OK to not be OK on Mothers’ Day: infertility and miscarriage

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I have so many mixed feelings about Mother’s Day. After my 3rd miscarriage – an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured my right fallopian tube – I was a wreck. I remember going to the home of some dear friends about a week after it happened. When they greeted me at the door, looked me in the eyes, and asked how I was I completely fell apart in their arms. I cried in their living room for quite some time. The hormones, the grief, the questions, the anger – it was all so much to hold and there were not many places to process it. Many women of childbearing age have trouble conceiving and, at the same time, it is often an extremely isolating experience. For years, while we were trying to get, or stay, pregnant I could not go to church on Mothers’ Day, had trouble as the day approached, and avoided picking out cards for my own mother and mother-in-law. Mothers’ Day was a public reminder of my trauma. It felt like Mothers’ Day opened the floodgate for celebrating everything I wasn’t but desperately wanted to be – without any space for that conversation. 

If you are finding yourself feeling alone on this journey this Mothers’ Day please know there are people who are ready to support you. Maybe the stories of others on podcasts like The Miscarriage Doula, Thrive (In)fertility, The Miscarriage Therapist, or Infertility Feelings (there are so many) – will connect with and support you. Asking your OBGYN about groups you can join is also a possibility. Finding a group or an individual therapist who connects with you and can hold ALL your thoughts and feelings (good, bad, & UGLY) is so important right now. I believe you will find that other women feel most (if not all) of the same feelings you do. Please know it is okay to not be okay on Mother’s Day.

 Heidi Gray is a therapist who practices in California. She focuses much of her work with individuals and couples who face challenges with miscarriage, infertility and postpartum issues.

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