Mother's Day

Ironically enough, I celebrated my six month anniversary of being at the fertility clinic on Mother's Day. The most challenging half year in my entire life, and it was marked by a day where we celebrate what I can't do on my own.

I'm not down on Mother's Day. I have an extraordinary mother, and she deserves to have a day completely dedicated to my siblings and I recognizing that.

But let me tell you, a fertility clinic on Mother's Day morning is a sad place to be. I looked around at all the other women in the waiting room and felt sorry for all of us all at once. On a day where everyone celebrates all those who've bore children, I silently celebrated that little group of us spending our morning at a fertility clinic desperately trying to.

And I also celebrated my own mother.

I could write a million blogs my whole life about how much I appreciate my own mother. I'm almost certain I'll never be anywhere close to the mother she's been to me, my brother and sister. The woman is the closest thing to superwoman that I've ever seen. By the time she was 25, she had 3 kids under the age of 2, and she rose to the occasion. She was a girl scout leader, a room mom, a Hands On Science leader, a field trip chaperone, a chauffeur in every carpool, a party planner. She'd buy us ridiculously cute matching outfits, documented every ounce of our childhood, took us on her own field trips, and made sure we went on an annual family vacation. The woman stenciled bears on our bedroom walls and made pinatas for our birthdays. She stayed up with us all night when we were sick. She packed our lunches and did our laundry. She always cooked us delicious dinner but would let us splurge and order pizza when we had our friends sleepover. She's been the kind of mom that I'll strive to be.

At the start of my fertility treatments, it seemed hard for my mom to talk to me about my infertility. It is a foreign concept to her as she never dealt with it herself. And it was hard for me because it was the first time she couldn't fix something for me. That no matter what she would say, it didn't always make me feel better and it didn't magically fix things.

But we hit a point sometime where that changed, and she became one of the best people to talk to. She told me it wasn't my fault. She said would support if we adopted. She would support whenever I decided to stop trying. She doesn't try to belittle or sugarcoat the hell out of things like other people sometimes do. My family did our Easter Egg Hunt the day after my polyp removal surgery. Yeah, the woman still does egg hunts for us. And my mom ran around the backyard hunting eggs for me like her life depended on it - since I couldn't run myself.

Motherhood just comes naturally to my own mom. I feel like I got that trait from her, despite my not being a mother. I think all the effort my mom put in to raising me has allowed to become the person I am today. I think without her making me play the Pollyanna game when I was little, I would've given up on having a baby a long time ago.

So thank you to my awesome mother. And thank you to all the doctors and nurses who continue to work very hard on helping me become one, too.