Empty Wombs + Ripe Bellies

“Are you here for the prenatal class?” she asks, quickly looking into my eyes, in a hurry.

I wasn’t.

I let the painful reminder sink to my gut before quietly answering, “no.”

Looking down at my belly, she smiles, “Oh, of course not.” Then quickly walks away, leaving her words buzzing through my head.

Of course not.

Through hazy eyes, I find the correct room I was looking for, Continuing Yoga.

***
Earlier that day, I had called my Fertility Doctor with a simple question. The woman who answered the phone quipped, “Are you a pregnant patient?”

I wasn’t.

I paused.

She couldn’t have known my backstory. I was just another patient to her. She couldn’t see my empty belly or notice my pained expression. She didn’t know that my period had come this morning and sent me into a complete tailspin. How could she know all of that? It wasn’t intentional. She just wanted to connect me to the correct nurse. She was just doing her job.

I cleared my voice and answered, “No.”

“Great,” she said. “I’ll put you right through.”

“Great,” I responded blankly.
***
“How long have you been trying?”

I hear the question from friends and strangers alike. My longing for a child has become a well-versed story. But over these two and half years, I have learned to end the conversation on a hopeful note. It’s easier for them that way.

But the truth is, hope is not usually what I feel.

***
“She’s such a wonderful child,” she said. “Won’t she be the best big sister someday?”

“The best,” I respond, swallowing hard.
***
Last weekend at my doctor’s appointment, I let the stresses of our life collide in a raw conversation with my new doctor.

“Was it hard conceiving the first time,” my physician asked softly.

“It wasn’t,” I tell her, slowly at first and then the words become smoother, fresh rain gushing down an ancient waterfall.

Our conversation continues naturally with my daughter playing on my lap. She listens to me with her eyes and nods quietly. “Let me know if you need to talk,” she responds.

No advice.
No cheerleader pep talk.
No wishes.

She just listens and offers to listen again. It was exactly what I needed at the moment. I leave her office feeling less crazy than I entered.
***
After our doctor’s appointment, we go to the grocery store. We are out of bananas and more importantly, coffee creamer. “Is she your only one?” the man in the grocery line asks.

“Yes,” I tell him blankly.

“No more?”

“Nope.” I’m not sure why my answer needed reiteration.

I do not want to hear his thoughts about small and large families like the man in the grocery line last week. I am sure he means well, but I can’t today. So, I don’t. I turn my back and face forward, handing June a chocolate bar. My pain becomes her gain. She unknowingly grins and says, “thank you,” surprised.
***

I am not sure when it became okay for strangers to comment about my empty womb or my friends’ ripe bellies.

No one tells you that when you reach the childbearing age, people will seek you out from all corners of the earth to comment on your body, your family and your being. Their words, while not always spoken with malice, becomes a pin in your already deflated balloon. Poked, again and again, you can literally hear the air (and as a side-effect, your courage) leaving you.

I try to regulate these conversations with the truth. I wonder, if I describe the medications I’m on, the tests I’ve done, the longing I have, will the realities frighten people to silence?

But at the end of the day, I still believe that my womb should not a topic of conversation with strangers.

We would not randomly ask a man in the grocery store line about his erections. That would be rude, an invasion of his privacy. The injustices of being a woman are not limited to equal pay.

Every day there are small reminders of my struggles with infertility. I don’t need strangers probing questions or concerns to heighten my experience. Please recognize, there are more interesting parts of me than my womb.

But still, these questions and comments will continue. They will continue until we normalize this topic. They will continue until we look strangers knowingly in the eye at nine months of pregnancy and blankly tell them, “do not comment on my ‘waddling’ walk.”

They will continue until we have the courage to tell them, “I am struggling with infertility, do not comment on these topics with women you do not know.”

They will continue until we spread the unified resolve that our wombs belong to us.

So let us spread the message together.
***
“You can do that when you only have one child,” a distant friend says to me, off the cuff, unknowingly. She wears her children like trophies in perfectly dressed clothing. “You’ll have more someday and your life will be crazy, too.”

“Someday,” I smile. She can only see herself in the conversation, my pain, again goes unnoticed.

Someday.