Welcome to The Second Line

The idea to begin writing this blog came to me the morning after I got my period in the seventh month of my husband's and my attempt to get knocked up and become parents. Because I’m over 35, this month is also the point at which we are supposed to schedule the ever ominous fertility evaluation. I have no idea what that really means, so I did what any elder millennial would do: I turned to the internet. And what I found once again was that there didn’t seem to be a place for women like me. Women who are very much struggling, usually silently, every single month with the disappointment of another month without a positive pregnancy test. Women who are mostly told to just hang in there because it can take some couples a year or two! (That part always comes with an exclamation point and is supposed to be reassuring, but never is.) Women who are basically rookies compared to the IVF warriors who share their years of infertility experiences and must be at least a little bit resentful of women like me who started panicking and crying every cycle after "not pregnant" month three. Women who haven't been diagnosed with infertility (yet?), but are desperate to hope and being crushed by disappointment every month nonetheless. 

So I decided that I would create a place for myself. At first I thought I would just write for myself, just to exorcise all of the unending questions, thoughts, anxieties, and frustrations. But then I thought maybe there was someone out there like me who was also wading through unfamiliar internet message boards looking for a place to be seen and heard and validated. So I decided that whatever I write for me, I would make public for her. And if you are reading this right now, maybe you are her. 

When I first thought of the title of this blog, I was thinking of waiting for the second line to appear on a pregnancy test, a moment that could change your life forever or break your heart all over again, a moment pregnant with great anticipation, if pregnant with nothing else. But when I said it out loud, it called to mind the image of a second line parade. Ya know, the kind with the parasols and dancing in New Orleans? I almost nixed the idea right away but as I thought more carefully about that image and the intent of a second line parade, the more it seemed it was actually the perfect double meaning. Let me explain...

I find it important to first acknowledge that the second line parade is very much rooted in southern Black culture with origins in West African dance. As far back as the 1800s, African American fraternal and social aid organizations would financially assist Black community members, who were unable to pay for funeral services for their loved ones because white insurance companies refused to cover people of color. These benevolent organizations would sponsor and host parades as part of the funeral services for the deceased. During and after the Jazz Age, boisterous jazz music became part of the parade as well. The musicians make up the "first line" of the parade, but the "second line" is made up of all of the people who follow the musicians to dance, mourn, celebrate, and engage in the community. These second line parades began as a funeral service, but are now also part of more joyous occasions like weddings and festivals. In their original form as a funeral parade though, the second line embodies pain and joy together and acts as a catharsis of all of those human emotions that surround life and death. Even when part of a funeral service, the second line is not a slow, somber procession; sad funeral dirges are replaced with upbeat brass band improvisations that invite dancing from participants. I’ve long been fascinated by the view of a funeral as a celebration, and from a more abstract perspective, how we find community and love in the midst of deep pain and grief. 

So all of that historical background is to say, I want this blog to be a space for exactly that: for engaging in community and finding each other in a time of loneliness, frustration, pain and grief. The process of conceiving and carrying a child is, well, a process. Relatively speaking, I'm still a newbie to all of this; there are many experiences I have not yet had and may not ever have. There is much I still have to learn about it all too. But I'm committed to exploring how it feels to go through this process and to sharing what little bit of wisdom and experience I may glean along the way. Sometimes I’ll/we’ll feel happy and grateful, and sometimes I’ll/we’ll feel angry, and jealous, and sad. All of it will be valid. If I’m being completely honest, which I aim to be here, I selfishly need a place to get some of these plaguing thoughts and feelings about becoming pregnant and becoming a parent out of my head and into the ether, but if you find that these thoughts and feelings speak to you too...well then, welcome. We’ll walk, sometimes dancing and sometimes holding each other up, in this second line parade together while we wait for that other life-changing second line to appear.