telling stories through poetry & personal reflections
I want Hope Gives a Eulogy to communicate the resilience + life still vibrant in the woman suffering infertility. You are more than the children you have never borne. You have life and can give it, motherhood or not.
You are more.❤
You are not the mirage. You are not infertility. You are not your expectations. Or your pain. Or your dreams that never came true. Or the life you never lived.
You are you.
And you are real.❤
The love poems in Hope Gives a Eulogy are some of my favorite. Because a love story faced with infertility is daunting. But that love story is also stunning in its resolve, commitment, and depth.
This particular moment in “California Redbuds” was one of the hardest in my life. It was like being in a tunnel of pain with no way out. It felt claustrophobic and numb and sharp. Infertility feels like being crushed repeatedly by reality.
After Ben handed me those redbuds, my heart soon collapsed on a friend’s couch (another poem in HGaE) and I just expressed my pain aloud. From the moment of redbuds to my friend’s couch (about 5-6 hours in time) I could breathe outside the tunnel again. And that April night was an incredible turning point for me.
Infertility is long, but healing is long too.
I hope the poems in Hope Gives a Eulogy see you wherever you are in your story today.
I learned to celebrate/rejoice over new, little life but what I felt was overwhelming loss. Baby after baby after baby while I heard no after no after no after no. This poem expresses the depth of that pain.
Infertility feels like losing your dreams and your life. And it also feels like losing your friends to motherhood itself.
Beautiful things cut deep when you’re suffering.
