Modern beauty spring 2021

health &
WELLNESS
MODERNBEAUTY MAGAZINE
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I’M TRYING
For those struggling with
infertility, we could all use
a little piece of that
Mother’s Day love.
bby Erin Mccann
Infertility is really, really hard.
Explaining it to people is also
really, really hard, and there’s
one day of the year that makes
it even harder: Mother’s Day.
Don’t get me wrong. I have a wonderful
mother and I know many amazing
moms who deserve all the adoration,
praise and gratitude we have to spare.
But Mother’s Day is a special kind
of torture for those of us struggling
with infertility, a reminder of the club
we yearn to be a part of, the thing we
long to experience but can’t.
Every year when Mother’s Day
comes around—at least for as long as
I’ve been trying to conceive—I have
to turn off my social media and bury
myself in soothing rituals like watching
old Gossip Girl episodes, drinking
lots of Champagne, eating an entire
pizza by myself and snuggling my
dog extra tight.
I don’t want to celebrate and I
certainly don’t want to be reminded of
the arduous, painful process of going
through fertility treatments: overwhelmed
and understaffed fertility
clinics, endless blood tests, needles,
painful cervical examinations, ovulation
sticks, timed intercourse (and no,
it’s not fun), medication that makes
you break out, gain weight and want
to sleep all day. And the expense:
thousands of dollars for every cycle
you put yourself through (my urgently
ticking clock meant that I could not
wait the two years it would take to
receive a government-funded cycle).
Then there’s the crying—every time a
pregnancy test comes back negative,
every month when your menstrual
cycle rears its unwanted head yet
again, every time you get pregnant
only to miscarry weeks later.
The process is traumatic, and not just
for women like me whose treatments
have been unsuccessful. There are
mothers whose treatments have yielded
beautiful children, yet even they
can be triggered on Mother’s Day.
“Like a lot of women, when I was
longing to have children, Mother’s
Day would make me feel a little bitter
and sad,” says Rana Florida, CEO
of Creative Class and mother of
two girls, about her experience with
Mother’s Day and infertility. “And on
top of that, people would constantly
ask me: “Why haven’t you had kids
yet?” It was frustrating,” she says.
“Now, every Mother’s Day, I’m in
disbelief that I have two amazing
little daughters. I’m so grateful, but
the journey I went through is not
for the faint of heart. There are some
tough memories there that still come
up,” Rana says. “I did treatments in
five different states from New York to
Washington, D.C. to Toronto to
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