My successful pregnancy is not an indication of my healing from loss. My lack of healing from loss is not an indication of ungratefulness for my successful pregnancy.
You’d have to walk in my shoes to understand. Those who have will surely tell you that infertility sticks with you, even after you’re no longer infertile. It’s a mental prison that robs you of your innocence concerning the natural joys of life like childbirth. There’s grief for the loss of my babies and then there’s grief that this even happened to me. It’s trauma. It’s psychological.
Author’s Personal Collection/Brittany Jones
The fact of the matter is, you’re not healed from anything no matter what it is until you can no longer be triggered by it.
I still find myself triggered more often than I’d like to be and I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m still on the journey. This is the journey to freedom. What does it mean when you need freedom from something you’re no longer bound by? It means that the real freedom that you need is freedom from yourself. I am no longer infertile. Because I have a successful pregnancy, I am not bound by infertility and can no longer claim that title. However, I still need freedom from it because I internalized it. I gave it a home; a space to dwell in my mind.
If expelling the trauma of infertility weren’t a big enough battle, there’s also the guilt. These feelings of guilt stem from telling myself that I don’t have the right to still be sad because I’ve been blessed with a successful pregnancy and we’re looking forward to a successful labor and delivery of our baby girl.
Isn’t she enough? Most would question.
The truth is, she’s more than enough. With that said, it isn’t her job or responsibility to heal me. She is not a filler. I will never limit her to that. She is a blessing of her own, uniquely set apart and not to be minimized as a mere sense of compensation for what’s been lost. Brielle is so much greater than that. She is loved, honored and accepted in her own right; not in anyone’s idea of filling some void. This void I have requires the love of myself and the work of my own. I’m going to love myself a lot deeper. I’m going to treat myself a lot better. I’m going to talk about my feelings honestly and unapologetically. I’m going to give myself grace. I’m going to be patient with my heart. I’m going to honor my womanhood and my essence and embrace my role on earth until I achieve genuine acceptance, restoration, and wholeness for what my body once did to me. The journey continues.
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