The day of the baby shower has arrived. I was dreading it, but I actually enjoyed making a pair of booties and an appliquéd onesie for DH’s best friend. The expecting couple went to Texas Tech, so I put their logo on the booties I knitted and used logo fabric to make a necktie appliqué.
Et voilà:
Anyway, I got through making the gift, but I’m worried about the shower. DH’s mom is coming, but otherwise I’ll know only the mom-to-be. I’m sure it will be a day of invasive questions.
I hope being prepared for the baby deluge will make it easier to handle. It’s better than being caught off guard.
Yesterday was a wrestling day. I feel like I spent a lot of the day in prayer and half-sleep (which is not to suggest that I think it is good to pray while half sleeping, but hey, it happens). At the end of the day I was doing my homework for my Bible study. (Yes, I should have done a little each day all week. No, I didn’t do that. I did the whole thing last night.) As I was looking at the questions thoughts just kept coming to me and I think some things kind of came together. I tried to explain it all to DH. He listened sympathetically and mostly helped me realize that what I was saying was lacking any continuity. So apologies now if this doesn’t make sense.
At the crux of it all, I think, was the question of joy. In my last post, I wrote:
I know joy is supposed to be unaffected by emotion and that I should be joyful even when I am sad. I’m having trouble with that in practice. I’m working on it.
I guess my subconscious has been mulling that over for the past few days. And I have come to a few conclusions about this. I’ll start here with one epiphany that I think is helping me open the door to true faith in my life.
I have a lot of head knowledge. I know the Bible pretty well and I can quote it to myself. I can’t tell you how many of my recent journal entries have said things like,
“God, I know you say that ‘all things work for the good of those who love you, who are called according to your purpose’ (Romans 8:28) but how is this (our infertility) for good?”
and
“I know you tell me that you have plans ‘to prosper me and not to harm me, to give me a hope and a future’ (Jeremiah 29:11) but I am struggling to believe this is true.”
And, my favorite,
“God, I believe. Surely I have faith the size of a mustard seed!! You said, ‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you’ (Matthew 17:20). So why isn’t this mountain moving yet?“
I have head knowledge (which often undermines me by turning to pride, but that’s a story for a different day), but I am coming to see that I am lacking in true faith–gut faith. (It is sad really; at the end of the day all that knowledge is wasted if it keeps me from truly knowing and trusting my savior with my life.) If I stepped out of that boat onto the water to be with Jesus as Peter did (Matthew 14:29), I’d be telling myself all the while that surely I could stand on the water. It wouldn’t matter, though. Because I am lacking this real, honest, gut faith, those empty words would do me no good. I’d almost certainly find myself swimming.
I’m beginning to understand that this head knowledge – gut faith disconnect is a serious problem. It is keeping me from having real joy. It is also keeping me from being able to trust completely in the Lord in this crisis of my life.
So I’ve been praying for the Holy Spirit to move in me, to give me that gut faith. And my head knowledge says it will happen: God says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
And I am praying this not in an effort to manipulate God into giving me what I really want (to be a mom to a baby or 5), but in the hopes that he will transform the desires of my heart such that I want him and that I want to be with him and in his presence and to serve him, above all other things–even the things that seem good and fulfilling, like being a mother.
(As an aside: I’ve tried the praying with an eye toward tricking God into giving me what I want. It doesn’t work. I think he’s on to me.)
If knowing is half the battle, is actually believing the other half?
I had a bad day. I’m not going to lie–I was having a pretty good day until TCU lost to Oklahoma State. We played terribly. I know that shouldn’t affect me on such an emotional level. And maybe the fact that it does means I should quit watching football. But then I’d miss out on the good games, too.
I guess losing the game was just another ugly reminder that, no, things aren’t going the way I’d planned in this life. And, yes, I find that devastating.
I want to be positive and upbeat and trusting and patient and joyful. But I’m not right now. I’m on this mad crazy roller coaster and sometimes it drops suddenly.
When it drops I have a strong urge to punch a hole in the wall. I haven’t done it yet. I keep telling DH I want to do it. This is the conversation we had a few hours ago:
Me: I just want to punch a wall.
DH: Don’t. Punch a pillow.
Me: No. I want to put a hole in the wall.
DH: You won’t. You’ll just break your hand.
Me: Well, that would be nice. It would be nice to have something that could be fixed.
Pathetic, I know. But true.
This whole stepping away and recognizing I don’t have the ability to control even one tiny facet of what’s going to happen with our ability to have kids is so hard. I didn’t know I was so attached to the illusion that I could be in control of my life until that illusion was shattered so dramatically. I wish it had been shattered over something else. Almost anything else.
Praying for trust. And peace. Praying for joy. And, always, for healing. For us, and for you.
And, next time I post, I’ll try to post something a little more upbeat. I promise I’ll try.
PS I know joy is supposed to be unaffected by emotion and that I should be joyful even when I am sad. I’m having trouble with that in practice. I’m working on it.
I haven’t talked much about anything but infertility and how that’s affecting us here, but here’s a little backstory about how life doesn’t go according to our plans–with a little admission that sometimes those deviations from our plans for ourselves turn out to be better than we expect.
DH and I met in college. We were both economics majors. And his goal was to be an economics professor. He didn’t feel that his BS had prepared him sufficiently for the PhD, so we headed to DC where DH got an amazing job at the Federal Reserve Board–about the best possible place to work if you want to go to graduate school in economics.
He took one to two math classes at night each semester until he had the equivalent of a bachelor’s in math, too.
Last fall, he sent out applications. And we waited.
Believe me when I tell you that DH is an incredibly intelligent, hardworking, and dedicated person. His resume for grad school was top-notch and his recommendations were from some wonderful people in his field. I’m sure his recommendations were stellar, too. The only person I’ve ever known not to like my husband is a girl at his office who has complained that their boss shows him favoritism. What she calls favoritism most people would call respect for a job well done.
By all accounts, DH should have been accepted into a great program with funding.
That didn’t happen.
With the wisdom that comes with time, we’d both tell you right now that the way our lives got rerouted was for the best. DH will tell you it’s a miracle he didn’t get into grad school. God brought us to Texas (where we’d both said we’d never choose to live), and DH went to school to study math full-time at A&M for a semester before he ended up getting his current job here in Houston. The job pretty much fell into his lap, and he loves it.
I guess all that should be helping us trust God in our current situation. I think it is helping, when I think about it. God hasn’t taken us on any wrong turns yet; He’s never let us down. But how easily I forget that he is in control, that he is guiding us and has been guiding us all along.
The whole grad school thing was hard for us, and it was hard for DH’s parents. It was hard for them (as it was for me) to see their boy deal with all those rejection letters. When it came time for us to go to A&M, DH and I had a lot of peace about it. After months of anxiety about what we were going to do, the day DH sent his application in to A&M the anxiety was lifted. I don’t think his parents had that same peace at the time. It took them a few months–maybe until DH got the unexpected job offer–to really come to terms with the new direction our life was going.
When we told his parents about our infertility struggles, I know they were wondering why God would put us through something so devastating so soon after the last difficult test. We were wondering too, honestly.
Yesterday I got this e-mail from my MIL. I’m glad she’s feeling better about things, and I found her words encouraging. Her e-mail is a good reminder that God is sovereign and he’ll see us through this.
I have just got to tell you guys that my whole thinking on the [infertility] matter has taken a turn. . . . Now, instead of questioning God, I am thanking him for orchestrating the moments and details of your lives to get you here into Houston for this time in your lives. The whole time we were wondering WHY? about the grad school business and the econ professor path . . . He knew that you needed to be here; in Houston; . . . a location that is monetarily beneficial, in a good-paying job. God didn’t wish this [infertility] stuff on you, but knew about it (since he knew all about you before you were born), and he has orchestrated your life with perfect precision to get you right where you need to be . . . for such a time as this!
“And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14 (I know this was so she could free her people, but I do think it applies here too).
Lately I’ve been feeling better about our infertility. I’m glad DH’s mom is feeling better, too. I tend to forget that this IF thing affects our families, too. It’s such a deep personal issue that it’s hard to see how other people we care about are also hurting and questioning why we’re going through this.
I still have some really terrible days, but on the whole I feel more at peace with what we’re dealing with. I’d still like that miracle healing, and I am so hopeful that we will be able ot have biological kids. But I’m okay with where we are right now. Ask me tomorrow and I might scream and yell and cry, but today I’m doing well.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my perspective lately. I’ve definitely been acting like it’s all about me, but of course it’s not. I have good days and bad days, days of denial and days when I can’t think about anything but our barrenness. But I think I’m gradually beginning to accept that this is who I am, who we are, and what we’re going through.
I just started reading The Explicit Gospelby Matt Chandler for our small group. I read chapter 1 yesterday. A few things stood out to me.
1. God is in control. He can affect the tiny things and the big things. Chandler even mentions that God is in control of mitosis. Those little body processes have so much to influence on our fertility, but God is bigger than that and he can fix that–if he wants to.
2. We live in a fallen world. Matt Chandler writes (and I’m paraphrasing here) that because we live in a fallen world, we shouldn’t be surprised when things go poorly. Instead, we should realize that when things actually go the way we want or the way we hope that God has done something wonderful for us.
3. I was created to worship and glorify God. My job is to glorify him, in whatever way he allows me to do that. I wasn’t created because he needed me and he doesn’t owe me anything.
I have a lot of friends on facebook whose posts I read but who I probably wouldn’t still have a relationship with otherwise. Some of them were never really friends to begin with and others just aren’t my friends now more because our circumstances or careers or locations aren’t amenable to maintaining a friendship. Yesterday my attention was drawn to a prayer request from one of the women in that latter group. Her sister, a college student, has just been diagnosed with a terrible and painful disease that takes the life of 1 out of 3 people who get it. This friend provided a link to her sister’s Caring Bridge site and I was blown away by her family’s faith. The journal articles her mom writes are so glorifying to God in the midst of this very dark time in their daughter’s life.
I was especially touched by one story the girl’s mom recorded. She said that on the day their daughter was admitted to the ICU, her husband received a text message asking why such a bad thing would happen to such a good person. The mother refuted first that her daughter was “good,” saying only Christ is good and that her daughter would say the same thing. When they asked their daughter how her dad should respond to the “why” question, she signed to them (because the disease has made it impossible for her to speak) that she was going through this “because God loves me.”
There’s something so deep and so true and so convicting in that sentiment. And there’s something that eludes me there, too. I want to have faith to believe that we’re going through this because God loves us. I want to believe that we are dealing with infertility because God loves us. I’m trying to believe it.
Romans 8:28 “For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (NIV)
On the whole, DH and I agree that we don’t want everybody to know we’re dealing with infertility. Partly this is because we don’t want all the unsolicited but well-meaning advice fertile people tend to give when they find out you’re infertile. Advice like “just adopt” or even, “I had to use clomid; it’s no big deal.” (Yes, someone did say that to me. How I wish that were even an option for us!)
Partly it’s because we don’t want people we care about tiptoeing around us when they find out they’re pregnant. One of my best friends, who started TTC a couple months before we did and who knew we were TTC, had her first baby in December and is already expecting her second (a surprise) in January. Even before she knew we had received actual news that we were infertile, she opted not to tell us her news until she was more than four months along. She said she was hoping I would call to tell her we were expecting before she had to tell me she was. I appreciate the concern, but it doesn’t make me feel any better when being infertile already leaves me feeling left out.
Lately, DH’s mom has been pushing us to tell his family. I’m not sure exactly why that is so important to her, but we considered it and have decided we are okay with his grandparents knowing that we’re probably doing infertility treatments next year. We decided not to tell his cousins because we don’t want them to change their behavior (one is pregnant and the other has a 1-year-old). And we decided that we don’t want to say when we’re starting or give any other specific info on timing because if it works, I want to tell the family when I’m ready, not have them calling me to find out two weeks after our treatments. And I don’t want to have to report on every failed attempt, either.
So we told my MIL she could let her parents and DH’s other grandparents know but that we weren’t really interested in calling out of the blue to say, “Hi, how are you? We’re infertile.” We told her to be vague; that she could say we were dealing with infertility and would have to do medical treatments but we didn’t want her to go into details about why we were struggling. We told her to tell them to feel free to call us if they had any questions.
So she did. She told her parents on Sunday. They immediately expressed sorrow and wondered what, exactly, was wrong. Since we told my MIL not to get into specifics, she didn’t.
When they called later that evening to tell me they were sorry and that they’d be praying for us, DH’s grandma told me about the marvelous PBS documentary on Louise Brown, the first “test tube baby.” She told me a great analogy about how sometimes in life we come against a brick wall. And maybe we can’t get through it, but we may be able to go over it or under it or even around it. Either way, we hope that in the end we’ll get to the other side of it. And she told me about a song that was popular when she was growing up that she thought I might find comforting. She was very nice and I think I’m glad she knows (in a general sense) what we’re going through, and I’m glad they are praying for us. But she didn’t ask me any questions, so I didn’t feel pressured to go into details.
A lot of the assumptions people make about infertility–about whose body is at fault, that it’s because we “waited too long,” that it’s a result of STDs or other youthful indiscretions–really bug me. But at this point our privacy about the details is more important to us than addressing those assumptions. Maybe when we get to the other side of this brick wall (if we ever do) we can talk about it more openly and even change someone’s perspective. In the meantime, I’m glad DH’s grandparents are being supportive. And I’m also glad we’ve been protective about who we tell.
I used to love going to baby showers. It’s true. I was that weird girl who didn’t have kids yet and got absolutely thrilled about showers. I knit. I knit baby booties from memory for people I know who are expecting. For some of my dearest friends, I’ve knitted stuffed animals. I knitted an elephant for one of my favorite babies, a teddy bear for a wonderful friend’s new arrival, a panda bear with a tennis ball in the body for a good friend’s 1-year-old, a tennis-ball stuffed frog for another. For my husband’s cousin, who had her first last August, I knitted booties, a little stuffed bird, an egg the bird fits inside, a sweater, and a hat. And I’ve loved making these things for those little ones and for their parents to have.
Yesterday I got invited to the first baby shower since we got our diagnosis. I knew it was coming. It’s for my husband’s best friend. I’m excited they’re expecting. I am looking forward to meeting their little boy when he arrives in January. But I’m not looking forward to the shower.
I’m not looking forward to it at all. I don’t think it’s just because the whole afternoon will center on babies and all the cute things they come with. Though that’s a contributor. It’s not even because I am sure the shower will present plenty of opportunities for the mom-to-be and her family and friends to ask the dreaded, “When are you going to have kids?” Though I’m not looking forward to that either. It’s the gift.
I used to find it relaxing to knit a pair of booties. It’s an easy pattern and I could almost do it in my sleep at this point. But despite its simplicity, it’s still going to take me several hours. That’s several hours watching as little booties grow from a ball of yarn and wondering if I’ll ever get to make a pair for my own child. It seems masochistic.
Of course, the alternative is to step foot inside a Babies’R’Us. Guess I should get out those knitting needles.
So I guess I’ve been whining a lot lately. Not just here, but also at home to my husband and to one of my dearest friends. I really appreciate how nice they’ve been to me while I just keep rambling on about my problems. My husband has been so helpful in talking through all the crazy things I’ve been thinking about and helping me find perspective.
This morning when I woke up I had a message from the one friend I’ve told about this blog. She texted to see how I was doing. I guess the blog is good therapy, though, because when I woke up this morning I was feeling a lot better. The combination of blogging, talking to DH, and letting my brain process overnight seems to have worked wonders.
I think the reason I was so upset yesterday after Bible study was that it forced me to confront the possibility that our infertility might be God’s desire for us. Until then, I had been comfortable with the idea that it was just a side effect of living in a fallen world, something that happens because the world just doesn’t work the way it should all the time. That’s why there is pain and suffering–from the very tragic, like what happened to four students in Nigeria a few days ago, to the seemingly horrific but survivable, like infertility. Not, I believe, because God wills it.
I don’t believe that God’s will is always done on earth. That may sound like heresy to some, but I think if God’s will were done all the time, the Lord’s prayer wouldn’t include “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Why would we be told to pray for something that already is? That said, I do believe that God can use what happens to us–even the terrible things–for our benefit (Romans 8:28). And it is, of course, possible that our infertility is somehow in God’s plan for us. So I imagine some good will come from our infertility. And I hope I will be wise enough to see it.
I also want to thank GardenGirl at Journal of a Subfertile for having such a positive outlook on infertility in her blog. She’s dealing with the same pain and challenges but seems to choose to live in the moment and enjoy the present. I could learn a lot from that. And so I’ll try. (I’m not promising not to whine, but I will attempt to also notice the positive things while we’re waiting.)
P.S. Did anyone else see Modern Family tonight? That Phil and Claire were jealous of their friends who had been unable to have children made me laugh. I guess these things go both ways sometimes.
I’m feeling bratty, but I’m going to fuss again. Sorry about that.
Monday night I was at small group. I love my small group, and it has been a huge blessing in my life so far. I am getting to know some wonderful couples and making friends and starting to feel, for the first time in 10 months, like I have a life and a community around me. We haven’t shared what we’re going through with anyone in my small group at this point, and I don’t know if/when we will.
One of the couples in our group announced a couple of weeks ago that they are expecting. And while I do find myself often feeling sad and left out when I find out people are pregnant, I’ve been genuinely happy for them. But Monday night I had to take a step back and bite my tongue when the mom-to-be started talking about how, while they’re happy to be expecting, “pregnancy is such a burden.” She said it because she feels “slightly nauseated” if she doesn’t eat every two hours.
When she said that, my stomach clenched. I don’t know why it annoyed me so much. I guess because I feel she is taking her pregnancy for granted. And maybe because I would rather projectile vomit every single day for 40 weeks than not get pregnant. I can’t really be upset with her, because it’s not like she knows what we’re dealing with. And I don’t think most people have ever thought about infertility or how absolutely painful it is to find out you may never have children.
I guess comments like that–and so many others–make me wish infertility were a more recognized issue (not that I’m doing anything to make it more known at this point). I wish when people thought about saying, “So when are you going to have kids?” they knew enough about infertility to stop themselves and think, what if she can’t?
I’m feeling down today. I am thankful that I have had a few days (weeks?) of feeling pretty peaceful about everything, but today I feel gloomy. I guess that’s your fair warning–it’s a gloomy and fussy post and you don’t have to read it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about God’s will and answers to prayers and trying to understand why anyone has to go through this.
In my Bible study, we’re studying I John. This week I was struck by I John 5:14-15
And this is the confidence we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
So is it simply God’s will that we cannot have children naturally?
A couple of weeks ago, the verses that stuck out to me were
I John 3:21-22
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
The commandments are straight forward enough (and I know I do not keep them perfectly, but I do try), but how do we know “what pleases him”? Could it be that what pleases him is for me to be childless?
I have always been a big believer in prayer, and I still am. As a child I saw prayers answered in ways I never expected and for things that seem trivial to me now. And I suppose our prayers for healing could have been answered already, but we have no immediate way of knowing. That probably sounds like a silly thing to some people, but I do believe that if God wants to enable us to get pregnant naturally, he has the power to make that happen.
In all this, I’m starting to wonder if he even wants us to have children.
The desire of my heart for as long as I can remember was to be a mom. I am really struggling to understand why I should have such a strong desire if it is in conflict with God’s will for my life. I want to do God’s will, but I also am guilty of wanting God’s will to involve having children naturally.
I guess I know intellectually that God wants what is best for me and that he still may decide to grant this desire of my heart, whether naturally or through ART or something else. But there’s this tiny nagging voice in my head saying the reason we can’t get pregnant is because we wouldn’t be suitable parents, because God doesn’t trust us to raise one of his precious children.
And I can’t decide if this is a test of perseverance–I just need to keep hoping and trying and doing what I can–or a message from God that I need to get over it and move on with my life, that being a parent is not what he had in mind for me. I guess it could be something in between. And it could be just that it’s my turn to face a little bit more adversity.
I’ve probably gone off the deep end a little here, and for that I apologize, but what good is this blog if I can’t think out loud in this place?
UPDATE: I found this really lovely article that is helping me process some of the things I’ve blogged about in this post. It’s here. I’m also reminded again of Job 13:15: “Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.” I guess what I take from that is that I am going to keep asking. I don’t know what God’s will is, but I will keep asking him for healing.
Dwell in Me 