DAYCARE DICHOTOMY
🌷I always knew touring and deciding on a daycare would be a big decision; it seems so profound – putting your most precious child in the care of someone else; trusting them to help guide, teach, and protect our child. But even more than that, the last time I set foot in a daycare was only a couple hours before we had found out our baby had died.
Two years ago, Phil and I went on our first daycare visit. We loved the facility, it felt like it was the right spot for us, and we left feeling elated, and with a red “daycare” box in hand (filled with a stuffed bear and daycare info and contracts), we felt like we had lucked out on finding the PERFECT daycare for Henry. We left, drove to the clinic for my 19 week check-in, and our lives changed forever. The red box stayed unopened, in the back of our car for over a year, neither of us able to look or touch it.
Fast forward to this week, and I debated going back to the same facility. I didn’t know if I could walk through those same doors. I decided to schedule a couple other tours on the same day, along with this one, in hopes that I could push through (after all, I still wanted what is in our baby’s best interest).
I did it. I walked through the doors. I went on the tour. I felt the feels. Everything about the daycare was/is perfect. What was not perfect was the constant reminder of that day two years ago.
When I entered, the director looked at me, knowing that she had met me before, but couldn’t quite remember why or when. She mentioned that we happened to already be in “their system.” I found myself wondering whether I should make up an excuse or explain why I looked familiar and was in their system. Making up an excuse seemed too complicated, and so I stated that we had toured two years ago, but sadly, had lost our son, and thus, no longer went through with daycare. We toured together and at the end, she asked questions about how the pregnancy was going….ugh. She was so sweet, and not ill intentioned by any means, but I found myself conflicted. I told her that I wasn’t actually carrying our child, our gestational carrier was.
At least at the end of this tour, I got to go home, and not to a clinic. I set the red box on our kitchen’s island. Phil came into the kitchen, saw it, and said “The red box. I can’t look at it.” I had just walked through a minefield of painful memories, and in seeing that one little box, Phil felt all the feels of that day two years ago.
One of the hardest things about infertility experiences is you can’t escape the trauma. Even if you have a baby on the way, the pain and memories reside within you forever. The triggering events become less and less frequent, but they exist. I am certainly more aware of when they are going to happen. Without a doubt, I knew looking at daycares would be one. One of my girlfriend’s had a baby due at the same time as Henry, and now every time I see her baby, I think about what our baby would be doing, what he would look like, how big he would be. We can prepare for some of these moments, and time helps alleviate some of the pain, but there are the moments you can’t plan for, and which remind you of the constant pain residing within.
As Phil and I take this next step – looking at daycares – we are faced with two very conflicting emotions. On the one hand, looking at daycares was the last thing we did as a pregnant couple, it was the last happy memory we had as a pregnant couple; nothing since looking at daycares two years ago has been the same. On the other hand, looking at daycares now is a step forward. Two years ago, we had not signed on the dotted line, committing ourselves to childcare. This week, we did.🌷
