Most of our closest friends have three kids.

Three!

Three seems to be the new 2.5 kids in our culture. We love those big families of five even if sometimes we look at each on our way to the childless quiet of our home and say to one another, “Man, three kids! The kids literally out number the adults. Do you think we would have gotten three?”

But we do have three.

Just not here with feet skipping along the earth.

My three soul scars.

My three babes who may have only existed in a petri dish, never to take solid footing in a warm mother’s womb, and yet, they are my footing, my solid footing as I skip along the earth in honor of them every day.

I have three kids who I parent from this side of eternity.

And, three seems to find me everywhere I go.

I see three everywhere I go.

We have three dogs. Nature seems to always present itself to me in bunches of threes. I have ended my first year monarch farming with just three chrysalides left to emerge as beautiful monarchs.

Three.

Three dreams, never lost, just different.

This is being a still mother.

Making sure I honor my motherhood even when society does not and especially when those closest to me seem to forget is a part of this still mother journey that can knock me down. It is a difficult path being a mother without living children. Difficult because sometimes even our loved ones do not know what to do with us. Between their sympathy rather empathy, their fear of saying something wrong, their natural tendency to forget and move forward and perhaps even their guilt, sometimes they struggle to truly see us and know us. Society may not get it, my loved ones’ may not get it, hell there may even be days that my husband does not get it. Their lack of understanding does not have to mean the silencing of my truth, the dull of my light or even the slightest repression of my motherhood.

This is why we must speak our truth, shining our voices bright as we skip along the earth mothering our babes from afar.

I knew it was coming. I knew eventually one of my friends would say something to me after a supposed enough amount of time had passed.

“You’re different,” my friend says with a matter of factness that feels both as a complaint and a compliment.

I am different.

Forever different.

Some days I skip with the bounce of the 2 and 3 years olds we would have had infertility treatments worked for us. Some days I struggle to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other. Some days the shame of not being able to be a mother in the world’s most accepted version of the definition suffocates me. Some days the pride of forever doing the work to thrive after the lifelong losses of infertility helps me to walk and write with power like none other. Some days the sadness, anger and the three year old inside of me who wants to shout, “BUT IT’S NOT FAIR!” threatens to steal all the progress I’ve made thus far.

Most days I simply give myself permission to allow room for this all, because my truth is in embracing it all. In embracing the mess that is failed infertility treatments, three lost babies and finding other ways to honor the mother inside of me, I make room for the forever longing and the skipping in joy.

In this work, I choose to keep my eyes and my heart open enough for it to always receive.

To receive my three.

So I see three everywhere I go.

So my three find me everywhere I go.

I have three.

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Justine Froelker

Justine Brooks Froelker is a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator (based on the research of Brené Brown) working in private practice. She is the author of her book and blog, Ever Upward, and an infertility advocate for breaking the shamed silence of infertility and loss and fighting to recover thereafter. She also writes for The Huffington Post, St. Louis Health & Wellness magazine and appears regularly on the morning television show Great Day St. Louis.

Justine lives in Saint Louis, Missouri with her husband Chad and their three dogs Bosco, Gertie and Gracie. She enjoys her childfull life by spending time with friends and family, practicing creative self-care, laughing (sometimes at herself) and building butterfly gardens on her acre of land, which has made her an accidental monarch butterfly farmer.

Latest posts by Justine Froelker (see all)

• A Gift Through Them - May 18, 2016
• The Always Longing Yet Healing Mother - February 15, 2016
• Honor Them Through Creating Traditions - December 7, 2015