If Not Better, At Least Different

Shortly after our first IVF failure and chemical pregnancy, a friend told me that it would make me a better person. I wanted to knock her over the head with a bowling ball. Who wants to be a better person? That's what Mother Theresa is for. Or Princess Diana. Or Michael Jackson. Or--I don't know--someone who isn't me. I am JUST FINE the way I am, a little too self-absorbed, I grant you, but still. (And I was just kidding about Michael Jackson, and sort of about Princess Diana. If you couldn't tell.) I wanted to be a mother, like her, screw a better person.

I don't know what "better" means. But as I start my last fresh cycle and what I consider the beginning of the end of my fertility journey, I know this: I wouldn't undo any of it.

I know. That is some F*&ked up s$%t. But here's the thing: I don't know where I begin and infertility ends anymore. I don't know what kind of person, what kind of mother, what kind of partner I would be if I hadn't lost a part of myself to this. And gained a part of myself too. I am not the same person, because of what I've been through.

I used to think jealously about what moms knew that I didn't, about who they were that I wasn't. But now I see parenthood as something separate from me, something I may never experience. And so I see it more honestly than I might have. Perhaps a wiser woman would have seen these things, these things that make her an individual, apart from motherhood. But I am not that woman. Parenthood was a destiny.

And now it's not. So I see it differently, like a hidden camera, for what it is. And I can see that it is easy to love and hard to live. And infertility has woven itself so tightly into who I am that I can not extricate, and do not want to. So I can say: I have lost myself to infertility for too long, and no matter what, I will never, never lose myself to parenthood.

I remember this cheesy quote from some years back, the kind you write in yearbooks. It said something like, "I am not like anyone else. I may be no better, but at least I am different." This is true. And in this, I can see infertility is a gift--not a death sentence. It made me different. And now, I want that difference, perspective, clarity. I treasure it. I am lucky. I am blessed. So maybe yes--I am BETTER. Better not than anyone else, but who I used to be.