Your Stories: A Chana client’s perspective
A woman’s stress in the run-up to Pesach
*Identifying details have been changed to protect client confidentiality
Our group of girlfriends managed to squeeze in a coffee catch up 2 weeks before Pesach. The anxiety is running high and the to-do lists seem endless. We chatter about how on earth they will manage to clean all the crumbs the kids leave down the back of the couch, and how they are dreading cleaning all the food off their toddlers’ favourite toys. Seder night will be so late this year and getting the kids back home is going to be a real challenge. Shira has her own stresses – she is due to have a baby on Seder night! There is a buzz of pressure and excitement, and we all chirp our goodbyes as everyone heads out to tackle their many tasks.
I take a slow walk home, processing the conversation. I would do anything to have their complaints. I would give anything to have crumbs dropped down my couch by sweet little hands, and toys strewn around our floors filled with sticky bits of sandwich and breadstick. I open our front door – our flat looks painfully pristine and the silence is deafening. I open my phone and check my own endless to-do list. It is very different from theirs and I would swap with them in a heartbeat.
We are about to start our fourth cycle of IVF, after 2 months of medication. Tomorrow I will start different medications, many with unpleasant side effects, to boost the success of this round. Every round we hope it will be our last. I need to call the Rabbi and find out if all my 6 medications are okay to take over Pesach. I also need to call the clinic and schedule scans and blood tests every third day for two weeks. Oh, and I need to call Chana about covering my clinic bill which we would never have been able to face alone. We have paid over £1,000 for the medication alone.
It turns out that its highly possible that my procedure will need to take place on erev Pesach. Sitting through the Seder is going to be a real challenge for me especially since I really don’t want anyone to know. Just then my phone rings – it’s my mum calling. “Chayelle, I’ve been thinking, since you have an empty room at yours and the extra bathroom that no one is using, it would make sense for Pessie, Doniel and the baby to stay at you. There is so much space for a cot and they will have more privacy. Don’t you think?”
My heart sank so fast that it sort of took my breath away. I was lost at how to answer her that wouldn’t either give away my pain or condone the painful suggestion that she has just made. Yossi and I have been married for 5 years. We don’t discuss with anyone that we have been trying since the beginning, but we would also think that by this point people would understand that things might not be going according to plan. My mother is right, our spare room and bathroom are so empty and unused…so painfully empty. What about our needs? Our privacy? It sometimes feels that without a baby we just remain a periphery element, without needs or importance because I’m not pregnant, or feeding or mothering toddlers. We’re easy to just slot in…and forget about.
We know no-one means any harm. I know my parents, siblings and friends are just caught up in their own stress and challenges, just like I am caught up in mine. But I would like to take this opportunity to ask every reader to please try and look beyond your own struggles this Pesach and be aware of the couples around you who might be suffering from infertility, or other struggles.
I have taken comfort in this interesting thought I read; During the Seder we take the middle matzah and break it into two unequal parts. The bigger piece is hidden for the afikoman, and the smaller represents “the bread of affliction.” Isn’t it interesting that the same matzah that symbolises galus and suffering also represents abundance and geula? The reason given for not using separate matzos to represent each one, is that it suggests that richness and redemption can only be fully understood after experiencing the depths of struggle. The struggle paves the path to redemption.
Taking my own advice, I am also trying to look beyond my own struggles and pay attention to the broader challenge that Am Yisroel is facing right now. Both on a personal and a communal level, I take comfort in this Yachatz ritual that reminds us that the pathway to redemption passes through oppression. May our splitting of the matzah this year express the teffilos of all those suffering from infertility, and all of Klal Yisroel, that our portion of suffering is minimal, and that our redemption should be speedy, joyful and ultimately complete.
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