“I think a lot of it is coming back.”

I said this to my therapist last month. I had signed up for a community education course back in October that was being held virtually on memoir writing. I wanted to take a writing class and had initially registered for a fiction writing course. When I saw we were to read samples of our writing, I decided to switch gears and take the memoir class with the same instructor. I thought it would be a good kick in the butt to start writing my book. You know, this bestseller I have inside my head, it’s just that lounging in front of the TV at night crocheting a scarf has a lot more appeal than writing more words. Especially since lately my freelance writing has consisted of adverse reactions from medications, inflammatory breast cancer, and oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Riveting, and in the case of IBC, fucking depressing.

We were to send in a 1-5 page writing sample prior to class and in true ME fashion, I waited until the last second. I did a series of shitty stops and starts. I mean, truly, how does one begin their memoir? I decided everything I was writing sucked equally and decided to just think of one moment in my infertility journey that was particularly emotionally traumatizing for me. There was a lot to choose from but I came up with one.

I wrote about church. Because where else can an infertile couple feel so completely alone than in the very place you really probably shouldn’t? I wrote about the time, two months after dedicating my daughter when I walked into the church service and was caught off guard by another round of baby dedications. And while I had my own by that time, I still had a complete and utter PTS event.

I went back and read the post where I talked about Olivia’s own dedication and there are two photos of me up on the stage. And I can vividly see the discomfort on my face. I just couldn’t stop seeing infertility. I couldn’t relax because I was continuously searching the audience to see if I could find the face of a woman trying not to cry, or avoiding, or yes, even hating the couples up there with their babies and she just wanted one for herself. I had felt so exposed like I could feel the invisible accusations and I wanted to apologize for being up there in the first place.

I shut my eyes between writing this scene again. I went back to that moment mere months after our dedication when I walked back into the church and felt that electrical buzzing in my body to get the fuck out of there as fast as I could. In my writing, I tend to word vomit out as much of a story as possible, and this time I pushed myself to slow down and really stay in the moment. I pounded out the first draft and then I walked away, unable to do any more.

The next evening I sat in my office with some tea as I listened to seven other people read their memoir excerpts. I was the youngest in there by a solid 20 years and most were in their 60s and 70s. But when you read aloud to them the most emotionally charged piece you’ve ever written, something changes and suddenly you’re surrounded by fellow lovers of words, people who want to share their stories. All but two of us didn’t have any plans on anything other than writing their life story to give to their family. The other was a woman who was currently writing a book on her experiences of homelessness and mental illness. I felt shaky and out of breath the entire time I read.

“Wow,” the instructor said after a moment of silence when I finished. “I mean, this doesn’t sound like someone’s first draft. The emotion you captured here is incredible.”

“You brought us into your head,” another man replied, “I could feel viscerally everything you were experiencing.”

The whole thing was so much harder than I thought it would be. Being that vulnerable. I had never written from that viewpoint before.

A week later, we did the same thing, for part two. Second class, another snippet. I sat and sat and tried to start the damn thing again, but in reality, I just didn’t know where to begin this book. So I wrote another scene. I had initially started with a different one until I changed direction and the words started coming, faster than I could type.

In my blog post “Pregnant Infertile,” I was (barely) pregnant with Olivia for the Easter brunch and service at the church I grew up in. I realize now the irony of both scenes of intense trauma taking place in the supposed safety of a church, but there you go. I wrote about being surrounded by my loving family and their excitement over my new pregnancy and all I could do was slowly unravel, alone inside my head. The same thing. Write frantically for twenty minutes, wipe the tears, write a few minutes more, and walk away.

This time I went first to read my piece. I talked about my prior miscarriage. About my certainty that I was going to lose that baby too. The morning before the service taking another pregnancy test. My symptoms disappearing. I loved being the pregnant person. I hated being the pregnant person. And then to my horror, I started to cry while reading. I made it through to the end. I was exhausted. They told me my story needed to be told, that it needed to be out there for others.

“I never experienced infertility, but I felt like I was right along with you in your head,” one woman said.

“I really want to read more of this,” another said, “You need to write this book and get it published.”

It really was a good experience. But it also made me realize how damaged infertility made me. That I still have yet to really deal with everything, despite all the blogging. Writing has been a release for me throughout all this, but there’s more work to be done.

“I think a lot of it is coming back,” I said to my therapist, while telling her about the writing class.

Keep writing. Keep going, was her words. I want to write this book. In a lot of ways, I need to write it. For those who have no clue what it means to be infertile, but maybe know someone who is. For those who thought it was “just them.” For those who have kids, or maybe not, but who still aren’t over it despite the well-meaning encouragement from friends and family.

My lifes dream is to write this book. I’ve started and I have words down, they just need assembling. And cutting. And chopping. You know what blogging taught me? How to write. I’m incredibly grateful for that.