For Women Struggling With Fertility or Loss

I’d like to tell you something. Yes, you over there; I can see you, even if you feel invisible. I know your pain is real, and I refuse to ignore it. Though the sky is now dark over your head with no promise of a rainbow, it won’t always be like this. Your heart won’t always ache, you won’t always wonder what if … and the future won’t always be uncertain.

Things will change. Life will move on. It won’t always be like this.

Your wish might be granted, or it might not be; I’m afraid I don’t know. I wish I could tell you because I know one of the hardest parts of all of this is not being able to see how things will turn out. But this, this pain that you are feeling right now, will not stay.

You will heal. Through time or circumstance, you will mend, you will feel better, you will be happy.

To the woman whose pregnancy didn’t last as it should – who lost – who feels lost. You won’t always feel so empty. Life and time will serve to close this gap between you and the rest of the world. You won’t forget, but you will be okay. It feels so cruel to have had a miracle snatched away like this and it is – it was – it isn’t fair. But it isn’t over; this emptiness isn’t forever, and over the rainbow there is healing, acceptance and a future where in some sad way, this may start to make sense.

You will be okay. One day you will be okay.

To the woman who is yet to have the promise of a baby, the fullness of hope. To you: with the trying and the treatment and the injections and the supplements and the examinations and the pressure and the pain and the cost. You have done all you can and need to know that you are brave and strong; you are a woman. I am so sorry you are not where you want to be and I know it is so difficult to not know if you ever will be. But either way, it won’t always be like this. Life has things in store for you; you will once again live on play, not pause, and your days won’t always be a calculation of dates and bittersweet dreams.

You will be okay, one day you will be okay.

To the woman who wants so much to give her child a sibling, who feels both blessed and cursed by circumstance and biology. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it won’t always be so tough. How you feel is natural, so let go of the guilt and the feeling that what you are going through isn’t as valid as what someone else is. You can be happy for what you have while still feeling sad that things aren’t the way you wish. But whether you stop or keep going, your life will be full – you will be happy. However things turn out, they work out. One child or two: you are a family, you are love, you are somebody’s everything – you are whole.

You will be okay, one day you will be okay.

To the woman who wants to stop, who has had enough, who wants to yell until her throat aches that it is over, what you are doing is alright. You are not giving up or giving in, you are making a courageous choice for the good of everything else in your life. It is as brave to stop as it is to carry on, to recognize a limit has been reached – or surpassed.

You may feel at the end of your rope, at the lowest point of all, that there is nowhere else to go. But there is, my friend. Life can be unfair and fate can be cruel, but for you, the good stuff isn’t over, it is just changing shape. Although I can’t say how things will turn out, I can tell you that you will heal, and time and love will twist their way into this hole inside your heart and make you feel good again. You deserve to feel happy, and I promise – it won’t always be like this.

You will be okay, one day you will be okay.

Sometimes the clouds hide the sun and it is dark for longer than feels fair or natural. It can seem as though we are alone in this, that sadness passes everybody else but lingers on us. It doesn’t, though. Everyone has a story, and everyone feels pain. Comparing the inside of our lives to the outside of someone else’s won’t bring truth or peace; all we can do is try to realize our own happiness, and release what we can’t control.

So although this may feel like the end, it isn’t. It is not the end of everything, and everything is not lost. I wish I could say how things will work out for you, but I can’t. I don’t know what your or my ‘okay’ will be, just that we will be alright in the end – we will find that place. Nothing stays the same, most especially people.

I can see you. Around the corner there is life, there is hope and there is love enough for everyone – you, me, all of us.