Eggcellent Mom Chronicles

Every year at the Seder table, we are commanded to see ourselves as if we personally were slaves in Egypt. We often talk about Mitzrayim, the Hebrew word for Egypt, which translates to a place of profound limitation.

When we ask the ritual question, “What are we slaves to today?” the answers come easily. We are enslaved by technology and social media, or the constriction of a busy schedule. These are 100% valid and true. They are the walls we build around our own time.

But there is a deeper limitation still.

I wish that every family could be free of the burden of trying and not succeeding in growing their families. Infertility can be a loud, screaming slave master, or it can be the kind you face in silence within your own home. It is a mental and emotional constriction where hope feels like it has no room to breathe.

Today, I am 34 weeks pregnant with my miracle baby girl. This pregnancy has been my escape from that history of limitation. It is a literal physical expansion out of a hollow place. I have joked that my body is now hers, and it is. Every inch of me has rearranged itself just for her. My skin has stretched, and my organs have shifted, My body has been forced open. Where there used to be a wall, she has created a world. This is the home I have made for her.

Yet, even after the sea has parted, the journey is not without its ghosts.

Sometimes I still feel enslaved. There is a tiny voice that is always following me around, a lingering echo of that old constriction. It is a miracle every time I feel her move, but the worry when I think it has been too long without her moving is hard. Then there is the spiraling I try to stop in its tracks, picturing everything that could go wrong before she is here. I realize now that you can leave the limitation behind, but the fear of it stays with you. The trauma of the “not yet” makes the “right now” feel fragile.

Today, I had my 34 week appointment. After listening to baby girl’s strong heartbeat and feeling her kicks, the doctor walked in and said, “Renee, you’ve had a really boring pregnancy, and I mean that as a wonderful compliment.” Even with the medical affirmation that everything is progressing accordingly, my heart still aches. It is a strange thing to be told everything is “normal” when you have spent so long in a state that felt anything but.

I sit here writing with tears streaming down my face with immense gratitude for the complexity of my journey. I feel the miracle growing inside me and the heartache knowing slavery still exists for so many families wishing to grow theirs. I am not all the way to the Promised Land yet, but I am no longer where I started.

I know she is safe and I hope I can always be her home. But as I celebrate my own freedom, I hold a space in my heart for those still standing at the edge of the water, waiting for their own miracle to begin. We look forward with hope, knowing the story isn’t over.

Next year in Jerusalem. Next year may we all be free.