Don't Ask Me About Her

Please do not ask me about the octuplet mom, whose name I do not dare stain this page with for fear that someone googling her will be led to me and anyone interested in her need not apply here. It has been the Whole Foods shopper or passer-byer on the street question of the month: “Not whose eyes do they have,” or “how old are they.” No, it is instead, “Ohh, twins, how sweet! How about that octpulet mom, huh?” Before and while pregnant I struggled with joining the sorority of women made mothers through science. I did not want to be identified with the fertilely challenged, mostly because I hated being a part of the desperation and sadness that so often hung over the silent waiting room of the NJ Reproductive Science Center. We sat, inches from one another, all there for the same reason, eyes glued with shame and embarrassment to the latest issue of US Weekly or The Star thinking, “Hey at least I’m not as messed up as Brittany.” Really, what I was thinking was, “How could that single brain cell star become a mother and I can’t!?” After becoming pregnant with multiples, I played out the many times I would be asked by total strangers if I conceived using IVF, rehearsing ways to answer with poise and grace. I was not over exaggerating how many times this would actually happen, even with just two babies.

But lately, octo-mom has entered the question line-up. A poster woman for the shame, embarrassment and desperation I so wanted to not be associated with. “I am not like her!” I want to scream. Especially because I do not believe she questions her fate the way I do. I won’t say it happens daily, but I often think that the course my pregnancy took was the result of trying to go around mother nature, that perhaps God needs to test me more because I was not meant to be a mother. Then that mania creeps into other things like, “Why buy organic and think holistically about my children when their whole existence is chemically induced?” But I move on and buy the organic bananas because I think they taste better anyway, and I answer each stranger with, “Whew, she really has her hands full,” as I push my double stroller through the door, arms heavy with re-usable bags and a light heart free of shame and embarrassment because regardless of my fate, I believe, that overall, in my way, I am blessed.