A Challenging Road to Motherhood

By: Dorothy Gauthier-Harapiak

May is likely one of the most beautiful months, filled with the hope and promise of spring and Mother’s Day – the hardest day of the year for me. As I reflect on the what-ifs of my life I am able to find ways to move past the pain of infertility and take pleasure in the best parts of my life.

In comforting my Goddaughter after her miscarriage a year ago, I finally began to heal my own pain some thirty years later. When she asked me to share my story with her it was with great pain that I did so and in the sharing I realized why it had taken me so long to heal. I had not talked that much about my infertility – in fact, I skimmed over that part of my life whenever I was asked. Now I realize I was stopping the healing simply by not sharing. It is in the sharing that healing begins.

I first married in 1969 and got pregnant on our honeymoon. My husband was not happy, and even though this pregnancy was unplanned, I began to plan and dream about holding my little one. Then on July 20, 1969, while I was home alone watching history unfold on the TV, the pain started. As the first man walked on the moon their famous words echoed the loss of my first baby, forever leaving it’s memory imprinted on my heart.

In the years that followed we began to yearn for children. Then, as if wishing made it so, I was pregnant 4 more times and miscarried each and every one. Repair surgery was necessary and shortly after, I was pregnant again. As the months passed without incident we began to believe we would finally have a baby. Unfortunately, I miscarried for the last time and my own life was in jeopardy. It had been a girl. She would be the last. As I looked to my husband for comfort, I saw and found a man who could not face me, the distance between us widened as I struggled to find comfort.

In the middle of my last night in hospital I sat alone, unable to sleep – I picked up a pen and paper and began a letter to the daughter I would never hold. I named her Stephanie Ann and I just wanted to let her know she was loved and she would never be forgotten. Writing to her, naming her and letting her go, was the single most important step I took for my own healing.

Then one day I met a child of a friend – she was adopted. I realized then that I too could love an adopted child. Once again the yearnings began as we started the adoption process. However in the end my husband pulled back his support and the process was ended. Our marriage ended too. I moved on alone into the 80’s.

My childbearing years ended in a hysterectomy at 31. I looked in vain for support; back then unlike today, support groups were few or non-existent. So I wrote … my pen and I traveled together through life’s curves.

I remarried in 1985. Our life was good and the pain of the past was neatly buried, or so I thought. The happy years passed much too quickly and just when I wasn’t looking - life changed yet again. Again I started writing, working through the landslide of grief triggered by the passing of my father and later my husband to cancer. In 1999 I became a widow.

Although I never had children of my own nor had the joy of adoption, my life has been full to overflowing. My stepchildren, their children, my goddaughter, friends and family, visitors and total strangers have all helped to fill the void of living without children. And now, I recently remarried another wonderful man. His two adopted children have already become mine in my heart. I am indeed a Mother of sorts!

Infertility isn’t what I would have planned for myself thirty years ago; now there are so many other options, and support, but life is still very good for me. Giving birth is the easy way to motherhood when it works, living with infertility makes the journey to motherhood more challenging to say the least - but not impossible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dorothy Gauthier-Harapiak makes her home in Manitoba. She is a group facilitator, writer, artist, public speaker and hospice companion volunteer and specializes in workshops that provide a hands-on approach for using writing exercises and art techniques to assist in the healing of mind, body and spirit. This summer, Dorothy and her husband Terry celebrate a dream come true with the opening of a B&B and healing retreat “Rainbow’s End”, Gull Lake, Mb.