You might look at this piggy bank and just see a piggy bank. I look at it and am reminded of the family that never was.
This little piggy has been in it’s box for nearly 15 years, never completing its intended journey into a nursery and eventual childhood bedroom.
I fell in love with it at Crate & Barrel. It was 2010 or 2011, when the store first opened near the Square One Shopping Centre, expanding its Canadian launch. My then husband, Scott, and I were there to just check it out and explore what all the hype was about. When I laid eyes on this adorable ceramic pig, covered in multicoloured polka dots, I was immediately smitten. I picked it up, turned around to Scott and said, “Wouldn’t this be the cutest thing in our baby’s room!?”
We had been married for roughly 5 years by this point, together in total about 12 years. I can’t quite recall the exact timeline but it is likely that we were also in the thick of our fertility journey, either just having put a pause on our efforts after three failed attempts at IUI (intrauterine insemination), or quite possibly preparing ourselves for an upcoming first – and last – round of IVF. In either case, I was obviously still optimistic that the family that I had always dreamed of having would come to fruition.
When I say family that I had always dreamed of, I actually mean it. I literally had dreams of my children, with a real and sincere secret hoping for fraternal boy/girl twins. I even did science projects on twinning in high school, calculating the odds of that twin combination happening for our biology genetics unit. I SAW these twins in my future life. The chaos of having two toddlers at the same time to the fun of playing and running around with them in our backyard. These images always made me smile.
Scott was always game to humour me. So when I moved to place it back on its shelf, he picked up one in its box and brought it to the counter to purchase it. I went home pretty gleeful and even kept it out on display for a little bit before putting it away for safe-keeping for our eventual baby or babies.
We had done this before, winning a bid in a silent auction on a high-end stroller that we had no business bidding on and had zero need for at the time. Egged on by some of my coworkers at the time, telling us that this stroller was amazing and we wouldn’t regret it. I have memories of Scott practicing setting it up and taking it down, making me time him to see how fast he could do it. We both really wanted a family.
15 years later, Scott and I are no longer married. The trauma of our fertility struggle was one that we just couldn’t seem to overcome together. I had long sold the stroller to a friend’s pregnant sister but I continued to keep this piggy bank. It has moved homes with me twice, and I came upon it again recently when going through my storage under the stairs, looking to create space by purging items that I no longer needed or used. I don’t even have to open the plain white unlabeled box to know what is in it. As soon as I saw it on a shelf in the corner, I got that little feeling in my heart and stomach. A mix of hope, happiness, loss, grief and sadness. I feel it right now as I write this.
I held the box in my hands for a few minutes once I took it off the shelf. Still debating on what I wanted to do with it, and to be honest, I still don’t know. I’ve had thoughts of gifting it to friends whenever they have had a baby, or selling it, or actually using it in the new home office spare bedroom that I have been busy creating over the past month. When I took it out to take these pictures, I was instantly brought back to that moment in Crate & Barrel and it made me smile. That was such a hopeful time. I still think its cute as heck. I took the pictures then carefully placed it back in its packaging and box. It had been sitting next to a pile of miscellaneous items that I plan on donating or selling. When I closed the lid, I put the box on a different shelf away from those things. I guess my heart still is unwilling to let go of this little piggy. Either that, or maybe it actually has found its home the whole time.
Karen San Andres, founder and owner of ellephysio & Associates, has always been quite open about her journey through infertility. You can catch her reflections on how stress and anxiety may have played a large contributing factor in her failure to get pregnant in her interview for the podcast, Become a Mom, Remain an Athlete, with fellow physical therapist, Sarah O’Reilly.
