When a Facebook friend shares a sweet pregnancy announcement, our automatic response is to feel overjoyed for them, right? Well, maybe, in theory. It can be difficult to muster the joy when you’ve been met with heartache and disappointment, though, can’t it?
This is something that Amber Stone Williams can relate to, which is why she can completely understand why someone would ‘hate’ her pregnancy announcement.
Amber took to Facebook last month to confirm that she and her partner are expecting their first child. They had battled infertility for 17 months previous, a period that she branded ‘the most difficult’ of her life.
In the announcement, she and her partner stood in front of giant gold balloons that spelt out the word ‘Baby’, and held their ultrasound photo proudly aloft. In another shot, the ultrasound was surrounded by the needles and medicine of her fertility treatment.
While the well wishes came flooding in for Amber and her family, it seems as though the news came as a blow to somebody else – and Amber updated her page to address this.
In a powerful post, Amber addressed ‘the girl who hated her pregnancy announcement’, admitting that she ‘gets it’. And the reason why she ‘gets’ it, is because she has been there, herself.
“I was that girl. The girl that saw yet ANOTHER pregnancy announcement on my newsfeed and just rolled her eyes. That girl that felt sick to her stomach because it wasn’t me doing the announcing. The girl that was so angry that you didn’t even have to try,” she wrote.
Amber even went so far as to apologise, because she knows from experience that that person’s ‘heart is breaking into a million pieces all the while she is digging away deep down to express just an ounce of joy for the parents-to-be’.
But the mum-to-be has an even more powerful message to ‘that girl’, who could be one girl or a thousand others. She wants ‘that girl’ to remain strong and never give up hope; because, as Amber’s story has proven, miracles can happen.
“This is for the girl who got another negative pregnancy test this morning; to the girl who has no idea why this is so hard for her; to the girl whose heart is so bitter; to the girl who has lost a child,” she began.
“476 days of infertility. Thousands of dollars in medical bills. 11 months of Clomid. Injection after injection. Prescription after prescription. Ultrasound after ultrasound. Hundreds of needle pricks. Five IUIs. Months of failed treatments. And two pink lines to remind me how faithful my God is in the midst of it all and that it was worth every single second.”
Needless to say, Amber’s post has gone totally viral, with women all over the world able to relate to both her perspective and that of ‘that girl’.
