Pain and loss and healing

Something I get asked quite often is if having Miles takes away the pain of infertility, miscarriages, false starts and failed adoptions.  The short answer?  No.  The longer answer?  It makes all the pain WORTH it...but is sure doesn't take it away.  

We were in Utah on August 22nd.  I didn't make a big deal about it, in fact I don't think I even mentioned it to anyone...but my heart knew what day it was.  And although that isn't the day the twins ended up being born (at least we don't think it was) that was the day we had looked forward to for months.  As that day inched closer our excitement grew and when everything fell apart the crushing blow left us teetering on the edge of an emotional crevice so deep it was frightening. 

I remember all our losses...all our close calls...all our heartache.  I think I always will.  Time numbs the pain of them all...but every now and again something during day-to-day life will snag and it's like the loss just happened yesterday.  The pain surfaces and there is little I can do to stop it.  

I love Miles...and I LOVE being a mother.  Experiencing this pain and heartache does not make me less of a mother/person...it makes me more.  I appreciate every. second. I have with this tiny little miracle.  And on days when the pain of loss creeps in, surprises me and leaves an ache deep in my chest, I hold my Miracle Miles a little closer, kiss him a little more and feel deep reverence and humility that I have him to help heal the parts that ache.  

I think many people expect the very act of adopting a child to be a cure for infertility - physically and emotionally...if I have one more person tell me "watch, now you'll get pregnant because you've adopted" I will snap.  So when adoptive mothers express sadness over their losses or they struggle to grieve the fact that they will never carry life inside them...people think "well that's not quite right".  Just because we've finally gotten our miracle doesn't make us forget the struggles we went through to get him.