It just ain't fair

Us infertiles of the world are often known to lament that life is not fair. It's not fair that we can't get pregnant when any garden variety crack whore seems to have more than mastered the process. It's not fair that some of our husbands will never be given the gift of fatherhood. It's not fair that our maybe-never-to-be-born children will never know the loving parents that eagerly await their coming into being.

And tonight, I've just faced another example of how it's just not fair that I'm not a fucking mom yet.

Thanks to the relocation of Sludge and DeeDee, Hubs now gets to spend much more time with his daughter. In fact, he sees her every second weekend, every Wednesday night, and every Sunday morning. Talk about your improvements!

This then allows him to take a more active role in her schooling and helping with her homework, something she so sorely needs. As is evidenced by her entire approach to homework, but that's a whole other story.

Tonight she was preparing her line for the play they're doing in French class. Tomorrow. So she jots it down on paper, says it out loud, and I know she has it wrong.

So we go through her line and I ask her if she knows what it means. Not a clue. So I break it down for her, word by word, and gradually she comes to understand it.

Then we start at the beginning of the play since she's never really read it and has no idea what the entire thing is about. She doesn't know what the most common words mean. It's just never stuck. Fortunately, the entire piece is all about repetition, so eventually she comes to recognize words more and more for what they are and that boosts her confidence. But I'm amazed at just how little she knows of what it is she'll be presenting tomorrow.

Once we've dissected every part of the play, we go over her line again. I help her with pronunciation. I break the hard sentence down into five pieces so she can remember them. I give her little devices to help her remember both the sentence and the pronunciation. And when she's got it down pat, I send her off to bed.

And that's when the unfairness of it all hit me yet again. This is one of the reasons I so desperately want a child of my own - to help teach them, to see that sparkle of delight and satisfaction in their eyes when they realize they've gotten something right. That they're learning. To be a part of that process just seems magical even now, and I'm one step removed.

I picture our child sitting at the table, Hubs and I helping with the homework. Fleshing out what they're learning in school with additional information and cool facts. Like we do now with DeeDee.

That's close, but it's not the real deal. As much as I love feeling as though I am having a positive influence on that girl's life, I'm not her mother. She has a mother, one I never can (nor do I want to) replace. So yet again, I feel cheated.

Nothing about infertility is fair. Nothing about glimpsing the potential of what would likely be if you WEREN'T infertile is fair. And it all really pisses me off.

Je suis desolee.

Then again, maybe there's no such thing as fair after all. Lots of people have things that they can claim aren't fair in their lives too.

Pfft. Reminds me of a great line I heard on wb...fair (fare) is something you pay to get on a bus.

Ain't that the truth!

So now it's off to bed where I'll try to slough off my anger at the unfairness of it all. 'Cause tomorrow is indeed another day, and I've got to make sure DeeDee still remembers her line in the morning.

And that's your daily dash. How's your diva doin'?