Being Carried Through Infertility

The Footprints In the Sand is a beautiful poem that has brought me peace during life's difficult moments. Kir at Kir's Corner shares her heart-wrenching story of infertility and how she too turned to that poem. It is a beautiful post and will inspire those who read it. 

Being Carried by Kir

"I was on the bathroom floor, curled in a fetal position, overcome with cramps and failure.


The sudden rush of blood had jolted me awake, but like any woman in denial I had resisted pushing myself out of bed. I waited for the second surge instead.

Another month of infertility.

Another cycle down the drain.

Literally.

I rolled to my back, the soft carpet cradling me in the hazy glow of my sailboat nightlight.

In the near dark, I glanced around at the seahorses, shells and pelicans situated on various shelves, the colorful, tropical prints of faraway beaches and destinations.


Tangible reminders, every single one of them, of what I had and where I’ve been.

Seeping out of me, proof of what I didn’t.

I was so used to running, chasing my own baby dreams.

Escaping to stunning places, one different than the next, but each of them offering me the warmth of sunshine, the refreshment of cool waters, the large expanses of sand.

On that floor I closed my eyes and imagined those spectacular vistas.

In Puerto Vallarta it’s rocky and coarse; on the Jersey Shore it scorches your feet as you sidestep tweens in bikinis and boys playing Frisbee, off the Gulf Coast of Florida it sticks to your soles like baby powder providing comfort from the heat of the concrete sidewalks.

And in Aruba, it’s so white and silky that it looks like a huge cloud sitting next to a blue sky; the azure brilliance of the Caribbean is dazzling.

The vacations were meant to refresh my soul, a time for me to take my sadness and disappointment and bury them deep in the earth, to leave my sorrow on those beaches and have the waves carry them away.

Places carefully chosen to heat the cold of my soul and readjust my eyes to beautiful things in life.

But infertility was sticking to me like sand; I could never shake it off.

Uncomfortable and bothersome, itchy and unwelcome.

Like these vacations, that at first seemed to shield me from unhappiness and give me joy, I would return to realize I had only shucked the shroud of pain for a short time, there was still plenty of it left inside me, like those granules at that bottom of my bags.

I would find pieces when I least expected it and need to clean it up again, washing it away with my tears.

My faith was wearing thin, my wanderlust was drying up, and my belief in good things was fading.

The thought of never crossing this expanse to the welcoming ocean reduced me to angry sobs soaking my bath mat and pushed me to my knees.

As I sat up, my eyes fixed on my favorite prayer.
The story of a man and his dream of footprints in the sand.

My last wistful thought before I dragged myself back to bed was so clear I almost heard it out loud.

The realization enveloped me like the sand, sea and sunshine.

“I know I am being carried”.

Photo Credit: elliotmoore.