UPDATE: You can now order one of the eCard designs in print at Cafe Press! Click here to view the card.
I can say from experience that Mother’s Day is the most horrible day when you are struggling with Infertility. You can’t go anywhere – church, the mall, family events – all remind you what you don’t have. You can’t turn on the TV. You want to put on a happy face for everyone and honor the mothers you know but really all you can do is cover your head and go back to bed. Hide and wait for this horrible day to pass.
I can feel it even now. Each year I remind everyone who reads my blog to remember childless mothers on Mother’s day. Tips on how to be sensitive and understand if they just don’t want to talk. This year I wanted to make some eCards and post some messages you might want to send to someone you know is going through infertility1. Only you know what your friend would prefer but I’ll say I really wouldn’t have wanted to have a phone conversation with anyone. Would these cards make me cry? Yes. But, I would have been crying anyways and the thought behind the message would have moved me beyond words.
eCards
Right-click and Save As.
Poetry
The Day I Hate Most of All
Some days I’ve learned to dread
More than all the rest,
Difficult to get through
I try my very best.
The day I hate most of all
Always comes in May,
It happens each and every year
We call it Mother’s Day.
In church they’re given flowers
At home a handmade card,
Dad making everyone some lunch
Kids playing in the yard.
Reminds me what I do not have
Instead of what I do,
A little one to give a hug
And say, “Mom, I love you”.
Tomorrow I will live again
Just let me mourn this day,
I pray that I can make it
Through another Mother’s Day.
~Susan Reardon
Infertility Poem for Mothers Day
I am afraid
To plant this seed.
The sun is warm,
The earth is rich and ready,
But the days go by,
And still no planting.
Why?
The springtime of my life
Is passing, too.
And ten years’ planting
In a willing soil
Have borne no living fruit.
So many times I’ve waited,
Hoped,
Believed,
That God and nature
Would perform
A miracle
Incredible but common.
Nothing grew.
And often times I feel
The mystery of life and growth
Is known to all but me,
Or that reality
Is not as it appears to be.
I have a choice:
To put aside this seed,
Leaving the planting
To the proven growers,
Pretending not to care
For gardening,
And knowing
If I do not try
Or plant,
And risk again
The well known pain
Of watching
For the first brave green
And seeing only
Barren ground.
He also spoke
About a seed,
The mustard’s tiny grain,
Almost too small to see,
But, oh – the possibilities!
Those who doubt,
Who fear,
Are not inclined to cultivate it.
But it was to them He spoke.
And God remembered Sarah…
Rachel…
Hannah…
Elizabeth…
The seed is in my hand,
The trowel in the other;
I am going to the garden
And the Gardener,
Once more.
Author of this infertility poem Margaret Munk
- You should only acknowledge infertility if the person has shared what they are going through with you. Never just assume. ↩
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