Your grief is ruining our joy

I met my husband during a time when the world as I knew it, was crashing and burning around my ears.

My mother was slowly losing her battle with bowel cancer, after putting up a gallant fight for just over a year.

My older sister and her gorgeous autistic daughter were moving back home to Sydney after escaping a narcissistic husband and father in Central Western NSW.

And my reception job at a small building company was being made redundant after many screaming matches between the owners, a father and son team, behind closed doors, over the struggle to pay their suppliers – yet it was still okay for the son to take off to the US to give his kids a white Christmas – with my superannuation money.

On the 29th June 2015, my brave beautiful mum lost her battle, and we as a family were left lost and broken, not just trying to come to terms with Mum’s death, but our own individual situations.

My sister was trying to pick up the pieces of her life and settle my niece back in Sydney. Our oldest sister and our father were battling health problems. And as for me – well, I was not only grieving, but anxious and jobless at the same time.

Fast forward six years later. My family as a whole, despite still enduring their own individual battles, are doing well. I married the man who Mum foretold would be my husband. I am happy employed. But together we are busy with a new challenge: infertility. This challenge, among so many others, is of course one that I wish with all my heart that my mum was here to support me through. What daughter doesn’t want her mother around to offer support to bring her next grandchild into the world?

It’s not unusual that other families – those who are lucky enough not to have experienced a significant family loss, and those who are lucky enough to have their children easily and naturally - don’t understand what you are going through. You’re really going through double grief: as a motherless daughter, and a childless mother, and because you’re missing the child whom you just know is meant to be, it’s only natural that grief for your own mother is going to come roaring back tenfold.

My husband’s family is such a family.

They are extremely blessed to have both the matriarch and the grand-matriarch still with them. Extroverted and boisterous - kids are a-plenty; celebrations are frequent, and they will take just about any excuse to party. They love being together, they adore the finer things in life, and indeed, they love life itself.

In comparison, I come from a small, introverted family. I love animals more than people. I love my solitude. I am introspective in nature. Huge gatherings jangle my nerves at the best of times – and spending time with a family like my husband’s has them generally jangling at full throttle.

So despite my apprehensions about it all, and with IVF added to my usual day-to-day life in recent months, and despite having just recently been in hospital having my egg collection, my body still pumped full of IVF injections, I attended the wedding of my husband’s youngest sister.

The ceremony was lovely; set against the backdrop of beautiful Sydney Harbour, with the reception held at a glitzy waterfront function centre with the bride and groom making their grand entrance, arriving by boat from their photo session on Cockatoo Island. All was going well until my husband’s tender hearted cousin came bounding up to say hello. Excitedly she gushed about how wonderful the day had been, praising everything from the flowers, the music, the wedding party, and of course, her beloved cousin, the bride. Then came the comment that, unbeknownst to her, would smash my already edgy state of mind.

To my husband she said: “It’s so wonderful that your mother has been able to see all four of her kids married.” Looking at me, she added: “Wouldn’t you agree?”

I opened my mouth to reply. My husband hugged me. Then I burst into tears.

“Ohmigod, what did I say?” The cousin looked mortified.

“Unfortunately that wasn’t the case for Kristie; her mum passed away four months into our relationship,” my husband explained.

His cousin wrapped her arms around me. “Oh darling, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed.

The story came pouring out. In my high emotion I added that I'd just had an IVF egg collection and I was feeling emotional and edgy as it was. I assured her that it was okay; that she couldn’t have known that I had lost my mum. We then had a chat about our IVF experiences; she had had thirteen rounds before her precious little girl was born, and was currently trying to give her a sibling.

“I promise you darling – it will happen! Just don’t give up,” she urged me. “I know that sounds a bit rich from someone like me who already has a baby – but I’ve been where you are, and I promise you, all the waiting... it’s all going to be worth it. I think you’re doing a wonderful thing, coming here tonight for your sister-in-law. If you need to chat, you can come and sit at my table.”

I thanked her and gave her a hug, and she went inside to the reception. I sat with my husband for a few more minutes on the front steps, until his oldest sister came out to check on us.

“Is everything okay?” She patted my husband’s shoulder, as if in sympathy. Condescendingly she added to me, “It’s all right.” She looked from my husband to me, waiting for an explanation. Both of us were too tired to try and explain. In the end she said to her brother: “Take her into the bridal suite if you want until she calms down, and then come out and sit with us.” Patting his shoulder again, she left.

I was mortified.

While my husband knew exactly what had been going through my head during that whole scenario with his cousin – and that he knew full well that my grief attack had not been something that I had seen coming – the sympathetic little pats on the shoulder from his sister had not been lost on me:

She’s at it again. She’s trying to steal the limelight by making it all about her. She’s trying to put a dampener on such a happy occasion for our family.

Later on during the night, I made a point of telling my mother-in-law what had happened, and apologising to her. She was very gracious and said that it was all right.

An hour or so before we left, I could feel a migraine coming on, made my excuses to the relatives we were talking to, and went out for some fresh air. I still felt emotionally fragile. All I wanted to do was cry again. By the time we finally left, I was physically and emotionally drained, and the migraine that had been looming over me like a storm cloud for the last three hours finally took hold of me with full force. I felt so guilty for letting my grief get the better of me. But my darling husband couldn’t stop praising me. He said under the circumstances I held it together extremely well. I'd had a giggle with other guests, I’d had a dance, and had covered my butt and apologised to his mother- despite having nothing to apologise for. Grief happened. Didn’t it?

Three nights later, my husband was staying back late trying to finish some work when he received a text from his second youngest sister, inviting him to their mum's birthday dinner that coming Thursday night. He accepted for both of us. But then she called him.

“Mum was really embarrassed that Kristie was crying at the wedding. And we all thought it was disrespectful to Mum to do that.”

“It happened out of the blue! It’s not as if she could help it,” my husband exclaimed. “And she did apologise to Mum and explain what happened.”

“We're really concerned for her mental health. Isn’t she seeing someone for her grief?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Hmm. Well anyway, I rang to let you know that I really don’t want her at Mum’s birthday dinner. I’m pregnant. I don’t want her crying in front of Mum when I make the announcement.”

“Okay. Well if that’s the way you feel, I’m not coming either.”

“Don’t decide now, have a think about it and let me know tomorrow.”

“No worries. I won’t be coming. See ya.”

I don’t think I had seen my husband so livid before. As for me - I'd already had a taste of the family’s insensitivity on a few other occasions. But now, I was beyond hurt and angry. I was, quite simply, just done.

What put the icing on the proverbial cake was a text message my husband received from his sister after getting off the phone to her: “Please keep this between us so it doesn’t cause problems. I am very concerned.” Why I’m sharing this story is, quite honestly, for awareness. Grief bullies are out there. Unfortunately I believe grief bullies exist, primarily out of fear. They have no concept of what it’s like to experience a significant loss — and I include IVF embryo transfer failures in that loss as well. As far as they’re concerned, we are interfering with their happy equilibrium. Our grief is ruining their joy.

I asked my counsellor what she thought. She reminded me that weddings are highly emotional events in themselves  no matter what other feelings may be swirling around; that I was still most likely feeling emotional after being pumped full of hormones for a couple of weeks — and, in the first instance, I had already been extremely edgy about attending this wedding as I had been apprehensive about 1) if the presence of mothers, grandmothers and babies would trigger me, and 2) how I would feel after my egg collection. Pressure had been placed on me in the first place — if I was still feeling unwell after my procedure and couldn’t stay at the reception, I would need to pay the family $200 for my meal!

So what did I learn?

- If your loved one loves you, he or she will understand if you have to cut yourself off from negative people and difficult events to look after your well-being.

- If you’re feeling vulnerable and you’re erring on the side of caution about attending a big expensive family event such as a wedding — bow out gracefully. They might be upset with you, but at least they won’t come back to you later making threats about reimbursement.

- You can’t change what others think about you. Neither should you want to. To do that would be at the detriment of yourself, meaning that you would have to change, to satisfy them! If they have a problem with how you feel, then it’s their problem, not yours!

And lastly…

- Grief, and infertility — which of course, in itself is definitely a type of grief — is a personal journey. No one has the right to tell you what you can and can’t do as you travel that journey and there is no ‘one size fits all’.

"Stay away from people who can’t take responsibility for their actions & who will make you feel bad for being angry with them when they do you wrong."

- www.themindsjournal.com