Pssst…Hey, Momma-in-Waiting. Yes, you.  You’ve cooked up the most delicious dish for today.  You get compliments on it and are asked for the recipe but if truth be told, you barely remember cooking it.  Instead, your mind was focused on what this Thanksgiving Day brings to you – a whole lot of anxiety and sadness. You’re a Momma-in-Waiting on Thanksgiving.

You meet and greet family members that you haven’t seen in a while.  They are all excited for you to meet the new little one just born into the family.  You act thrilled (and you are) but deep down, you are also absolutely devastated.  You think, “When will it be my turn?”

As the day progresses, you take a moment or two to step outside and catch your breath.  It is tricky, you know; tricky to navigate the relationships that you have, to express joy and gladness over the new little one that is in your family, and to answer the best you can when folks start asking about starting your own family.

A part of you just wants to scream – I mean, SCREAM!  If only they knew how much you wish you could actually give them an answer or how often you research infertility, treatments, doctors, adoption, and anything else tangled up in your experience.  If only they knew.

Here you are on Thanksgiving.  You are told to be thankful.  You are expected to be thankful.  You feel guilty if you are not.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  While others are gleefully living their lives (or at least, it seems like it), you are stuck waiting for your life to move on.  You want to move on past this whole infertility/no baby/no pregnancy garbage.  You want to forget this whole chapter of your story was ever written, but you can’t.  Most of all, though, you just want to know that you will be a mother one day.

On this Thanksgiving Day where so many around you remind you of what they are thankful for, take time for yourself.  You don’t have to be thankful for what you are going through but it is important to notice it.  How can you not?  Even if you don’t want to remember this season of your life, your body, mind, and spirit will remember every single pain-staking decision you have had to make and every single tear you have shed.

Thanksgiving is hard, isn’t it?  If you are a believer, you know that we are to be thankful in all circumstances.  Ugh, right?  How can you be thankful for infertility?  The honest answer from this previous Momma-in-Waiting is that it is extremely difficult and maybe you won’t ever be able to be thankful for it, and that’s okay.  One day, you will recognize that you survived it.  That’s big.  That’s enough.

Pssst…Hey, Momma-in-Waiting on Thanksgiving. Yes, you.  Today might be a little rough.  You’ve got this.  Don’t be too hard on yourself.  Tomorrow is a new day and that is something we can all be thankful for.