore.
I am so grateful every day that you are in this with your spouse and how there is no one who understands you more than he does.
That any step you take in this process, you are taking them together, while fostering the foundation of your family.
Allowing yourselves to develop your relationship outside of infertility, as much as inside of it.
I see the effort you put into not letting the stress of infertility consume you as a couple.
To need to distract yourselves and battle the guilt of not having to apologize for it.
I see you calculating and overthinking everything you ate, and every second coffee you drank and wondering if you should cut back on caffeine, and if that is the source of the problem, only realizing what a monster you would become and if you did; would that really work anyway?!
I know you feel like you failed.
That your body can't just do what it's designed to do, that so many other women have just figured out.
I know how dedicated you are to becoming a mother that you'll endure any kind of pain to get yourself there.
I know how hard it was to accept your new reality for a chance at motherhood, and that you had to give yourself time to process it.
I see you staying up half the night, worrying about where you would put a stroller in the house you live in now, and turning the office downstairs into a nursery and how is that all supposed to happen?!
And then spending the remaining half wondering if you'll even get a chance to experience that at all.
I know that you're in constant state of being caught off guard.
Feeling like every event you go to is just crashing another parenting course.
I see you being triggered in so many ways, and I wish I could do something to make them all go away.
I hear you silently begging people to stop asking questions pertaining to your children. Questions that make you feel so invisible, you begin to wonder if people can see you.
How people define you.
I know how broken you feel, grieving what could have been.
What you wanted to call yours.
I feel you wake up, feeling totally normal, and leaving your house and immediately feeling twelve steps behind.
I hear you asking time to slow down, wondering how you are ever going to catch up to everybody.
I know you feel like you're on the outside, always looking in, wondering if there will be a space for you on the inside one day.
I need you to give yourself permission to say no if you need to.
To say yes if you want to.
I need you to listen closely to your heart and what it needs.
I know how grateful you are for your support system.
How you wouldn't be able to do this without them.
Without your mom dropping off soup when you had a hard day, or a chocolate cake with two forks.
Without your sisters dropping everything they have going on to be on the phone with you for however long you need.
Without them sending flowers with a note saying you got this on the day of a big appointment.
Without your friends dropping off treats, and constantly checking in.
I need you to know that you are showing up for your children, more than they'll ever know.
So, to the couple who became each others family, 7 years ago, on that beautiful, cold night, in the green scarf and that sparkly white dress.
You are not alone.
You never were alone.
You have a village of support right behind you.
You are exactly where you need to be.
I'm sorry that this has to be so challenging and frustrating.
But, I am not sorry that the guy in the green scarf is still standing next to the girl in the white dress, still immersed in prayers, still breathing in every blessing.
And he's not going to let your family down.
And neither will you.