I tweeted this beautiful, real article earlier today. It was something that I benefited from reading, especially after my earlier post regarding shopping for the Munchkin’s back-to-school gift. The fact remains that I actively parent two boys; I do not actively parent a girl. Sometimes I get really down on myself about this fact. But I’m normally okay, especially when I read great pieces such as that to help me remember my current place in life as the awesome mom of two awesome boys. And so, my tweet read:
Oh. This made me cry. Probably write on it later this week.
With the link to said article, of course.
Awhile later, a twitter/blog friend replied with:
What is really sad – is when you struggle with not being able to have kids.
Mmm, I just love dismissal in the morning. I replied to my twitter/blog friend, stating that I’m a birth mother. I’ve also experienced a miscarriage. I’m probably not ever going to understand that, referring to the inability to physically have children. I’m now going to let that twitter/blog friend off the hook because I’m not quite certain she ever caught on to the fact that I’m a birth mother.
But I’m going to talk about this need for one person’s pain to be “sadder” than another’s pain. It drives me insane. And I’ve seen it floating around some forums lately. Not just adoption either. Random places. Like forums in which we talk about cloth diapering. Apparently I’m supposed to think about it right now.
The writer of the article hit on the fact that no one ever discusses a preference of gender aloud for fear of the exact judgment that was just thrown at me. “At least you can have kids.” Yes, I can. And I did. I have two amazing boys that daily make me laugh (and, sometimes, cry). I actually do have the blessing of a daughter despite the fact that she’s being raised by other parents. I am blessed beyond measure. But when we were first pregnant with our youngest son and we began to ask ourselves whether we really “wanted” another boy or girl, man, we were chastised. Not just me! My Husband received a few unkind words as well when he talked about having a little girl to snuggle and protect.
As the writer of the article said, it’s not that we’ve ever been disappointed with our sons. She said it best:
I apparently had: “gender disappointment.”
I disliked that term. I wasn’t disappointed that Finn and Oliver were who they were. Those kids made me beam 20 times a day. What I felt now was more like mournfulness. I knew I was lucky, blessed. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that a long-held dream had been lost.
And, it’s true. Because of the adoption of my first born, my only living girl, my dream of a girl has been lost. I am thankful that she was given my middle name and that the family name will be carried on in that way. I am blessed by her family on a continual basis as I have contact and my boys will know their sister. But I’ve lost that chance. It’s gone. We’re not having any more children in any possible way because of my health. And that’s the reality we live.
Perhaps the sting wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t so convinced that the baby we lost to miscarriage in 2006 was a girl. I don’t know. I’ve experienced so many forms of loss. I never know which is what and how it’s talking through experience and so on.
Trust me. I’m not trying to get up on my high horse and say my losses are “better” and more “real” than the losses of others. They are my losses and they are all tied together. The adoption, the miscarriage, the girl issue. It’s all one big ball of loss and I am unable to untangle the mess of what is what and why x makes me feel z and y makes me feel 123. The thing that gets me is that while I’m over here trying to sort through my own losses, to make sense of the tangled web I’ve woven, others are free to tell me, “Yes, but (enter “but” statement here).”
I’m certainly not going to walk up to any of my friends who are currently battling fertility issues and say, “Yes, it’s sad that you can’t conceive but you know what’s really sad?” And then launch into my story. Friends of ours are experiencing this battle right now and my heart is literally broken for them at this point. I want nothing more than for them to be parents. And I’ve felt that guilt, as I write about my boys and my daughter and my miscarriage and my grief and my loss. But I’ve realized that my reality doesn’t alter hers nor does hers alter mine. We’re each living our own reality and we’re struggling in our own ways.
I ramble when I get worked up. We know this; this is nothing new. Truth be told, I’ve come to expect statements like these but even with that expectation, it still smarts. I wanted to come up with something much more in depth and philosophical about how to handle situations like these but, well, that’s all I’ve got right now. It smarts. I’ll live, of course, as I have lived through all the other statements that have attempted to dismiss my reality. And maybe someday I won’t feel that sting. But right now, I do.
My name is Jenna. I blog here, 
