One hundred and thirty-four. That’s how many months I have been trying to conceive. Just over 11 years. But the years all blur together. It’s the months that matter. Because I’ve never stopped hoping, so I’ve been hopeful and then bitterly disappointed 134 times. I don’t cry every month, and not quite as often as I used to, but I still cry more months than not.
The thing is, I have two children. Two beautiful, wonderful, amazing children I was blessed with through the miracle of adoption. It really is a miracle that despite my body’s limitations and shortcomings, I can still be a mother. It’s a miracle that their birth parents decided to give us the most incredible gift imaginable. It’s a miracle that a home that was once painfully silent is now loud with running and jumping feet, sibling quarrels, and beautiful laughter.
My husband and I went through five years of infertility before we were able to adopt. We did a year of fertility treatments, none of which worked. It was a year that cost a lot financially and even more emotionally. I was a wreck that year, sobbing into my pillow so many nights with the deep, profound ache of longing to be a mother. I kept busy: worked, went to school and got my degree, had a lot of really great times with my husband. Our life together was a good one. But I could never escape that undercurrent of sadness and longing.
After the failed fertility treatments, we felt that adoption was the right path for us to pursue. We found an agency, got through the lengthy application process and the even lengthier waiting period. We had a failed placement, and then more waiting, and finally, we were blessed with a perfect little girl. Five long years into infertility, our dreams of parenthood finally came true. It was everything I had hoped it would be. In those first weeks and months of motherhood, I felt like the pain of my infertility was swallowed up in the joy of finally becoming a mother. I knew, without a single doubt, that I loved this precious girl as much as I would have loved a biological child. I knew she was meant for us, and I couldn’t imagine her coming to our family in any way other than adoption. We were able to adopt another child, a son, two years later, and we felt the same joy and love in his adoption. We realized with joy that this was the family we were supposed to have all along.
But I am still infertile. I still cry almost every month. I still have never seen a positive pregnancy test. I’ve never gotten to shop for maternity clothes or rub my hand over a belly that was holding the miracle of life inside it. I still wonder what it would be like to see my nose or my husband’s eyes in a child that we’ve made together.
That deep sadness and longing is still with me. And I’ve always hesitated to share that because I don’t want to seem ungrateful or give the impression that I would rather have had biological children. I can’t fathom having different children than the ones I have, and I cherish our adoption experiences. Adoption is amazing. It made me a mother–something I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to be.
Adoption doesn’t cure the pain of my infertility. But because of adoption, infertility also hasn’t taken from me of the overwhelming joy of motherhood. And that’s beautiful.
I will never “get over” my infertility. It will never be a “resolved” issue. It is part of me. But here’s the thing: I firmly believe that my longing for biological motherhood can coexist peacefully with the joy of having adopted children. Because I believe that the desire to carry a child is a profound and beautiful part of womanhood, something that I don’t ever want to deny, even if I could.
And I want to tell mothers who’ve adopted but still long to conceive that I understand. Even if other people don’t seem to. I understand that you love the children you’ve adopted more than life itself. That you would give your life for them. That they are perfect and exactly what your family was meant to be. I understand that love, because I feel it every day when I look at my own children.
But if you cry into your pillow some nights, with that old familiar ache, I understand that, too. And it’s okay.
