This is my story

My life for the past three years has been a living hell. Ever since I decided I wanted to conceive my first child, and my husband and I embarked on what would be a horrendous and devastating journey, I have become a stranger to myself. The past few years have destroyed me. My husband could see it, everyone could see it. I became an empty shell.

After years of trying, we conceived a pregnancy that was over before we ever even had a chance to absorb it. After emergency surgery, I lost not only my pregnancy and part of my reproductive organs, but I lost my will to really live. I was already enduring dreadful news that there was damage to my fallopian tubes which had caused this devastation, and would continue to obliterate our chances at parenthood. It was all too much to take.

I have continued to risk my life in a sense, hoping to somehow miraculously conceive a viable pregnancy before it's too late for me, age-wise, mainly because at this time we have been unable to afford even just one cycle of IVF to try for just one child. We still do not know if we will ever be able to make IVF happen, and I am already at an age where my fertility is degrading and my chances of miscarriage are way up there. My hopes are and have been at rock-bottom. There are no words to describe the pain of what infertility and loss has done to me. I cannot properly put it into words. Every day has been a living hell. Seeing women at the store with pregnant bellies has been like a kick to my stomach, baby showers springing up at restaurants I happen to be at would affect me so badly that I would have to go outside and cry because there was no other way to control my emotions.

And don't even get me started on friends and acquaintances getting pregnant again and again..... It has destroyed me every time another person in my life has posted on their social networking sites or called/e mailed me to announce that they're expecting AGAIN, and that many times they weren't even planning it. I want to be happy for them, I always do, but I cannot get past the grief of my own loss and my inabilities. I cannot get past the guilt that I have caused my husband to face a fatherless future just as much as I have caused myself to face a motherless future. I am currently enduring a particularly close friend dropping hints to no end that she is most likely pregnant with her third child.. She has brought two children into the world in the time that we have failed and failed at just one. This probability that she is expecting again is especially hard on me because we talk every single day, and I worry how this will affect my friendship with her, I fear I will become quite distant the more that I feel her fortune is repeatedly being rubbed in the face of my chronic misfortune.

I have had no coping ability through any of this. I have been depressed for years. There have been countless days when I could barely function, days where I didn't want to get out of bed.. Days where all of the bad news we received (loan denials for IVF while more friends were getting pregnant) took such a toll that I locked myself in a room alone so that I could just curl up on the floor and cry by myself.  I had nothing to help me deal with the pain. Talking never helped me, either. Talking about it to my husband, I feel like a broken record, it's nothing he hasn't heard before. Talking to my friends was a huge mistake over time. I stopped talking to everyone I know about our failed baby-making journey and about any IVF pursuits last summer. I have not spoken a word to anyone sense, and I feel better not feeling as though I am just crying to these women who don't understand and getting the "I'm sorry's" recited to me time and time again. I'm tired of letting anyone feel sorry for me. I prefer keeping it to myself.

This brings me to my therapy. I have seen many talk shows and opinionated therapists making different appearances talking about how 'unhealthy' it is to have reborn dolls and to use them to help cope with loss for a person or couple grieving loss or an inability to have a child. They were talking about how it's filling a void by forming an 'unhealthy' attachment to an inadament object. You know something? Having a realistic newborn baby doll does not give me any delusions that I have a real child, I am not shutting out the pain of what I face in my life. I am not denying that there will probably never be a child for my husband and I to raise. It hurts to admit that, it kills me inside. I have been trying to deal with it, and it has been something that I have not been able to get over at this time. It is one of the worst forms of emotional pain that I have ever in my life experienced. So no, I am not deluding myself into believing that I have "replaced" the real child I desire with a baby doll that looks real.

On the heels of another friends pregnancy announcement (the pregnant-friend count has to be at four or five since the fall alone), as well as just picking myself up from the HUGE heart break of another IVF center being too expensive for us, somehow I found a way to ease the pain even for a little while.

About ten (or maybe more!? I don't remember) years ago, I saw a beautiful "life-like" newborn doll in an ad, that I just fell in love with and had to have. I purchased Linda Webb's Emily newborn doll (Now named Emilyne or Emily for short ), and all of these years since, through many moves and many huge changes in my life, Emily has remained boxed up and with me. We are currently in the process of the third move in as many years. Not long ago, at the lowest point I have been in yet, I came across Emily's box while going through storage in preparation for our upcoming move next month. I opened her box since it had been so long, and I admired her for a while because after all this time she was still in perfect shape and just as adorable as ever. I picked her up, and that was what did it. The moment I held her in my arms, felt the weight of her little head in my hand, smelled the baby powder on her soft little face, I felt for the first time my spirits were lifting, and it felt comforting. It felt natural, and it made me feel better for that time. It was as though for that moment, I didn't have to suffer, I didn't have to dwell on how much life hurts nowadays. 

I decided at that moment that Emily would not go back in her box, packed away for another decade. Instead, I found a large basket I had sitting around with no real purpose, and I took some joy in going through some of my other boxes where I knew there would be some cute throw blankets that I could use to display with her. I was finally doing something that I was enjoying, and my mood was lightened. I wasn't sick with the thoughts that haunt me constantly about all we continue to endure.  

Make no mistakes about me, I am still in pain having friends pregnancies rubbed in my face, it still hurts and is difficult to accept when I think about 3-5-10 years from now and I do not see us with a child to love and to nurture. I will still have to face the pain and the ongoing depression if the next IVF consultation doesn't work out financially. These things will not go away just like that. But I have something that takes the edge off, something that helps calm me and keep me on an even keel. More even than I have been in a very long time. My doll does not cry or need to be fed, she does not demand time. She is simply there for me to pick up and cuddle, she is there when I need a pick-me-up emotionally. She is there for me to change her clothes and rearrange her beautiful display whenever I feel like it. If I go to Target and I see a cute little outfit or blanket that I would like for her, and that makes me feel good, I am going to get them because it puts a smile on my face for a while. 

To ease any curiosity, my Husband has been nothing but supportive since I have taken on this hobby. When I talked to him about how uplifting it is to make plans for my collecting/hobby/projects, and how good it feels to have this in my life, he said that I deserve something that makes me happy after all of the years of suffering I have done steadily. He feels that we all need hobbies and projects in life that keep us productive and happy, and he was so glad to see the change in my mood since realizing how good these doll projects have done my heart and my spirits. He agrees that working through my pain and enjoying the feelings these newborn baby dolls bring me are a form of therapy and coping that has been nothing but beneficial to me. My gratitude at my Husbands support goes on for eons, really.

If holding Emilyne for a little while, or changing her clothes and displaying her differently in her basket each day helps me cope with what I am going through, then I am going to continue to do what helps me cope with everything that has happened, and is happening. I have read that holding a life-like newborn can release the same hormone, oxytocin, that a new mother releases when holding or feeding her newborn baby. This is something that I may never have the pleasure of experiencing with a child of my own. Why should I be denied the experience in some form, if this helps me cope with my grief?

I have been reading up on the many ways that reborning artists create and modify dolls, and the many different customizations one can do to their dolls. I am making plans for Emily - whom will keep her given name because it just fits her - among the plans for the near future are to get a tummy plate and a heartbeat sensor to install on/in her. I would like to also look into a breathing mechanism to make her even cooler than she already is, in the future, as well. I would like to look into inserting a magnet behind her mouth in order to modify a pacifier to fit without the use of sticky tack modifications. Further down the line, I am thinking of looking into full length legs and arms, and work toward modifying that. For now, I am planning for Emily to be joined by a twin sister, the updated silicone version of the Emily mold. Hopefully this week, if all goes as planned, we shall see. And I am looking forward to that. It will be nice to have two little ones to find clothes and goodies for, and to plan little modifications for here and there. Maybe one day one or both of the newborns can get the beautiful, veiny/mottled paint effects that I have admired on so many reborns. For now, it will be nice to pick out an outfit and make plans for my new addition before the little one arrives. 

Where I stand now, my husband and I are about to go through another IVF consultation in hopes that this center will have a rate that we can handle for one cycle.

In the meantime, my reborn baby love is growing and I am hoping that maybe one day I can blossom that love into learning to create these beautiful life-like baby dolls. I would have to afford the hobby first, but maybe in time the thought might become a more than just a thought for me. And maybe then I can also create a nice little collection of reborns for myself as well. I used to make small OOAK clay babies and for a beginner, many people told me I had a knack for it. Maybe if I'm lucky, I can be HALF as good as the talented people whom create such amazing works of art with reborning. Maybe.....

For the time being, I have Emilyne to keep my heart holding onto loving and nurturing emotions I have nearly forgotten until just recently. And soon I will have her "sister" to join her.