09 May MOTHER’S DAY WITH SENSITIVITY FOR THOSE NOT YET MOTHERS

While some are
counting down to
Mother’s Day this

Sunday with great ex-
citement and anticipa-
tion, many are looking

at the calendar with
dread and anxiety. For those desperately

longing to have a child but have been de-
nied by nature or because they are waiting

to find a spouse, Mother’s Day and all the
fanfare that surrounds it only pours salt in
wounds.

While many of our young men and wom-
en of marriageable age assume that once a

couple decides they would like start a
family it is simple to conceive and bring a
healthy baby into the world, the truth is
not so simple. One out of eight couples
suffers from infertility, which includes the

inability to get pregnant, secondary infer-
tility, or loss of a pregnancy/stillborn. Up

to twenty percent of those who do become
pregnant experience a miscarriage. Eighty

percent of those miscarriages occur with-
in the first trimester, when the couple is

unlikely to have told anyone they were
expecting and before the woman begins to
show.

Our matriarch, Rachel, knew the pain of
childlessness. She screamed out, “im
ayin, meisa anochi, if I don’t have a child

I am already dead,” from which the Ge-
mara (Nedarim 64b) likens that the pain

of being childless while wanting children
to a form of death. Indeed, those longing
to have children describe the pain of their

disappointment as the death of their
dreams and hopes and the grief similar to
the loss of a loved one who isn’t coming

back. Day after day of taking shots, under-
going fertility treatments, attempting IVF

cycles, and going into debt to afford it all
is extremely painful, but well worth it if
resulting in a healthy baby. But when the

results come back negative, the proce-
dure turns out not to help, or the IVF

proves unsuccessful, the physical and
material pain is negligible compared to
the emotional agony and anguish.

Compounding this deep pain is the re-
ality that most of the people struggling

with infertility or who have suffered a
miscarriage are
grieving without
anyone even
knowing. They are
forced to spend

their days interact-
ing with others as

if all is well, when
in fact it isn’t.
Since others
don’t know about
their struggle,
they are deprived

of awareness, sup-
port, love, or as-
sistance and it

leaves them feel-
ing lonely.

Talk to anyone

suffering with in-
fertility, or with

loneliness and the
longing to meet
someone and start
a family, and they
will tell you that

worse than the in-
difference of

friends and ac-
quaintances is the unintentional insensi-
tivity of so many who have been blessed

with healthy children and who make com-
ments, tell stories, share pictures, or com-
plain about their kids.

Our parsha enjoins us, V’chai achicha

imach, when your brother or sister is feel-
ing down and out, uplift them and support

them. We can’t necessarily help our single
family and friends find their spouse and
we often don’t even know who around us
is in anguish from infertility. However, we
can all do better—we must do better—to
be sensitive in how we talk, what we post,
when we share.

On Mother’s Day, rath-
er than turn to social

media as a public stage

to profess love and ap-
preciation to mothers

and wives, we should
directly and personally
tell the mothers in our
lives how we feel, or
take the time to write a
private heartfelt card
making our loved one

feel good without mak-
ing others feel bad.

Rachel’s prayers were
answered, and her hopes
realized. She not only
became a mother, but is
known in perpetuity as
our Mama Rachel, the
mother of our whole
people. Take a moment
on this Mother’s Day
weekend and pray that
all those longing to be

married and those long-
ing to have children

have their prayers an-
swered and their dreams

fulfilled.