Controlling the Narrative

My public relations friends should enjoy this post, if they weren't already sucked in by the title. After all, our entire existence as professionals depends on helping our clients "control the narrative." Even when it was bad news, we raced to get out ahead of it and put our own spin on it. For example, a long time ago, when my client and its chief competitor were the only two left in the market awaiting acquisition, we found out the competition had won that race. I went out to all of the media sources who were covering the story and made sure we were included, saying the acquisition of our competitor further validated the market, even though internally, we knew this did not mean good things for our client's chances.

The above is an anecdote from my working days, but you should be able to recognize --- especially in the age of social media --- how much time we all spend trying to control our personal narratives. Obviously, we all want to look good. We want to look like we are leading our best lives. It is probably a big part of why, when someone is going through a rough patch in life, they decide to take a break from Facebook or the like. It is too hard to see everyone else's amazing life paraded before them while they struggle.

There have been plenty of times in my life when I didn't like my narrative. To this day, I hate that it took me until I was almost thirty to meet my husband. Part of that is because he is so awesome, and it would have been fun to have more time together exploring the world and indulging in other random adventures before we settled into having kids. But another part of it is because it made me feel bad. I wondered why it was taking me longer than almost any of my friends to meet Mr. Right. Was there something wrong with me? On first dates, when guys would act seemingly perplexed about how I could still be single, I struggled to come up with a narrative that would alleviate whatever fears they had about me seeming too good to be true.

But then I did meet my husband, and he was dashing and handsome and we got married and everything was beautiful and perfect. I didn't need to worry about controlling the narrative because it was just good. And perfect. When we decided to start our family and got pregnant our first month of trying, we were that couple that annoyingly jokes to themselves about not realizing how fertile we were.

Now, my son's birth definitely deviated from what I wanted our story to entail. I always understood just getting the baby out and keeping mama and baby healthy is what is most important, so as my due date approached, I remained open to any eventuality. I also took the time to try to prepare myself for giving birth naturally, even though how can you ever really prepare for THAT?!

Well, my due date came and went. I had to get induced, labor stalled, I spiked a high fever while our son went in to distress and I had to be rushed in to have a c-section. I cried, not because it wasn't the birth I'd hoped for, but because they told me our son would have to go straight to the NICU. When all my friends were posting beautiful photos in their hospital beds, holding their newborns, exhausted but glowing, I had none of that. Both myself and our child were sick, swollen and fighting to recover. I didn't post any photos until we both started to look a little more normal.

All of that soon became a distant memory though as we did heal and my son proved to be healthy. He has grown to be a happy and fun little guy, and it is easy to reflect that in our Facebook status updates. What we didn't share was that when we were ready to get pregnant again, it took us longer to conceive Hailey. That we were starting to feel anxious --- that everyone around us seemed to be conceiving much more easily than us. No one wants infertility to be their narrative. It feels embarrassing after all those middle school health classes that make you feel like if you look at a boy funny and sneeze, you will get pregnant.

But everything turned out to be fine because we finally did conceive, and happily announced it to everyone. I cried the day I found out we were having a girl. Ever since I was little and thought about the family I might someday have, I always pictured two children. A son first, and then a daughter. I couldn't believe that God was granting me my dream --- my vision of a perfect family. I think I was literally on cloud nine.

And then I gave birth to Hailey. And just shy of four months later, she died in my arms. How the HELL does that become our narrative? Some days, the idea that this is now our story is what upsets me the most. I think NO, NO, NOOOO!!!! Our story canNOT be that I finally found the love of my life, we gave birth to a beautiful son and then a daughter and then she DIED. I don't WANT to be the woman who has a piece of her heart always missing for her child who is in Heaven. I don't want this to be our story. We were perfect. This is awful. This awful trauma in our lives can never be changed. It is US.

You see, how we see ourselves is important. It often isn't the truth about who we are that really matters: it is how we choose to decipher that truth and share it with the world. And when we feel helpless about controlling our own narrative is often when we feel the worst. What I expressed above is about feeling victimized by our journey and this new narrative that I feel is being forced upon us.

But, Hailey is teaching me something here. In many ways, the saying that "control is just an illusion" is true. We often cannot control what happens to us in life. If we could, I sure as hell would never have lost my daughter. I would have found a way to stop it --- to make her better, to keep her with me here on Earth.

What I CAN do is control the narrative. But I am doing it differently now than I ever have before. I'm not trying to put the "spin" on some bad news as I did for my client all those years ago. I'm not trying to hide the hurt of feeling lonely before finding my husband, or the anxiety of trying to conceive. That type of control was about avoiding vulnerability and hurt and damage.

Now I am controlling the narrative by --- at the vey least --- not hiding from it. By embracing the pain, by being honest and raw and vulnerable. I am not denying the ugly parts, but taking ownership of it in front of all of you. By admitting to you that I hate and fear that the death of a child is now part of our story. That I don't want it to be the single defining characteristic of the rest of our lives --- I beg you not to put us in that box.

I want to be able to heal, but also always cherish our daughter and our time with her. Yes, I am struggling with how to view our family now that my perfect vision of us has been smashed. Losing that narrative is, for me, like mourning another death in and of itself. I often cry about it. All I know is that we are a work in progress, and that our story will continue to evolve. And I have hope. I know I need to stop worrying about what our narrative WAS, because I have hope for what will be. With love.