Mourning Sickness

2008

Mourning Sickness deals with my 8-year struggle with infertility. I never imagined that having a baby would be so much work. I was always under the false impression (thanks to my high school sex-ed class and Mexican parents) that if you have sex you will unfailingly get pregnant. For over 6 million American couples, trying to conceive is an excruciating nightmare, an emotional rollercoaster ride, which is beyond stressful. It’s demanding. It takes every ounce of energy and when it doesn’t happen month after month, year after year, we question our womanhood. When we have to resign ourselves to alternative methods, artificial methods, it’s disheartening and overwhelming. I never thought I would be one of those women. I spent countless hours at the infertility clinic and endured embarrassing tests, numerous sonograms, surgeries, and shots in the stomach, not to mention, spending thousands of dollars on procedures and medication that were never guaranteed. Accepting that I may remain childless was the biggest challenge ever. It felt much like grief and so this work is about the empty feeling and numbness that I felt as I was going through the grieving process.