So many people say how words can’t describe parenthood.
To me parenthood post infertility is like those Makit & Bakit stained glass sunkatchers. In the beginning the shape is sterile, empty. We sprinkle a little loss, a little joy, a little resentment, a little hope into each part of our experience. We bake it for a year, or two, or ten months, or ten years and it is transformed into, well, a pastel unicorn.
There are many words to describe parenthood. Most people are too lazy or scared to reach down and touch that part of our hearts. Usually it takes a traumatic experience, like a failed embryo transfer or an adoption that did not go through, to find the courage to travel the scary emotional landscape. Although, as those of us who have gone there know, it is in this place anything is possible. The words happen.
Becoming a parent for me is not about posting every detail of my days on Facebook, or thinking about what school my child will go to when, or whom he resembles. I don’t pine over the things I can no longer do as easily as I could without children like shower, write, talk on the phone, or go to the movies. For me, parenthood has been a lot of staring at my son. He is here. He has traveled far and so have we. We have a story like no one else’s. I wouldn’t trade all of the heartache and loss we ever felt conceiving him for anything. The deeper the pain, the deeper the joy.
Right now, our beautiful son is resting on a Boppy with a tan striped t-shirt on. His knees are bent like a grasshopper and his arm is gently draped against his bare belly. His breaths are quick, his legs twitch in a way that if he were standing I know he would be dancing. This is my parenthood. Noticing. Each moment a new word is born.
