This question can be bittersweet, especially for those who are facing an infertility diagnosis. In many ways, most women who desire to create a family have dreamt about celebrating Mother’s Day throughout their childhood and into adulthood. The dream always spans the generations, including their mother and their own children. Honoring your mother is wonderful, yet something is missing.

The weeks leading up to Mother’s Day can be deafening to someone who is struggling with this painful disease. As a result, promoting and marketing “Mother’s Day” overlooks the hearts and souls of individuals enduring infertility procedures, which can be pure devastation.

To soften the meaning of this day for women who long to hear a fertile heartbeat, follow the compassionate steps below, while tenderly giving yourself permission to be right where you are in this moment.

Four Compassionate Steps to Awaken Your Natural Healing Power Within Your Body, Mind and Soul

Community: Being connected with others is potent medicine for women, especially with others who have been through the same situation. It is important to create a vital support system that offers compassion, friendship, and understanding. Reach out to those who will support you unconditionally and who will deeply listen to you on this day and throughout your journey. Tap into your allies, realizing that you don’t have to do this alone as separation is the greatest form of suffering. Those who share the same journey can offer words of wisdom and compassion.

Nature: We’ve written about the way spending time in the great outdoors can be good for your spirits in a previous blog post and it bears repeating. Studies have found spending time outside, particularly in the spring can increase mood, memory, and openness to new ideas. Besides, enjoying a hike outside is the perfect way to avoid advertisements and store displays talking about Mother’s Day.

Breathe: Breathing is something we often do without thinking. However, spending time to concentrate on breathing deeply can be helpful when you are anxious about the upcoming Mother’s Day events. Find a quite comfortable place where you will not be distracted. Breathe as you normally do, paying attention to your body as you do so. Then, breathe in slowly, filling your lungs to their capacity and letting your chest and belly rise. Exhale slowly and repeat. It’s amazing how this simple action can have such a powerful, calming effect on your mind.

Poetry: When you feel no one understands your pain, this poem may lift the heaviness in your heart. Please know that you are not alone.

God Speaks to Each of Us
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
— Rainer Maria Rilke

“Give me your hand” as I, too, have known this place of longing and desire for motherhood.