Close your eyes.
Now, while they’re closed, I want you to map out the way you got to your locker everyday in high school.
Got it?
Okay, now, I want you to visualize what you would do when you got to your locker. Did you put books away, take them out? What was on the top shelf? Did you have a locker mirror on the inner door? Is that an old math quiz crumpled on the floor?
Got all that? Damn, you’re good.
Now, It’s first period…in your mind, I want you to fully go through your day. What period did you have science? What row did you sit in? When was that paper due?
Getting a little stumped huh? I would hope so, unless you are seriously stuck on high school. LOL Isn’t it funny how at the time, those routines were your very lifeblood? Knowing what class came after which, and the secret way to get into the band room were all important and things you knew like the back of your hand. You were a freshman’s greatest map, you could get them to class under 3 minutes with your detailed directions.
But now, eight years, ten years, and beyond years later…you probably couldn’t find the bathroom in there without pausing for a moment.
Knowing the way around this fertility thing is pretty much like an AP class. One that sadly some of our brown egg sistahs tend to forget as soon as they get their diploma. It took for an impromptu powwow session with a few of my older cousins for them to divulge the fact that they had paid thousands of dollars on IVF and taken bellyfuls of Clomid and other drugs. Thanks for letting me know…three years into being confused as hell.
But I guess that’s just how folk are when they are dealing with things that they don’t believe “their people” deal with. If you’re the first person in your family to forget how to get to Grandma’s condo, you’re gonna mapquest the hell out of that route and then eat the directions so no one will ever know you needed them. With infertility, most black women are so hard pressed to even admit that they have to deal with it, they quickly make decisions and research, do what they gotta do, and then plan the baby shower without telling more than four people what they endured. What a bootleg cycle.
If we so quickly brush our dilemma under the rug, then when that little one you finally get, suddenly has PCOS or secondary infertility, etc, they’re gonna feel JUST as alone as you did, if not more because they’re looking at you going, “well, my mom/sister/grandma never had these problems so what’s wrong with me?”
Don’t be selfish with your struggle. You never know who it may bless. Just because something is necessary now, and not tomorrow, doesn’t take anything away from its importance.
