My Ellie Moment

My love for the movie UP has transcended my love of all other Disney Pixar movies. Since its release in 2009, it has remained one of my favorite films. But, like all good movies, it hits differently at each stage of life. In 2009, I was newly engaged, head-over-heels in love, and the thought of living without my "Carl" was heartbreaking. The love between Carl & Ellie in the first ten minutes of the movie still lives deep in my bones.

The Carl & Ellie love is real in our house.

Fast forward a few years to 2013-2014 when I was a new mom to a baby boy. My lens for the movie was entirely different; my focus moving from the love story between Carl & Ellie (yeah, yeah, beautiful and whatever, I'm too tired for that) to Russell, the little boy longing for a father figure. The thought of my son experiencing that level of pain destroyed me. The love story had shifted, just as my life had shifted.

The next time I watched the movie, I found myself focused on Ellie, the adventurer. The movie never explicitly states, but implies, that Ellie either has a miscarriage and/or cannot carry a child. It had never affected me before, but this time, the scene with her sitting in the yard felt like a spear in the center of my soul. I felt a kinship to this character who never spoke a word.

 

I remember my Ellie moment like it was yesterday.    

In 2018, after over two years of trying for a second child, two years of hoping and praying, and heartache and disappointment, I got the phone call that would forever change my life. I was at work, on my prep with no students in the room, when my doctor called with the results of my tests and ultrasounds. I sat there, stunned, and the bell rang. Students flooded into my classroom while I was still trying to compose myself and the world was shattering around me. I remember going to pick up Holt from my sister-in-law's house after school, still in shock, and telling her that it wasn’t going to happen; I was never going to have another child.   

I had all of these answers; all of this information at my fingertips that I had wanted to know, and now I wanted to unlearn every bit of it. I wanted my blissful ignorance back. I knew why my son was premature. I knew why I was in pain and unable to conceive. I knew everything and I couldn’t hit the rewind button.

Clint came home from work to find Holt in bed and me sitting on the couch, deep in a bottle of wine, playing Super Mario Bros (I’ve learned healthier coping strategies since then, I promise). This was in late August, in the thick of fire season, and he knew I needed him to come home. I can’t remember if I demanded it or not, but he came home. He held me as I cried my heart out and eventually cried myself to sleep.  

I managed to drift through the week somehow, without sinking, but Labor Day weekend was approaching and the thought of sitting at home for three days was too much. I knew I couldn’t manage a weekend at home, living inside my head, so I did the only thing I could think of: I ran away. I spent an exorbitant amount of money for the only room left at the Beachfront Inn in Brookings on a holiday weekend and escaped with my 4-year-old.  

The weather that weekend was a perfect 75 degrees and we had an oceanfront room. Holt and I spent a full twelve hours at the beach on Saturday and that is where I had my Ellie moment; sitting in the sand, the salt-water wind against my face, feeling a painful peace. When I close my eyes, I can still go back to that place sometimes. The world has never been the same for me since that weekend. Everything shines through a different lens. Holt had the time of his life while I healed just a little, just enough to get by.  

I started therapy early in 2019 that helped me work through most of my grief around infertility and gave me better coping strategies, but there are still days that I am a mess. My heart still breaks every time Holt asks for a sibling. In January, when I told him about my hysterectomy, he looked at me with excited hope and asked if this surgery meant I would finally be able to have another baby. I’ve gotten much better at those hard conversations. I am as healed as I will ever be, but I know in my bones that I will always feel like something, someone, is missing.

I waited for years for my miracle, hoping and praying that I would get pregnant “just in the nick of time” or “just when we stopped trying.” After my hysterectomy, when I allowed the finality to sink in, I had the realization that, if you’re lucky, you get one miracle in life and I already had mine. 

 

I wonder if Ellie ever got her miracle? 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


DISCLAIMER: Please, please do not think I am ignoring the fact that I have one healthy child throughout all of this. I am incredibly thankful for my miracle and I cannot imagine my life without him. He brings me the most joy (and all of the other emotions that come along with parenthood), but this post is not about him. He is a different story, a joyful story, for a different day. 

This post is about trying to function as a human after receiving life-altering information; about trying to be a solo-parenting mom when my heart was breaking. This post is about the suffering that so many women go through, silently, because it isn’t something we discuss in polite company, yet somehow it is still okay to ask women when they are going to have a(nother) child. 

In 2018 I stopped the polite conversation and began talking about it. If someone asked, I told them the brutal, honest truth. It was challenging and uncomfortable, but I made up my mind that I wasn't going to be silent any longer. Too many women struggle alone, in silence, and I'll spend the rest of my life speaking up for them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hysterectaversary!

Remember that one time I went to Stanford and had a super-complicated surgery? It’s hard to believe that was already ONE WHOLE YEAR ago. I am happy to report that, while I still have deep internal healing happening, I am basically 100% recovered and feeling so much better! Healing isn’t linear and there have been numerous setbacks in the past year, so I haven’t always been able to keep track of my healing like I thought I would. Sometimes I don’t even realize the progress I’ve made until I look back on previous weeks and months and it dawns on me how differently I feel. For example, I had my COVID booster shot on Friday, so this weekend I’ve been laying low with body aches and the weird “aching skin” thing. It’s a familiar feeling for me because I spent years of my life battling constant internal inflammation that left me with body aches and aching skin (except I didn’t know that any of that was happening inside my body, so I would just randomly, and frequently, feel like I had the flu...
Read more

Making plans, and other jokes about life.

2020 has been a solid reminder, every single day, that life doesn’t go according to our plans. In fact, so I’ve heard, plans are some of God’s favorite jokes. But this post isn't about jokes. It's not about COVID, nor is it your typical "end of year" post about all of the things we have to be thankful for this year. Nope. This post is about lady parts and disease. Proceed at your own risk. Last December, I had surgery to explore and confirm endometriosis in my lower abdomen, which resulted in the removal of a fallopian tube (see previous posts here and here ).  After the surgery, my doctor explained the state of my internal organs with the highly-descriptive “it’s a mess in there.” She was taken aback at the level of endometriosis she found, and she gave me the most incredible validation. She told me that, based on her surgical findings, she couldn’t believe I had lived with this disease for so long without seeking help. I’ve been in medication-induced menopause for t...
Read more

Cautiously Optimistic

So, after my giant pity-party the other day, it looks like I may be (finally!) on the mend! My CT results showed nothing remarkable, which was both relieving and frustrating. Even my doctor voiced her frustration that there was nothing fixable (and hearing her say that made my neurotic self feel so much better). My physical exam, on the other hand, showed nothing remarkable and that was a major victory ! My doctor was excited to see how much better my internal stitches looked, no swelling or other signs of infection, and NO ACTIVE BLEEDING. She said she is cautiously optimistic that I'm back on track in my recovery! Of course, I have no chill and immediately started asking about activity levels and such, so she sat down with me and a calendar and we walked through the different physical activities I can start doing each week throughout March and April. Have I mentioned that she's the best and I love her? The only catch is that I need to have no bleeding for the next five days t...
Read more