I've sent my mom the letter via my brother (I asked him to print it out). It ended up being a 4-page MS Word document (plus a paragraph on the 5th page). Still no word from her via SMS to me. I imagine it's going to take time for her to bury the dream that she's been having for us. I hope the other half of my letter gave her comfort, because the first half talked about my honest feelings when it came to our infertility journey. It was REALLY hard to write the letter and I was on edge the whole day yesterday while waiting for the response.
In the end I contacted my brother via YM and asked him how it went. She said that mom had cried. I was so emotional during our chat in YM and I started crying, too. My bro helped explain to her that I wasn't blaming her and that I knew she meant well, but that I'd like to be supported not by her praying about a miracle pregnancy or by her telling me to keep on praying to get pregnant. I have given her more ideas on what to pray on in the letter, so hope that helps, too. My bro said that she must be sad when she read about our struggles and all the feelings that I had during the tough period of our infertility journey. I sent her an SMS yesterday, telling her that I'm thankful to have a mother who prays for me and that I love her and I ask her not to be too sad because we're doing fine.
2. Infertility and Relationships.
Sometimes I feel that infertility is a double-edged sword. When I was preparing to write the letter for my mom, I knew it would crush her, too. I don't want to crush her dream for us, but I felt that it must be done for the sake of our relationship. I began to feel our relationship cracking and I don't want to lose our relationship. I was struggling to try to find a way on how to crush her dream gently and I hope I have succeeded in doing so.
Other than that, here's also something I wrote weeks ago about infertility and friendship:
"Infertility is a tricky thing to deal with when you have a pregnant close friend whose pregnancy reminds you of your losses. As much as you'd like your friends to tell you as many parts of their joys and sorrows and as much as you'd like to tell your friends about your joys and sorrows, it's not that easy to figure out the fine line. The fine line where you don't want to burst someone else's happy bubble by telling them that their stories trigger very soft spots within yourself, but then again you wonder if you should let them know about at least some of them because you want them to understand your journey. The fine line where you wonder how much stuff you should tell your friends about your feelings because you fear that they are going to hold back sharing their joys because they don't want to hurt you, but on the other hand you don't want to miss all the lovely moments even if those moments trigger some pain within your deepest self."
It IS a shame that infertility is affecting those around me this way, but I welcome the lessons that it's giving me (and other lessons that it will give me in the future).
3. I found this article via an FB share and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it for so many different reasons so I'd share it here too: Confronting the Lie: God Won't Give You More Than You Can Handle.
4. A friend of mine gave me this challenge weeks ago and I've finally found my word for 2014.
My word of the year is “Disentangle”. I need to practise disentangling myself from any emotional connection or baggage so that I can take a step back and celebrate other people’s beautiful moments with them without drowning in grief when their beautiful moments are the ones that acutely remind me of what I will never have. I want to disentangle myself from those heavy weights that make me want to crawl or drown in my grief so that I can stand up and continue my healing journey.
Here's the challenge in case you want to participate: What Will You Choose For Your Word of 2014?
Last but not least, Happy New Year! Wishing you more peace, comfort, and healing throughout 2014!
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Good for you for writing (& sending) the letter. Sounds to me like you worded it well and I hope it will lead to a better relationship with your mother. (((hugs)))
ReplyDeleteTHANKS, Loribeth! I think it went well. She was silent for 2 days even after I sent her two SMSes, but after those two days of (probably) grieving on her part and processing the whole thing, she started talking to me again via SMS, so PHEW PHEW PHEW! :-D HUGs back!
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