The Darkest Time of Year and the Return of the Light: An Infertility Ceremony

The winter solstice has just passed. The darkest day of the year is over and the light is returning. For many, this remains an incredibly painful time of year. Not only has 2016 been a heavy and depressing year for many — humanitarian crises, political nightmares, discrimination and extremism on the march, even our celebrity heroes dying in droves — there is a kind of small, personal, and usually private sorrow that hangs over the holiday season for those who are trying unsuccessfully to have children. The winter holidays, especially Christmas, the tradition with which I was raised, is all about celebrating children. Especially the wonder and miracle of an anticipated child.

Over five years of infertility I developed an internal calendar, one marked by monthly cycles of optimism and despair, punctuated by the cruelest days that remind you how yet another year has passed with failure and our exclusion from one of the great human experiences: Mother’s Day, my husband’s birthday, Christmas.

For five Christmases, my husband and I thought we would be pregnant or have a baby to celebrate. Last fall, our fifth IVF cycle failed. Our reproductive endocrinologist advised us that he saw no point in us continuing to do cycles with my eggs. Because of all our failures and because of no obvious other cause, he concluded there was probably not something wrong with the eggs per se — there was some invisible, unmappable genetic flaw with me that meant I could not have children.

I felt invisible, erased, enraged. Our infertility had been of the more invisible type all along. I had never been pregnant aside from one fleeting chemical pregnancy. There were no miscarriages to mark as losses. No real diagnosis to rally around. Just a gaping maw of nothing happening. Our instinct when someone is in pain is to ask, “What happened?” What do you do when the answer, over and over and over again, is “nothing”?

At the end of my fertility journey, I wanted nothing more than to be seen. My husband and I had decided that the best option for us was to pursue egg donation. (Quite unbelievably, we did not ultimately need a donor but that’s a different story and one we had no idea would unfold at this point.) Before that happened, I needed desperately to be seen, be acknowledged, and be held by the community of my closest loved ones who had held me up during the darkest times.

Just after the solstice last year, I gathered our parents/the baby’s grandparents, my closest sister, my aunt, and one of my best friends for a ceremony I cobbled together to mark the occasion. There are precious few resources for how to grieve infertility, especially within community, so I want to give this to infertile couples and their loved ones as a resource or an inspiration. I believe that just as every infertility journey is unique, each ceremony should be unique to be meaningful to the couple. I’ve linked and footnoted my sources and inspirations to contextualize the choices I made and encourage anyone to tailor it for themselves. It is my Christmas gift to you; my gift of solstice — and solace — to mark the turn from the darkest day to the coming of the light.

Infertility Ceremony

<Scene: A living room. There are tea lights arrayed all over the coffee table and in five clusters around the room.[i] Attendees gather: sit in a circle in the living room amidst the unlit candles.>

Introduction:

My mom: Thank you all for being here. Today we’re here to mark Anna and Randall’s journey through infertility, to honor the loss of Anna’s genetic contribution to the children, and to light the way as they prepare to build their family with an egg donor.

Let’s join hands and start with a short meditation to bring our thoughts fully here.

<two minute centering meditation; end meditation, let people open their eyes>

“To everything there is a season: a time to embrace and a time to stand back; a time to sow and a time to reap; a time to laugh and a time to weep; a time to hold on and a time to let go.”

Anna and Randall (infertile couple):

Our time to weep has been long.Our time to sow had ended.

Our time to let go has begun.

Let this moment be the New Year for us.

Now is our time to embrace what we have gone through, to embrace each other in love, and to open our arms to a new way to make our family bigger.

Symbols:[ii]

Planter

Anna: In this darkest time of the year, at the end of the year, New Year, it’s time to bury and burn our grief. In this planter, we have tokens that symbolize our loss and grief: a fertility totem from my stepmother, a saint pin from one of my friends from an infertility support group, the Mother’s Day cards I received from people who knew, and the only positive pregnancy test I’ve ever had. I love them and I can’t hold on to them forever; it’s time to let go.

You’ve all brought (or sent) dirt from your homes.[iii] And with your help, I’m going to throw the first shovel of dirt on to bury these losses and this grief.

Candles

Anna: We haven’t gotten to tell the world how much and for how long we’ve loved our children. We have been in the dark, often lonely and heartbroken, over our infertility — but have been held up and held together by you here.

Each one of these candles, each of these 120 candles, represents one egg — they represent each of the children we tried to bring to the world. Each of the five clusters represents the eggs harvested in one of our IVF cycles. We would have celebrated and loved any one of them so very much. With each candle we light, we bear witness to this wanted child. We acknowledge the hope, the loss, and the grief inside each of these months. We grieve the children who haven’t come, and the loss of the dream of them.

<Using boxes of pretty matches around the room, everyone starts to light candles as the next speakers talk>

Randall: We honor your pain, your perseverance to keep trying and to keep showing up at work in the midst of your heartbreak. The hundreds of mornings of charting your temperature; countless doctor’s visits; the dozens and dozens of vials of blood you offered for testing. The opinions, second opinions, online research, the honorary degree Anna received in reproductive endocrinology. The untold early morning monitoring visits, dozens and dozens of self-administered shots, physical discomfort, and emotional, hormonal, psychological distress Anna went through while going through five IVF cycles.

Reading by my aunt: “Wishing for You, Wishing for Me” by Heather Travis

I’ve dreamed of you my entire life. I wished for you. In fact, every wish I’ve made for the past seven years has been for you, my child. I wished when the clocks said eleven eleven, when the first star appeared, when an eyelash fell to my face, on birthday candles, shooting stars, wishbones from the turkey, every coin into a fountain and even silent prayer.

I wished to tell my husband, your father, we had created you — that we had finally done what seems so easy for others. I wished to feel your feet kicking in my belly. I wished to watch my body change, to watch others watch my body change. I wished to tell grandparents you were on your way. I wished to change our office into your nursery. It would have been circus themed.

I wished for spit up and sleepless nights. I wished for the noises you would make in the room next to ours. I wished for first teeth, first words, first steps and the other firsts along the way. I wished to see your father’s dimples on your smiling face. I wished to make your meals, to feed your body and your soul. I wished to teach you to cook, to dance and to sing loudly in the car. I wished to read you books, tell you stories and teach you how to draw. I wished to walk you to school, ride bikes together and cry with you when you got your heart broken for the first time. I wished to see my husband become the amazing father I know he would be. I wished to watch him with you, to see him reflected in you. I wished to see you grow, to see you become you. I wished for all the good, the bad and the ugly that comes with becoming a parent. It all would have been worth it, for you.

I need to stop wishing for you though; wishing for you almost broke me. Wishing for you hurts too much. Each wish is silently followed by “why?” Why does my body fail me? Why me? Why us? Wishing for you makes me feel I have failed as a woman, as a partner to my husband and as a daughter.

We tried everything available to help find you. I was uncomfortably poked and prodded. Endless procedures and pills were administered. I documented every day, every change, every opportunity for you to come along. I wonder, was it enough? Am I enough?

I know now, I can no longer wish for you. I need to say goodbye to you, my child. I need to make new wishes.

I wish to have to have more good days than bad. I wish to feel complete as a woman, in body and soul. I wish to reignite friendships and to start new ones. I wish to stop feeling I have failed as a wife, woman and daughter. I wish to stop burdening my husband with my overwhelming sadness over losing you, over and over. I wish to stand on my own two feet again. I wish to buy gifts for the special children who are in our life with only joy rather than guilt and sadness. I wish to attend a baby shower for dear friends and family without spending an hour parked on the side of the road on the way home in tears. I wish to feel less like an outsider with my girlfriends.

I wish for friends and family to see the difference between selfish and self-preservation in my actions.

I wish to live in a world where those without children aren’t seen as less than, selfish or odd. I wish people would stop asking, “Do you have kids?” as one of their first questions when meeting. I wish if they did ask this question I would be able to answer it without feeling like I was punched in the heart. I wish marketers would recognize all women and not just moms. I wish to feel complete for simply being me.

I wish to embrace all the possibilities of life without you. I can use your closet for more shoes. I can retire earlier, I can sleep in every weekend and I can have furniture with sharp corners. I can write the books I have always wanted to write. I can support my friends with children in their times of need in ways only a person without the responsibility of their own children can. I can do and be many things without you. I wish I knew this when I wished for you.

I wish for no one to go through what we’ve gone through. But knowing sadly, they will, I wish them to know the light at the end of the tunnel may not be what you thought it was going to be, but it is a light nonetheless.

Although my wishes are different now, you will always be in my heart. I will see you in my dreams and in the faces of the children around me. You are impossible to forget my child. The wishing and years of searching for you have changed me forever. Your imprint on my life by absence is fundamental, but I must stop wishing for you and begin wishing for myself. Goodbye, my child. I love you.

Transition:

My mom: In this darkest time of the year, at the start of this New Year, it’s also time to welcome back the returning light. With each candle we light, we come out of the darkness of grief and emphasize the love represented by the desire for Anna and Randall’s children. Using that love to light the way to a bright future for our family.

Reading by my dad: “On Joy & Sorrow” by Khalil Gibran

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater thar sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Anna: As one of my good, wise friends tole me recently, first we bury things, then we plant. We have a young evergreen cypress. The cypress has been used for centuries as a symbol of mourning. We’re planting it so it can grow big and beautiful in the same pot where we buried our grief in the soil from your loving homes. We’ll then transplant it in our garden to always have it as a reminder of the joy that can grow from our sorrow.

Special Candles:

Until that time, I asked you to bring a special candle to represent your vision for our future. I want to invite you to each light your candle in turn and you’re welcome to share any words you want to as you light it.

<Each person lights their special candle and says a few extemporaneous words>

Conclusion:

My mom: Let’s join hands again. We’ll close the ceremony the way you close a yoga class.[iv]

Bring you hands together at your heart. The divine light in me honors the divine light in you. Namaste.

Afterward, everyone stayed for potluck, for which more family joined us.

Notes:

[i] We had a habit of lighting tea lights of hope for each harvested egg in our IVF cycles. Sometimes our family also lit candles for us during our two-week wait.

[ii] Contributions I asked everyone to bring: a plastic baggie of dirt from their yard (I did not explain the purpose of this beforehand) and a special candle symbolizing their vision for our future.

[iii] Not everyone could attend in person; we connected two people by webcam. Although of course it was best to be able to hug and cry with people who were there, don’t feel limited by who’s in physical proximity.

[iv] I am a ten-year yoga practitioner and trained teacher.