Mothers Day is complicated.

Comfort in the is.

CONTENT WARNING: Fertility, Infertility, babies and the choice to be a mother.

I love my mum, and her mum, and her mum. I love that I stand on the shoulders of impressive mothers who birthed, raised, and survived so I could be here writing about my complicated feelings. I love the people in my life who are mothers who raise brilliant babes who I adore. I love the people who mother and mentor me, and those who birth and care for the projects I care about, who mother instinctively with their passion, care and commitment without ever having birthed a human baby.

We need mothers. We are here because of the mothers.

I always thought I would be a biological mum. That I would birth and care for a human that was genetically linked to my own lineage of impressive women. I’ve spent a lot of money, time, anxiety, tears and grief in the throes of infertility to try and make this vision a reality. There’s very little that’s shared about these feelings. But there are pockets, when you go looking, of solidarity. Of people navigating the same two-week life cycle and the inexplicable body bending grief. People are talking about it. Quietly. Brave souls are voicing these truths with a commendable vulnerability. Thankfully.

But, people aren’t talking about the limbo moment I currently find myself in now as a thirty-eight year old woman who is struggling with the duality of two possible realities. I don’t know if I will have a baby. I don’t know if I want to have a baby. I change my mind every single day.

So, Mothers Day is complicated, the two paths get lit up like runways at night, and I feel the full expression of having to hold two truths at once. I feel deep love for the mothers in my life, and I feel deep frustration for the confusion. It’s an emotional whirlwind, bump pictures and nostalgic parenting posts equally delight and deeply sadden me. That’s one thing that always infuriates me, no one really ever talks about the rage of infertility and parental longing. The anger at seeing pregnant people, the body lurching disgust at being around people with children is visceral. I have left, avoided, and often not been able to hold space for my friends with kids for many years because it’s too fucking hard. The rage subsides, but it’s real. It’s a grief that is complicated…I mean, what grief isn’t, but it’s an intangible grief for what could’ve been, a version of your life that never existed in the first place. It’s grieving the hope.

Grieving hope is the hardest thing ever.

And now, this moment that I’m in right now, where I’ve come through the centre of infertility, where my marriage ended, where I’ve done a lot of self-work and had a lot of therapy, and am happier and more mentally well than I’ve been in years, has allowed me to get really quiet about what I want…and I still don’t know. I think we believe that we should ‘just know’ what’s right, that following our gut will mean there’s a resounding fuck yes or fuck no, in our bodies, lately, they’re the decisions I want to make with everything. If it’s not a fuck yes, then it’s a no. But what are we meant to do when it’s a fuck yes and a fuck no equally, at the same time? We don’t talk about the duality of some decisions. We’re alone in the duality. Both realities of being a parent, or not being a parent, right now could be true for me. The truth is, whatever unravels, whatever runway I land my plane on, will come with a level of sadness and grief for what could’ve been…and what I’m coming to realise is that’s okay.

The duality, the not knowing, the complicated messiness, is okay because it’s real and it’s true and its mine.

So, Mothers Day is complicated. It will always be complicated. That’s just the way it is. And as my beloved Rudi would say, “Why do we bother saying it is what is, when we could just say, is.”

The duality is real. It is.

Is.

If you’re in the duality right now, I see you, I acknowledge you and the big feelings coursing through your body and bones and brain. I hope we both can continue to find comfort in the the is of it all.

Go well. Persist through.

Love Claire.