When I was a kid growing up in the 70s, I had a poster of a black cat hanging from a tree branch with a little yellow bird beside him saying, Hang on, baby, Friday’s coming!” As an educator, I’ve mimicked that little bird quite often, telling myself to just hang on until Friday. But this week, I’ve been saying that to myself for a different reason, not to encourage myself to just make it through the week, but to prepare myself for what is coming. You see, Sunday is Mother’s Day. And for years now, for me and the millions (yes, millions) like me, this week is always a struggle.

During the early years of my career, I was living life to the fullest. I was single, out on my own, and living it up. I had no intentions of ever getting married. I told myself I didn’t want kids, either, but in the back of my mind, I knew I really did.  I loved my school kids. Loved them like they were mine, disciplined them like they were mine, and spoiled them like they were mine. I loved them so much that I even thought about adopting a child from time to time, when I was older and ready to settle down, but I pushed that thought away and just focused on living it up. Then, when I was 31, I met the man who changed everything. I tried to run him off…I really did…but he wouldn’t leave and somehow managed to wiggle his way into my heart. And when he did, faintly, very faintly, I thought I began to hear a clock ticking. We married three years later, when I was 34 and he was 38. And the funniest thing happened…the minute that ring was on my finger, I caught baby fever. That little “tick tock” I had tried to ignore for the past three years suddenly sounded like the “boom boom boom” of a big bass drum being pounded right in my ear. I had to have one. And at our age, it needed to be soon.

I come from a family of three girls. My parents were both one of five siblings. And my grandparents had several brothers and sisters as well. My grandmother used to joke that all my grandfather had to do was hang his pants on the bedpost and nine months later, she had a baby. But for some reason, it didn’t come that easy for me. And let me tell you, I was NOT accustomed to that. I had always been able to do whatever I set my mind to do. But not this. So after 6 months of seeing nothing but one red line on those little sticks, I went to the doctor.

That began four long, hard, painful years of fertility treatments. We tried tried everything that was financially feasible for us to try – surgical procedures, medication, hormones, dye injections, AI, even wholeistic medicine – but no baby. With each new treatment my hopes would soar, only to be dashed month after month by those single red lines. Just as we were trying to figure out how we could afford to try IVF, I got the call.

It was 3:30 in the afternoon on September 12, 2008. I was about to walk into the library to join my colleagues in a faculty meeting when my phone rang. It was my doctor, and it was very unusual for him to call on a Friday afternoon. However, I had done my monthly blood work earlier that morning, and I tried to tell myself that he was just calling me to give me the results. Deep in my heart, though, I knew he was calling me with bad news. And he was. He was a dear, sweet man and we had developed a strong doctor/patient bond over the past four years, and his voice was sympathetic as he told me my estrogen levels were post-menopausal, and that there was nothing more we could do. For some reason, my body had produced an unusually low number of eggs, and they were all gone. I would never be able to have a child of my own.

I don’t even remember hanging up the phone. I was stunned, shocked, in disbelief. I was only 38! How could I be post-menopausal? Too young, too young! I had gone through too much for it all to end with a simple blood test. I barely remember walking into the meeting and taking my seat with my team. They had been with me throughout my entire journey, and they knew instantly something was wrong, although I had not yet shed a tear and would not for hours afterward. I was too dazed to tell them, too numb to move…I don’t even remember a word that was spoken at that meeting. My principal tried to get me to go ahead and go home…because after going through fertility issues herself, she knew the look. I couldn’t, though. I was frozen to my seat. The drive home was a blur. I remember being relieved when I got home that my husband had not gotten there yet, because I knew when I told him I would fall apart. So I called my mom. And I fell apart anyway.

It was like being kicked in the gut, having my heart ripped out of my chest, like being deprived of all oxygen, drowning, all at the same time. I felt like every child I had ever dreamed about had died, every ounce of hope and joy snatched away from me. My empty arms physically ached to the point I could hardly bear it. I wanted to go to bed and never wake up.

We spent that weekend grieving, locked up in our little house alone, trying to come to grips that it would only be just the two of us by ourselves, alone forever. By Sunday afternoon, we were able to start thinking about other options, and by Monday morning, I found my hope and determination again. We were going to adopt.

That started another, even more frustrating, journey for us. We did our research, contacted several adoption agencies, and by January, had chosen one and started the process. I kept dreaming about a baby boy with his daddy’s blue eyes, or a dark-haired baby girl like me. Our agent quickly dashed those dreams, however, telling us the chance of being able to adopt a child who looked even remotely like us was very slim. She also told us the adoption laws in Tennessee were not friendly to adoptive parents, and that if we made it through the strenuous approval process and were able to take a baby home, that the biological parents had up to 3 months to change their minds and take the baby back. We were discouraged, but we still moved ahead. The first set of paperwork they sent us was over 30 pages long, and we had to include letters of reference from multiple people, essays about why we wanted to become parents, maps that showed the distance from our home to the nearest schools and hospitals, and of course, a check for the $350 application fee. Once that was completed and we were deemed “suitable” to adopt, we were told that it was time to get busy and get out there and find ourselves a baby! I was a little confused and perturbed at that…if we had to find our own baby, why did we need an adoption agency? Why did we agree to pay them the ridiculous amount they were going to charge us to do this?

Nevertheless, we moved forward, and two days later, received a another packet of paperwork that was considerably over a hundred pages. And it was invasive! We had to answer questions like, “What bothers you the most about your partner?” “How many times a week do you have physical relations?” “If you could change anything about your partner, what would it be?” I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what those questions had to do with our ability to parent a child. And because they made me so uncomfortable, I put it off for months and focused on getting our house ready for the home study, in which an agent would come to our home and deem it safe enough in which to raise a child. I began to develop this resentful feeling…why was it that any drug addict, any teenager, anyone unfit to be a parent could have a child on their own while we were struggling through a process that was tedious, expensive, and totally unfair? Yet, we carried on.

In the meantime, we began to put it out there that we were interested in adopting a baby. Almost immediately, everyone I knew became baby radar systems. Everyone, it seemed, knew a person that was pregnant and “had no business raising a baby.” No one understood why we couldn’t just go get a baby. We were encouraged to foster, but I knew that I would eventually have to give up the child when the biological parent was deemed “fit” enough to get the child back. No way. I knew that if I ever got attached to a child, I wouldn’t be able to give it up.  I sure didn’t want to be the next national news story in a custody battle I couldn’t win. That wasn’t for me. I was growing more and more frustrated when my husband came home with news.

Twins, he said…a boy and a girl…due in a couple of months. An acquaintance of his had told him about his wife’s cousin, who was a teenage mother already with a 3 year old who had developmental disabilities. He said the girl was struggling just to raise her toddler and knew she would not be able to adequately parent three children. He sent his wife’s phone number home with my husband and said she wanted us to contact her. So we did. Cautiously, but by the end of the call, my heart was leaping. She said she had told this young lady about us and how desperately we wanted a child, and the girl wanted to give us her babies. It was almost a done deal, she said. I knew better than to get my hopes up, but up they were. I called our adoption agent and asked her what to do. She said all it would take is for the girl to have her lawyer draw up papers granting us sole custody of the children while in the process of giving up her rights, and the babies would be ours. I couldn’t believe it. I shouldn’t have believed it. But my empty arms ached so badly I couldn’t help myself.

I called this lady back and told her we wanted the children and would agree to pay all lawyer fees and any further medical expenses she incurred throughout the rest of her pregnancy. She said she would get back to me a couple of days later after talking with her cousin. We waited on pins and needles for three days, but no return call. So, I contacted her. She told me she was still trying to get in touch with the girl and would let me know as soon as she talked to her, but not to worry…the babies were ours. This went on for a week or two, and in the meantime, I was happily planning which room we would use for a nursery, what we would name our children, what they would look like…all the things expectant mommies obsess over as while waiting for the child of her dreams. I talked to my insurance company about adding the babies to our policy, to the adoption agency about speeding up the home study process, to our family and friends about helping us raise the funds we would need. I was talking to our contact every couple of days, and she would give me the latest news about doctor’s visits, expected due dates, how the mother was getting along, etc. She started talking to me about doctor bills and what the mother was going to need to help support her while she was waiting for the children to arrive. I had my checkbook ready! But there was something in the back of my mind that told me something was off…I had asked and asked to speak to the mother directly, but I was never given a phone number or even an email address. Alarm bells should have been going off like fireworks in my head, but when you’re in that desperate state of mind, you don’t think like a normal person.  My husband began to get very suspicious and wouldn’t agree to send any money, which made me furious. He was just being stubborn, I thought…where was his faith?! Although I refused to admit it, I knew something was off. Finally, the night of a charity event that we volunteer for every year, I texted my contact again, after not hearing from her for almost a week. Oh, I forgot to tell you, she said…the girl couldn’t wait any longer for money so she was giving the babies to someone else. I was stunned, although I knew I shouldn’t be. Everything about this had screamed “scam” but I was so desperate for a child, I was blind to that realization. Besides, my contact was trustworthy, so I thought, because we knew her! She was married to my husband’s co-worker, for Pete’s sake! I broke completely down. I could not stop crying. I went home and went to bed for three days straight. The feeling was worse than suffering a death. It WAS a death, actually…the death of every child I had ever dreamed about holding in my arms. I was DONE. Done with it all. No more. My heart, and my sanity, couldn’t stand one more blow.

But soon, I became angry.  Angry at the liar who sucked me into this fantasy, and angry with myself for being stupid enough to fall for it.  And I wanted answers.  So when I finally pulled myself out of bed, I researched and dug until I found the expectant mother’s contact information. I knew her first name, and was able to locate her on social media through her cousin’s page. So, I messaged her. I told her I still wanted to adopt her babies, and if she would just contact me personally, we would work everything out. No more than an hour after I messaged her, her mother called me. She told me they were both touched by my heartfelt letter, and had it been earlier in the pregnancy, we definitely would have been candidates for her grandchildren. However, as it was, her daughter had already selected adoptive parents through an agency in Memphis and had made arrangements months before. She was very upset that her niece had orchestrated this scam, and told me the girl was a compulsive liar who was planning to leave her husband and needed money. She was very sorry and humiliated that her own sister’s child had taken advantage of our situation for her own personal gain.  She wished me all the luck in the world and told me she would pray for my husband and I to find the child that was meant for us.

But there would be no child. At that point, I was so hurt and disgusted by everything that I threw away the adoption paperwork and cancelled our contract with the agency. I knew I would not be able to live through another disappointment like that again. Adoption had come to mean to me nothing more than legalized baby buying.

And so began the long process of healing. It is an ongoing, never ending process. And still to this day I do not “do” Mother’s Day. (Or baby showers.  Just stop with the baby shower invitations. Seriously.) Most days, I’m fine now, but Mother’s Day is just too painful. Although I know our pastor will make a concentrated effort to recognize every woman in the congregation as a mother of some sort, the cold hard truth is, I’m not a mother and never will be. And I can’t tolerate the sympathetic glances and pats on the back. No way. I’m not putting myself through that. So, I “disappear” on Mother’s Day, from social media, from my cell phone, from television, from people. I want to be out in the middle of our big ole river somewhere way upstream where there are no boats, no houses, and nothing remotely similar to a human being so I can sulk and lick my wounds in peace. My family understands. My mother knows why she doesn’t see me on that day. It’s ok with her. It’s just one day, she says.

Although it IS just one day, my stomach churns up in knots a full week before the actual day. It’s become a week of torture and dread for me. While I should be glad for the opportunity for some solitary time alone in my favorite place on earth, I get really ticked off that I feel like I have to. I can’t turn on the TV, browse through Facebook, surf the internet, or even go shopping without a big fat reminder that I am not a mother. I become ill-tempered, depressed, and sometimes physically ill just thinking about the Sunday coming up. No one wants to stop and think how much pain the words “Happy Mother’s Day” cause people like me. I know they’re not trying to be insensitive on purpose, but when someone assumes I’ve given birth just because I’m female, I want to slap the slobber out of them. We’ve become so politically correct and overly sensitive to everyone’s feelings now…but it seems like those struggling with fertility issues have been left completely out of that loop.

A word to the wise from someone who just might eventually lose it and pop you a good one…if you have to ask, don’t. If you don’t know for sure, don’t say it. And for Heaven’s sake, mind your business and do not ask ANYONE when they are planning to have a baby.  I can’t tell you how many blue-haired little old ladies I wanted to throat punch for telling me I’d better get busy having kids because I was certainly no spring chicken anymore. And when you have a disagreement with a teacher, absolutely under no circumstances is it ok to say, “You don’t have children, do you?” There is NO situation, no reason whatsoever for anyone to EVER utter those words.  Let’s face it…at my age, I’ve most likely been teaching longer than you’ve been a parent, and in some situations, longer than you’ve been alive.

Please understand that I am in no way desparaging mothers or the celebration of motherhood.  Mothers are everything that’s good and beautiful in this life.  My mother is my confidant, my comforter, my very best friend, and I have the sweetest, most precious mother-in-law in the world.  Mothers are worthy of our honor and should be celebrated.  But why just one day?  Seriously…why can’t we honor our mothers every single day and not make a big deal out of it one day a year?  Here’s an idea…why don’t we throw out “Mother’s Day” and have a “Woman’s Day?” Let’s celebrate ALL the things a woman can do, not just their ability to produce a baby. And remember, you don’t have to be a mother to love children. I’m not a mother. But I love every single child that walks through the door of my building. And although that has been my single, blessed, saving grace, it does not help when people say I’m the mother to many.  I know I am…I try in every way to be a mama to my students.  But no matter how well-meaning those words are, they do very little to salve my wounds.  Some cuts run too deeply.

Someone you know is stuggling, or has struggled, to conceive.  One out of every five women on this earth are unable to have children.  Millions of us are members of this horrible club we’ve not had a choice but to join, for whatever reason.  I know I have nothing to be ashamed of, but it is shameful to me that the one thing I haven’t been able to accomplish is the very thing women were put on this earth to do. Although society has made a great deal of progress in erasing the stigma that brands infertility, we’ve a long way to go in our efforts to be inclusive and sensitive to the needs of the barren.  We don’t talk about it enough.  When I say “we,” I mean those of us who can’t conceive, or those whose babies never took their first breath.  We don’t talk about it because we don’t want to take the attention away from mothers who have every right to be celebrated.  We don’t talk about it because we’re afraid people are going to think we’re just trying to garner sympathy for ourselves.  We don’t talk about it because we’re afraid to admit there’s something we can’t do.  We don’t talk about it because the pain that comes with those conversation absolutely crushes us right down to our very souls and steals away our ability to breath.  It’s easier not to talk about it and to go on pretending everything is fine.  But, know this…WE. ARE. NOT. FINE.  Especially during this time of year.  So, I’m going to talk about it.  I’m going to shout to the world that for the members of the Empty Arms Club, Mother’s Day is not a day of celebration….it’s a day of survival.  And I beg everyone who reads this to please, while you are celebrating your Mom Sunday, say a little prayer for me and my infertile sisters and brothers.  We’re happy for you, Mama, but we’re hurting.  We hope you understand why we’re not celebrating with you.  We don’t want your sympathy or your patronizing words; we want your empathy and your understanding compassion as we just try to make it through the day.

So, to all of my infertile friends out there, I say, “Hang on tight, baby…Sunday’s coming.” It’s not going to be pretty.  You’re going to cry ugly tears and scream ugly words.  You’re going to hide under the covers and refuse to get out of bed.  You’re going to be insanely envious of all those who get to stand up in church and get the pink carnation while you remain sitting trying to make yourself as small and unnoticable as possible.  Unless they have lived it themselves, people are not going to understand and they’re going to look down their noses at you because you’re being selfish and insensitive toward mothers.  But you know what?  That’s ok.  Not that you need it, but you have my permission to do whatever it takes to survive the day.  You are not alone, Sister.  I’m right there with you, crying out to God and asking why.  We are unable to leave our legacies behind through children.  God help us leave a legacy of sisterhood and kinship to each other so that those who follow in our lonely footsteps may find solutions; and if not solutions, then a kinder, more compassionate world that recognizes all women, not just for having children, but for the differences they make in the lives of others.