Pregnancy, Adoption, Our Plans, and God's Plans

Two years ago Jonathan and I were preparing to move to a new city where I would start a new job and he would start at a new school. We had just graduated from college and were in a time of transition. Two years ago we were also staring infertility in the face. We had been trying to conceive for over a year and had absolutely nothing to show for it except a lot of stress, tears, and confusion. I was turning 22 years old, and while others my age either had starting a family on the far horizon or were already having children, I was in crisis realizing that my own plans and expectations were not going to be met. I felt so lonely; no one I knew was facing this, and I thought that no one understood what I was going through.

When We Regret Our Words

I am not a perfect person.

No one is perfect. We all make mistakes. We all say things we regret from time to time, or sometimes more often than that. And yet, I find myself almost always more willing to accept that other people aren't perfect than that I am not perfect. My own failings bother me so much more than the same failings would bother me in someone else.

My entire life, I have been a very talkative person. I talk a lot, I say a lot of things, and I all too often say exactly what I'm thinking with minimal filtering. And unfortunately, what I'm thinking is not always nice. Sometimes what feels even worse is saying only a part of what I'm thinking in the most blunt way, only to realize later that I may have hurt someone I care about's feelings or been misunderstood in a way that I do not intend to be.

For some reason, it is very hard for me to let go of moments where I wish I had said something differently or not said anything at all. There are still conversations I had with friends in 3rd grade that I remember word-for-word, because I hurt someone's feelings and I regretted it.

Remembering the Journey

I still have this picture framed on my nightstand next to my bed:

After our first ultrasound at the end of February last year I brought this home, our one picture reminding me of that little flickering heartbeat on the screen, and put it in this frame next to my bed. During those early days of pregnancy when it is so easy to worry and doubt and symptoms come and go I would look at this picture and remember that tiny heartbeat often. Then the next ultrasound came, and our little baby was bigger, jumping all around. I could have replaced this picture with a new one. I could have replaced it with a profile picture from our ultrasound in June. I could have a picture of my baby after she was born by now, but I still keep that first ultrasound picture in the frame by my bed.

From the Other Side of Infertility

The title of this post is misleading. I do not know if there is truly an "other side" of infertility. I'm still making up my mind on that one. We were diagnosed with infertility, we went through lots of testing, we tried a couple different treatments, and then, by God's grace and blessing, one of them worked when we were least expecting it. Now we have a beautiful, clever, spunky baby girl who is five months old today. She lights up our lives every single day, and every day when I see her I am reminded of God's goodness and how blessed I am.

So then, the infertility part of my life is over, right? Is it? I don't know. I certainly am happy right now. I certainly have what I wanted. I feel like the past two years changed me significantly. I met so many other women online who were going through the same struggles. I learned what it is like to go through something this hard, what it is like to have people not understand, and what it is like to have no idea what God is doing or where he is. And now I have a baby, so that chapter should be done.


I feel like what I am about to say next I say at the risk of sounding ungrateful, or of leading people to think I am not happy or content with my life right now. I promise, I am incredibly conscious of how blessed I am, hugely grateful, and I've never been happier. But I say this because I want anyone else who has felt this way to know that they are not alone. I say this because I don't think it's fair to women who are still struggling for me to just forget about that part of my life or go on as if it didn't happen.

The part of my life where I struggled with infertility may be over for now, but here are some things that have changed, and that will probably never go back to the way they were before:

7 Things I Might Have Thought about Parenting Before Becoming a Parent

"People should never complain about being pregnant." "Real women give birth without pain meds." "Parents should never, ever let their baby/small child use a computer or watch TV." "New parents shouldn't complain so much about being tired - we all get tired."

These are all really judgmental statements that I am sad to say have run through my head at some point in my life. In fact, I think all of us have had equally judgey thoughts from time to time. The world is full of people telling each other how to do things. How to do pregnancy, how to TTC, how to give birth, how to care for their babies, and how to raise their kids. I think that most moms are somewhat insecure about their parenting choices, because, let's face it, parenting is very likely the most important thing we'll ever do as parents, and there is really no good way to prepare for it. So my theory is that we take out our own insecurities and our need to feel that we're doing it right on each other - telling each other what works and what doesn't, what to say and what not to say, what to do and what not to do.

But over the past several years I have been in a lot of different positions, and I feel like I have a lot more perspective on this now. I've tried to conceive, I've dealt with the sadness and uncertainty of infertility, I've gone through the joys and difficulties of pregnancy, I've given birth, and I've managed to survive the first three months of parenting. During this whole process, I've made a lot of friends online and in person who have gone through these different life stages, and I've discovered that all of those judgey thoughts that I've had are silly, pointless, and immature. We all need to just stop it! We need to go easy on one another, and just be supportive and kind.

Here are 7 (somewhat random and disjointed) things that I used to think at one point that I now realize I was wrong about:

What I've Learned: God's Faitfulness

As I look back over the past year of my life I can't help but be amazed and how blessed I am. If you asked me what "best case scenario" would be last Christmas, I probably would have described exactly what transpired over this last year. We got pregnant on our very first medicated cycle; how very fortunate we were! And Charis is such a wonderful blessing! There are no words to describe the love and joy that we feel to have her in our lives. What a gift.

I've been thinking lately about what I've learned through this past year and the experience of infertility over the past few years. I've been trying to think about on what I've learned about God, about trusting him, and how my faith has grown through this. It is very hard to put my finger on. It would be easy to say that I have learned to trust God even when I don't see why certain things happen because He has a perfect, better plan that is better than anything I can ever imagine. That would be easy, and you might believe it. But I don't think I would. Because the truth is, I am so grateful for Charis, but there are other things going on in my life, and I knew the future will hold other struggles, and those struggles are still hard. It is still hard for me to feel peaceful and trusting and content about every aspect of my life. I still desire to control things and wish that I could have things exactly my way. And I don't know why infertility happened to me. I don't exactly see why it was necessary. While I trust God to love me and care for me, I don't think that everything in my life will be the way I want it to be all the time. And I am still learning to trust that God's plan will be better than my plan, because my plans always sound really great to me at the time. 

It is almost a Christian cliche, the idea that if you pray enough, wait long enough, have enough faith, etc. then God will give you whatever you are asking for. I think that having faith in God's providence and care for you, praying to him for the desires of your heart, and waiting patiently are all great things. I think God wants us to do those things. But I know that we will never have faith, wait patiently, or trust in God perfectly. We will never have enough faith or pray fervently enough to deserve anything from God. We cannot make God act. God chooses to act. God does know what is best for us, sometimes it is what we thought we wanted and sometimes it is not, and sometimes bad things happen just because and there is no reason for it at all.

The good news is that God knows that we will never trust him perfectly, he knows that our faith can always be stronger and we can always be more patient. His Holy Spirit living in us is what allows our faith to grow and our patience to increase. The good news is that even when our faith is not strong and when we doubt, God is faithful anyway. God loves us and desires to bless us, and he does so despite our imperfect faith, impatience and doubts.

I think that is what I have learned: even when I am not faithful, even when I do not trust God the way I should, God is always faithful. His love and the way he has blessed me this past year is overwhelming.

As it is Advent, I was listening to a sermon recently about Zechariah. That account from Luke 1 simply blows me away, and I think summarizes what I've learned in this journey about God. In this story Zechariah and Elizabeth are childless, and long to have a child. While Zechariah is serving in the temple , God sends Gabriel, an angel, to tell Zechariah that Elizabeth will have a son. Their son will be John the Baptist, who will prepare the way for Jesus' ministry. When Zechariah hears that God has heard their prayer and is going to answer it, he does not believe it. He doubts God's faithfulness. We've all done that in our own lives, and I know I've been there over the course of this journey. But notice what happens next... God still blesses Zechariah. God doesn't say, "Fine, you didn't believe me. You doubted my love. Your faith is lacking. No kid for you." Sure, Gabriel points out Zechariah's lack of faith, and Zechariah is unable to speak until the baby is born. But God still gives them a baby! God is still faithful to Zechariah despite Zechariah's doubts and unfaithfulness.

And another note about Zechariah and Elizabeth, check out Luke 1:6-7: "And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.  But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years." The Bible says that Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous and blameless before God - it wasn't anything they did wrong that caused their infertility, it wasn't a lack of faith that kept them from having a baby, and the reason that they had no child had nothing to do with God or them. The Bible just says that they had no child because Elizabeth was barren. Things just happen. And although it seemed to take forever, and ultimately Zechariah and Elizabeth gave up hope, God was faithful to them and chose to bless them with a child. 

This story doesn't just apply to infertility. We all have things that we ask God for, things that we feel are missing in our lives, and we all struggle with trusting God at times. We want things to be the way we want them to be. But even when we are not faithful, God always is. And even though that may mean an answer to our prayer today, or it may not, we can rely on God's faithfulness. 

Blessings and Paradoxes

Pregnancy is full of paradoxes.

On one hand I cannot remember ever being happier than I am these days. I love our little one more every day, and I feel closer to her with every little kick and movement and with each ultrasound. She is such a sweetheart already! On the other hand I feel uncomfortable all the time. I understand now why women complain about pregnancy. It's just not always fun!

On one hand I want it to be October NOW! I want her to be born and to get to hold her and see her. But on the other hand I feel like there's no way we'll be ready by October. There's so many things we need and so many things to do.

Whenever I feel the urge to complain I try to remember how much I wanted her and what a wonderful blessing she is. And whenever I start feeling impatient I think about how four months is a very definite and short period of time to wait compared to how indefinite and hopeless waiting to conceive can feel. I know I've heard several women say that they didn't like how with pregnancy you never know when the baby is going to come and it makes it so hard to wait. I'm sure there's truth to that, but compared to never knowing if you're even going to have a baby, waiting for a baby to come is nothing. I mean, she will come eventually! I may not know a day, but I can say with confidence, "She'll be here before November." That is not indefinite at all! (I know I may regret saying that when I'm 30-some weeks pregnant and much more uncomfortable than I am now, but it's still true.)

I may not be in a place quite yet where I can honestly thank God for our struggles with infertility. I may get there someday - I don't know. But I am definitely thankful for the perspective our journey has given me and how much it helps me to not take this blessing for granted. I'm not saying that I've been perfect at this, or that I've never in a moment of weakness complained to Jonathan. I have. But I do know that every single discomfort and every day of waiting is 100% worth it, and I am so blessed to have the opportunity to go through this experience.

This is how I know it will all be worth it:

Look at how beautiful she is! I am so in love already!

Despite every discomfort, I am feeling incredibly joyful and incredibly blessed these days. God has been very good to us!

Mother's Day

Today on Mother's Day I just want to take a minute to acknowledge all the women out there for whom this day is especially difficult. I know last year Mother's Day was a very hard day for me, and I know that for many others, Mother's Day can be much, much harder.

Last year Mother's Day came right after the 1 year of TTC mark. It was a hard time, because I knew that having a baby was not happening for us the way it was supposed to, but at that point I had no answers and no idea if it would ever happen, how it would happen, or how long I would have to wait. I know that this year would have been even harder for me if it weren't for our miracle little one that we are expecting.

But some women have been through so much more than I have, and I know my experience is only a taste of what they have been through. Some have lost babies, before or after their birth, and some have been trying or struggling with infertility for many years. There are many reasons why Mother's Day can be a hard day for many women, and I just want to acknowledge that. There is very little that we can do to make this day easier, but for those of us who have been blessed with children, just acknowledging how blessed we are to be mothers does help somewhat. Never take the gift of parenthood for granted.



Since it is Mother's Day today, I also want to acknowledge and thank God for my wonderful mother, who has been an immeasurable blessing in my life. I think about what a wonderful example she has set for me, how much time and energy she poured into raising me, and how she is still to this day always there for me, even when we are hundreds of miles apart. I remember when I was a pre-teen and young teenager living in the fear that I would turn into my mother. Now, I pray that I do. I hope that I can be even close to as good of a mother as my mom is. Mom, I love you!

You Are Not Alone

There is a reason that I have chosen to share my blog on my Facebook (which as far as I'm concerned, is basically making it public). I tend to be a very private person, and I do not typically share my personal life with those who are not very close family or friends. And even then, I tend to try to hold my emotions in check. I still feel a little uneasy sometimes about how open and vulnerable some of my past posts might be. But this, my struggles with infertility, I really thought needed to be shared. 

I think one of the things that made the past few years so hard for me is how completely unexpected having trouble getting pregnant was to me. I had never really heard about or from couples who struggled to get pregnant, and I understand why. Infertility is usually a very private struggle, and people usually do not feel comfortable talking about it. I know I felt like I couldn't talk about it, and I didn't for the most part. I had one or two friends that I talked to, and a supportive group of online friends, but for a long time I didn't share with my family or most of my friends. Life went on around me, people announced pregnancies, people made comments about babies around us, no one intentionally said anything to hurt me, but it is impossibly hard to be going through something like infertility and know that no one has a clue what you are feeling or how comments, pregnancy announcements, and other completely normal events for everyone else affect you. 

Infertility affects at least 1 in 10 couples. I have heard 1 in 7 before too, but even supposing it's just 1 in 10, that's A LOT! And it's not only couples who waited until they were in their 30s to have kids; we are in our early 20s, and we both have fertility issues. 

I felt that it was very important to share my story, because I know that if the statistics speak the truth, many of my Facebook friends and acquaintances must be dealing with this, probably in silence. If you struggled to get pregnant, are struggling, or even if you're still in that first year of trying and are realizing that it can take month after painful, frustrating month of trying and waiting, I just want you to know that you're not alone! If you ever need anyone to talk to who has been there or understands, I am always available. 

I know that I have been blessed with a wonderful gift to be expecting our Baby, and I treasure and savor every minute of this pregnancy that I waited so long for. One of the things that is so hard for those struggling for infertility to listen to is pregnant women complain about their pregnancy symptoms. Now that I am pregnant, I feel like I understand a little better - pregnancy can be pretty uncomfortable. (And I know all women who have ever been pregnant realize that is a major understatement!) But I still remember what it was like to see or hear pregnancy complaints, and to think that I would give anything in the world to feel that miserable and be pregnant. So I do my best to remember that feeling now. Every time I feel awful from morning sickness, sheer exhaustion, or whatever else, it reminds me of how much I wanted to feel this way, and how many times I begged God to allow me to feel this way. I am beyond grateful to have this wonderful blessing and opportunity. But I do want anyone out there who hasn't gotten their miracle yet and who is struggling through the pain of infertility to know that I know how that feels and that they are not alone. 

My Prayer

This probably goes without saying, but my husband and I have been praying that God would allow us to start a family for years now. My prayers have evolved, though, over that time-frame. In the beginning the prayer was always that I would be pregnant. Today I pray for a child. I used to pray that my husband and I would make a baby together. Now I pray that we would have a baby to hold and love and raise. I can honestly say in all seriousness that I do not care if I get pregnant or if we adopt. I do not care. I would love any baby that was mine to love, and whether or not we're genetically related doesn't matter. Does this mean that I don't want to be pregnant or that I wouldn't be absolutely ecstatic to be pregnant? No, of course not! I would LOVE to be pregnant more than almost anything! But what I would love even more would be to have a baby. One way or another. However God sees fit to give one.

This month I took Clomid, my doctor did some monitoring, and a few days ago I took an HCG trigger shot to help me ovulate. It's a lot more than we've ever been able to try before. And although it still doesn't give us good odds, I have been more hopeful than I've been any month in a year. I am so excited at just the possibility that this might happen for us and we might have a baby. And getting to be pregnant - that would be a bonus!

But as I've prayed for a baby this month, I find myself asking not "Please let this work and let me get pregnant" but rather "Please help us start our family soon, in whatever way you have planned for us." We have talked about adoption and are going to an information meeting with Bethany Christian Services next week, just to start to educate ourselves and explore possibilities. I have started to get really excited about adopting, and I truly mean it when I say that at this point, any way God sees fit to expand our family is fine with me! Jonathan and I have already decided that no matter what happens in the short term, we really do want to adopt some day. Only God knows what He has in store for us, but I am excited for whatever it is and my prayer is that it will happen soon.

I do appreciate the thoughts and prayers of all my family and friends. If you read this, please pray for us that God would expand our family, that His plan for us would be greater than our plans for ourselves, that we would have some direction and idea of how we will grow our family soon, and of course, that we would be able to be patient in the meantime.

Answers and Options

On Wednesday I had a phone call consultation with our doctor to go over our test results. I have been very busy, and Jonathan and I have been talking and trying to think through everything, so I haven't gotten around to updating until now. But we really did get a lot of our answers, and I think we're in possession of enough information to reasonably know what to expect and to begin to plan for the future.

At this point the test results show a combination of factors that give us a pretty low chance of conceiving on our own. (Maybe something around 5% or less each month. It's hard to know numbers like that exactly, but that's a rough estimate.) I will go ahead and outline what our options are.

Medication

One option is for me to take Clomid or another medication. This might bump our percentage up a bit. If we say for the sake of argument that we're at 5%, this would move us up to 7-8% chance of conceiving each month. It is not safe to take Clomid for more than six months at a time, though, and as I pointed out to the doctor, 7% each month for six months gets you to about a 42% chance of conceiving. Not great odds, but considering how affordable Clomid is, this could be worth trying. 

IUI

IUI is not going to be an option for us. Due to the test results, the doctor said that IUI would not increase our chances for pregnancy by any significant amount. It just wouldn't make sense financially. 

IVF

The doctor indicated that IVF would be the most direct way to address the situation, and by far has the best chance for success. IVF has a 60% success rate for couples in their early 20s. As much as we may be tempted to take this route as it is clearly the easiest emotionally, we are very, very cautious about the idea. I feel that my pro-life beliefs conflict somewhat with this option, and we are certainly not going to run into this right away. 

I do not believe in freezing embryos, and I do not believe in doctors choosing which embryos they think have the best chance of survival. I did talk about my concerns in our phone conversation, and our doctor was extremely open and respectful of my beliefs. We talked about some options for lower stimulation IVF and ways that we could do IVF so as to eliminate these concerns. While that's great, it would dramatically decrease the chances of success each month. Depending on how exactly we decided to go about things, our chances of pregnancy could be more like 40% or even just 20% each cycle. It is very hard to calculate these percentages, however, because not enough couples do IVF with these considerations in mind to have a significant pool of data. 

I would be happy to share more about IVF and the specifics of why I have these concerns and feelings in a future post, but for now I will just say that this is not something that either of us are thinking of jumping into right now. 

Adoption

With only these options, we have started talking and thinking a lot about adoption. But that's something that the two of us need to talk about and think about a lot more before I say any more.

So those are the options we see at this point. In a nut shell, these are our choices:

1. Do nothing. Keep on going as we have been and probably not get pregnant any time soon. But who knows? God can do anything. At this point I would consider getting pregnant naturally to be nothing short of a miracle.
2. Medication. I can start taking Clomid or another fertility drug and we can try that for six months. This would slightly increase our chances and we could pray for a miracle. I would still consider getting pregnant under this option to be a miraculous and wonderful work of God.
3. IVF. This might be an option for us, but we are still thinking, praying, and studying about whether or not this is something we feel ethically and morally comfortable with.
4. Adoption. This is something that we cannot do right away because of the cost factor, but it is a route that we could consider and start researching for the future. 

So that's it. The answers we've been waiting for. We would love your prayers and support as we consider our options and try to discover what God's will is for us at this point in our journey to start a family. 

Keep checking back. We will hopefully come up with some kind of game plan soon! 

A New Work

To update, we had some bad news recently. We have been trying a medication for a few months now and it looks like it may not be working. Right now things don't seem great, and we are going month to month knowing each month that there is only a very, very small chance of getting pregnant. We do have a consultation at a new fertility clinic towards the end of October, so that is something to look forward to. I am hoping to get some answers and a game plan in place very soon. I have hoped for that before with no success, but hopefully the doctors will have enough to go on this time to give us some concrete information and suggestions.

I've been doing pretty well the past week or so, all things considered. The weather is beautiful, I love my new job, and I just got home from a shopping trip at the mall! So life is okay, and parts of it are very good.

I have been taking a class called "After the Boxes are Unpacked" here at the seminary on Tuesday nights. The point of the class is to help the 'sem wives' adjust after moving, get to know each other, and make friends. We talk about how hard it is to pick up and move away from home, etc. For me, moving here was really not very hard. I was already living far away from family and friends, so it was not as traumatic a move as many other families experienced. I thought it was a pretty easy transition, actually. But the class has still been very helpful for me when I think about my TTC journey.

Last Tuesday we talked about some of the things that it was hard to let go of when moving. I thought that this did not really apply to me at first, since I really did not let go of anything during this last move. But I think what I need to let go of is an idea and not a physical thing in this case. I always pictured myself living here while my husband attended seminary having and raising kids. Now that I am here and I do not have any children it is really nothing like what I imagined. I think it is hard for me to let go of what I thought this part of our lives would look like, which is making it hard for me to truly enjoy what we do have right now. I see other couples who move here and are pregnant, or have brand new babies, and I think "that should have been us." I know that is a horrible way to think, but it happens. I really want to be able to enjoy the time we have here, and enjoy all the good things we have going on in our lives right now. And I do notice them and appreciate them. But at the same time, I know that until I have children, I am always going to be missing something. There's just no way around it.

These are two verses that were shared in this class over the past two weeks. Even though I was listening to those verses with a different spin on them than the rest of the class, I found them to be very encouraging.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." ~Isaiah 43:18-19

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generation, for ever and ever." ~Ephesians 20-21

These verses remind me of God's power over all creation and that He, the God who created the whole world, is also at work in each of us. I desire very much to start a family, and I am going to continue to work towards that goal. But I also want to be open-minded to look for what God may be trying to do in my life through this. I do want to trust Him. This is definitely much easier said than done, but -

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." ~ Philippians 4:13

Daydreaming

I used to daydream all the time about babies. I would start at the beginning, planning out just how I would tell my husband when the wonderful, long awaited, positive pregnancy test came along. I would then look forward to all our conversations planning for the future, telling our families, picking out names, setting up a nursery... every detail until the moment we brought that beautiful baby home. And then I would daydream some more. About teaching Baby colors, shapes, words, and all the wonderful "firsts." I can't wait for all these experiences and for the incredible joy, honor and opportunity of raising a child and watching them grow.

The past couple months I have been more successful than I thought possible in shutting the daydreaming down. I thought that "getting my hopes up" every month lead me to be more devastated in the end. And it probably did. So I stopped hoping and I stopped daydreaming and I stopped planning. Of course we kept trying,  but I worked hard to convince myself that there was no real hope because a) I believed that, and b) it was too painful being continually let down.

But the past week or so the daydreaming has slowly crept back into my thinking, and I've let it. I think I'm finding that I far prefer the daydreams and hopes to the bitterness of having no hope. Sure, it may not be likely, and sure, I may be disappointed. But I love the idea of having kids, and I am thrilled and beyond excited about it. And one way or another, this IS going to happen. Maybe not how I think it should, and clearly not in my timing. But it will happen. If it never happens naturally, we've already decided that we will adopt some day. So I WILL be a parent some day. And I am going to look forward to that day with excitement. Sure, I might spend a few days of each month devastated. But I think I'll be happier overall than being just moderately miserable all the time.

I don't want to give up hope. I want to learn to trust God to guide my path. I want to rely on His promises that He loves me and He has a plan for me. It is hard, but I think allowing myself to daydream could actually be one small step toward living out that trust.

And daydreaming is fun! I can't wait to have a baby!

As Anne Shirley says, "I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset... almost pays for the thud."

It's Getting Old...

I realize that I haven't posted in about a month. I promise that is not because I forgot, or because things have been better, or because things have been worse. I resolved at the beginning that I would not make this a depressed, ranting, complaining blog.  The internet has plenty of those. I resolved to follow the advice of Thumper from Bambi and my mother: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

So it's been a month of silence from me. Nothing has happened really on the infertility front. My husband and I moved from one area to another so my husband could start attending graduate school. I started my new job, which has been going very well, but has kept me really busy. We have not found a new fertility doctor yet, so I feel like everything is kind of paused for us.  I've been very busy with my new job so I have not had a lot of time to work on that, but that doesn't mean that time is going by fast or that I don't feel more and more devastated with each passing month of not conceiving.

To be completely honest, I have been very sad lately, and that is why I haven't blogged. My life is good, my apartment is good, I seem happy on the surface, and in many ways I am. But there is this undercurrent of sadness constantly. It keeps me from ever feeling completely 100% happy. It's kind of like numbness most of the time, and then like acute, sharp pain at other times.  But I don't want to complain or dwell on my sadness, so that's all I'm going to say about that.

Hopefully something positive will give me hope soon, and I can come on here and write a more uplifting (or at the very least insightful) post. Until then, like the title said, this whole waiting thing is getting old.

If You Work Hard Enough...

... you can accomplish anything.

I am not sure that anyone has ever said this to me directly, but I feel like the world has definitely infused this message into society very strongly.  Some variations on this theme are:

• You can be whatever you want to be.
• You can do whatever you set your mind to do.
• Whatever you dream of and desire in your heart, it can and will happen if you just have faith.

I feel like that last point is the theme of just about every Disney movie that I saw as a little girl.  While I may not have admitted that I believed this at any given point in my life, I think that I always hoped and trusted that this would be true.  I hoped that if I wanted something badly enough, was willing to work hard for it, and just kept going, that I could really be or do or have anything.  Is that the American Dream?  I'm not sure, but it sure feels like it is on the curriculum in our nation's schools! 

Well, I may have believed these things at the age of eight, or even twelve.  And I may have hoped and acted on these premises at the age of sixteen or even eighteen.  But now in my twenties, I know for sure that these statements are all lies. 

Disclaimer:  I do think that these beliefs have their place.  I do believe in working hard to accomplish goals.  I do not believe in giving up.

That being said, I sure wish someone would have told me that even if I want something and work towards it with all my strength, sometimes I still will not get it.  TTC has taught me this.  It is unfortunate that I did not learn this lesson before, as I certainly had the opportunity.

When I was a teenager I loved to dance, and I took as many ballet lessons per week as my parents would pay for and my teachers would allow.  I wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up, and I worked very, very hard.  I was even talented, and I think that it would have been possible for me to succeed.  But when I was fourteen, I had to have a spinal fusion surgery to correct scoliosis in my back.  It was an unpleasant six months, but I got through it, and now I hardly ever think about my scoliosis and it has no impact on my daily life. (Praise God!)  But it made me much less flexible in my back, and there came a point when I was seventeen when I knew I would never be a dancer.  I had reached a point where I could not bend in ways the other girls in my class did, and if I danced for over ten hours a week, my back hurt to a point I could not handle.  I had to stop dancing and develop new goals and dreams.  This was the first real loss in my life.  I know that many people deal with much worse, but I can easily say that going through surgery and recovery was nothing compared to not being able to dance the way I wanted to. 

So there... this should have been my first clue that trying hard is not always enough.  But I mentally moved on to my still greater goal of being a wife and a mother and having a large family.  I knew that to have a career in dance it is pretty impossible to have kids in your early twenties.  I had always felt conflicted about these two dreams of mine.  But when God closed the dance door, and simultaneously presented me with a wonderful, loving relationship with my now-husband, I was sure that this was the new door that God was opening or pointing out to me.  The thought that both of my plans would be thwarted never occurred to me.  The thought that my body could betray me twice and deny me the only two things I ever wanted it to do for me was just not something that seemed realistic to me.  I believed that God loved me too much for that.

Well, the truth of the matter is that God does love me too much for that.  God wants me to be happy, and to have the things that I want that are in his plan and will.  But I still have to deal with the fact that we live in a fallen world, and things happen.  My dad has been trying to teach me this lesson my entire life, but I think I'm beginning to get it.  Life is not fair.  And this has nothing to do with good or bad, or the existence or love of God.  It is just true.  Life is not fair.  Some people have things that others are denied, and there is no reason for it.  Sometimes as hard as  you work for something you will never get it.  That does not mean that you should not continue working for it.

Life is not fair.

You may never get what you desire no matter how hard you work.

You should still fight and work for the things you want in life.

God still loves you, and life still has meaning.

Even if I never get the things that I desire in life, I want to trust that God does have a plan for me that will be fulfilling.

Career Crisis

I feel that I am preparing for a life that I never wanted.

Let me sketch for you a picture of the life I have been dreaming of for the past six or more years.  This, to me, is the perfect, ideal life that I wanted for myself.  

I always wanted to fall in love and get married young.  When J and I started dating, we already knew that our relationship was serious and heading toward marriage.  We may have only been 18 and 17, respectively, but neither of us believed in casual dating, and we had strong faith in our friendship and our growing relationship.  I was home schooled through tenth grade, and through my home school groups and my church, I knew many large families with young mothers, or women who had been around 20 when they had their first kid.  I always thought that these families were beautiful, wonderful, and what I wanted my future family to be like.  I feel so much passion about the vocation of parenthood!  More than anything I long to have a large family, to home school my children, and to provide them with a wonderful, joyful, childhood full of all the love, security, and Christian values that made me who I am today.  I do enjoy my career path.  I do love math and teaching.  I can become passionate about many things, but I have always longed to be a mother and take care of a family to a much greater extent than I ever desired a professional career.  

When I got married at the age of 20, it was my expectation that my first child would be born when I was 21. This did not seem young or early to me at all.  It seemed like perfect timing.  Maturity has very little to do with age, and J and I both believe that we are ready to be parents.  We have friends who are our age who have babies or are starting their families now, and even if it is less common today, my grandmothers had their first children when they were 20!  But our eagerness to start a family has nothing to do with when anyone else started or is starting their families.  We both want children now because we feel we are ready.  We share the dream of a large family, and we want that dream to begin yesterday.  

Something that has been hard for me is that while I am longing with everything in me to start the vocation of motherhood, so many of my friends around me are excited about their new careers, and they all assume that I should be too.  Am I glad that I went to college?  Of course!  I think education is incredibly important, and even if I had absolutely no intention of ever working (which is not the case) I would have wanted to study and learn more.  A high school education is just not enough for me, and I always wanted to go to college for its own sake.  But everyone assumes that now that I'm done with college of course all I want to do is find a job in my field and build my career.  I do love my field, and I do think I have talents that I can use there, but it is not what I want for my life right now.  I feel like society is asking me to live a lie by pretending that I desire these things. 

Now that my dreams of starting a family are not being fulfilled in the way I had hoped, I have been pouring all of my efforts into finding a job.  I always planned to work for a few years after college if necessary, and I am okay with doing that.  But I never felt the pressure to select all the right positions, make all the right connections, and maximize my career potential in the way that I would have felt compelled to do if I planned to work for my whole life.  A whole 14 months have passed since we started trying to start our family, and even though I still hope and believe that we will be successful, I feel that the chance that we may not is growing each month.  Now that I recognize that there is a reasonable chance I may not have children, or may not have them for a while, my career takes on a whole new importance and significance.  

And so while I grieve and struggle through infertility, I must also pour all of my efforts into preparing for a life I have never desired and do not want.  This has made this summer incredibly emotional and stressful for me.  For the first time I have started to feel this urgency to be successful after college, because I may not be able to pursue my real dreams.  I am very happy that I have the promise of employment when J and I move to our new home in a few weeks.  But at the same time, I am worried because this job is not in my field, and I want to ensure that my career is successful.  Even while I weight these considerations, the main thought constantly running through my head is I don't care about any of this.  I just want a baby! It sure makes it hard to think clearly! 

I am thankful that God has kept me sane through the past few months.  I am glad that he has blessed me with a job so that I will have something to do.  I know that his plans for me are greater than my plans for myself.  I know that there is a way that he can use this situation to bring glory to him.  I know all the right answers.  And knowing that God loves me does help.  I cannot imagine how lost and hopeless I would feel without God right now.  But that certainly does not mean that this is easy. 

Good News!

So apparently sometimes patience does pay off!  God does listen to my prayers, and he does answer them!

This morning I was offered a job.  Wonderful news!  I have been searching for a job since March.  While this is not a teaching job, it is still a job.  I actually love what I know about the company so far, and I think that it is a position that I could become passionate about.  It may not be in my major, but I still believe I will be able to put my skills and talents to work there.  Right now I am hoping to start in two weeks.  Life is moving very fast!

This week had the potential to be the best week of my life, a great week, or a devastating one.  This week was the week that I would find out if I was pregnant after cycle 13 of trying, and it was also the week that I knew I would hear back about this job.  I prayed earnestly to God for good news on both fronts, and I daydreamed about how exciting it would be to be pregnant and get a job all at once!  But what I pleaded for is that at least one good thing would happen to me this week.  I knew that it would be devastating to not get the job and not be pregnant, and while I knew I could handle it with God's help, I very much did not want to.

But God is meeting our needs.  God has provided me with a job.  And even though finding a job is in no way related to TTC, I still feel hopeful about that journey as well.  I know that God loves me, cares about me, and does in fact answer prayers with a "yes" sometimes!

I watched "Facing the Giants" this week, and this movie reminded me that it is important to praise God when things go well, and also when things do not go the way we want them to, or when everything seems hopeless.  God is worthy of our praise regardless of the difficulties in our lives.  After watching this movie I resolved that even if I was not pregnant and did not get this job, that I would still praise God and put my trust in him.  Thankfully, I get to praise God and thank him for giving me this opportunity!  And I know that even though we still do not have our baby, God can provide that wonderful blessing in his own timing.  And however long we have to wait, it will be worth it!

Hannah

When I consider turning to the Bible for comfort and truth about TTC and infertility I find myself repeatedly thinking of Hannah and turning to the opening chapter of Samuel.  I have always been puzzled by this story.  There is a lot going on!  This passage deals with things from the persistance of prayer to bargaining with God, and I've always found it to be hard to study.  But in the past few months it has had renewed relevance for me, so I have tackled it here.  If you are looking for some Biblical truth and answers about infertility, this is as good a place as any to start, although it is by no means all the Bible has to offer on this topic.  These are just my thoughts, and I certainly do not know everything.  Feel free to comment with your own comments, insights, or even disagreements and struggles.

1Samuel 1

1 There was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephrathite. ² He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

³ Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord. ⁴ On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. ⁵ But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb.^{[a] 6} And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. ⁷ So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat.

The language of “the Lord had closed her womb” makes it sound like this is a judgment against Hannah, or that God wanted this to happen to her or caused her infertility.  I cannot say for sure that this is not true… it is very possible that God does allow this to happen to Hannah so that he can be glorified later in the birth of Samuel.  In Hannah’s culture and society people believed that infertility was God’s judgment against someone, so Hannah probably dealt with both the grief of not having a child and the social stigma against childless women.  What I notice when I read this is that nothing is said about why Hannah is childless—there is no mention of judgment or that she has done something wrong, and I think this is very important to note.  God does not allow this to happen to Hannah because he is angry with her or does not love her—it just happens.

I know in my own journey I find it easy to wonder why God has not blessed me with a baby yet.  I see other people who are having kids, and some of them are going to be wonderful parents while some are clearly in less than ideal circumstances.  It makes me (and every other woman that I know who struggles with TTC) ask the question “Why not me?”  The truth is that the answer to this question is probably as simple as Just because—we live in a fallen, imperfect world, and bad things happen.  Just because bad things happen does not mean that God does not love us.

This is undoubtedly a very insensitive remark by Hannah’s husband.  Clearly he does not understand the ache in her heart.  After all, he has children by Peninnah, his other wife.  But we see from verse 5 that he does love Hannah, and I’ll bet that Hannah loves him back. 

⁸ And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”

Does anyone else ever feel guilty for wanting a baby so badly?  I know that sometimes I remember the days before I was dating my husband.  I had a crush on him for a solid eight months before he knew he liked me back, and I remember praying to God prayers along the lines of “God, if you give me J, I promise I’ll be happy for the rest of my life and never ask for anything else again.  I love him so much, and I don’t know if I can live without him!”  Now maybe I’m the only one who prayed this kind of prayer, but when I find myself so distraught and sad because I do not have a baby, I am always plagued by this strand of guilt, because God did give me the most incredible man, and I love him so dearly.  I feel like I should never want anything again.  But I do.  I want a baby.  This passage comforts me because I see that Hannah had a man who loved her, and she still desired more.  And God did not scorn her for this.  I know that the desire for children is one that God has given me. 

⁹ After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. ¹⁰ She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. ¹¹ And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”

Here I do not really know what to say. This kind of gets into another territory regarding bargaining with God. Is that okay to do? I have no idea. It seems to work well for Hannah here, and indeed it works for others in the bible at various times, but I always feel weird about it. If anyone has any thoughts about this, I would love to hear them!

¹² As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. ¹³ Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman. ¹⁴ And Eli said to her, “How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you.” ¹⁵ But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. ¹⁶ Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.”

Hannah is so intense in her praying and pleading with God that Eli the priest thinks she is drunk!  She responds that no, she is “a woman troubled in spirit… pouring out my soul before the Lord… out of my great anxiety and grief.”

I know I have been there.  It is horrible.  Sometimes afterwards I feel some peace and reassurance, but many times I do not.  I do know, though, that God hears my prayers.  I do not know that he will give me what I desire, but I know that he loves me.  We are not guaranteed happiness in life.  Being a Christian does not mean that God will give you all good things, or that your life here on earth will be wonderful.  What it means is that you know how much Christ loves you, and you know that you have a future of life and joy with him in eternity.  That is the wonderful joy and promise of the resurrection.  Nothing about happiness on earth is guaranteed.  But hey—if it weren’t for Christ, we would all be doomed to an eternity of torment, suffering and separation from God in Hell.  I know that’s not a popular thing to say, but it is true.  Something to remember is that God does love you.  He has already demonstrated this by sending his Son.  He may or may not give me a baby.  But I know that if he loves me so much as to send is only son to die for me, then I am sure he cares about my pain, and I know that he hates to see his children suffer.  So even if you feel that God is not listening or does not care, pour out your heart to him as Hannah did.  Because he is listening, and he does care.

 ¹⁷ Then Eli answered, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.” ¹⁸ And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

After her prayer, Hannah’s “face was no longer sad.”  Even though she did not know for sure how or when God would answer her petition, she had peace.  Knowing that God hears my prayer and cares about me gives me peace, even though I still do not know when or if I will have a baby.  Praying does help, and it does  calm me down eventually.

^{19 They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. 20 And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the Lord.”}

This is the happy ending that I know all TTC couples are waiting for! God granted Hannah’s request and she had a baby! I pray that this will happen for me as well, and for the other women I know who pray a similar prayer. Verse 20 says “in due time” Hannah conceived. It was not immediately, and it was not when she thought it was time. It was in God’s timing. I know that I hate not knowing, and I hate not having control. But at the same time, in those moments when I have peace and joy, it is because I recognize that if this, the strongest desire of my heart, is granted, it will be in God’s due time, and not in mine. And on my good days when I am most reasonable, I know that this will be much better than any timing I could come up with, and it will all work to glorify God in the end.

Peace

A few weeks ago I was having a horrible time with everything.  I was stressed and worried that I would never find a job, and I was feeling like God did not care about me because we didn't have a baby yet.  I've felt that way before, but it was a very low week for me.

I asked J to pray for me, because I was having trouble praying.  I asked him to pray for peace and joy, and that I would be able to be content with my situation and continue to trust in God.  Slowly things started to feel better and turn around.

Nothing has technically changed since then.  I still do not have a job lined up for the fall, and we still are not much further on our journey towards starting a family.  It has been three weeks and nothing is 'better'.  But I do feel that peace.  I can pray now, and I feel that God is reaching down to me and reassuring me that it will all be okay.  The last two weeks going to church has been an encouraging experience instead of a disheartening one, as I mentioned in a previous post that I felt it had become.  I felt like the Bible passages and words from the sermon were just for me and encouraged me that God had wonderful plans in store for me even if I could not see them.

Right now I am on vacation and visiting family.  I find that when I am around family I want a baby even more than when it is just J and I (if that is possible!).  It is incredibly difficult, because people allude to when we have kids in conversation, and I have to just brush past that comment like it does not make my heart ache.  But even though I feel that I want a baby now more than ever, I still feel calm and peaceful about it.  I can't say with full confidence that it will happen, but I can say with confidence that everything will be okay, life will go on, and God loves me and has a plan for my life.

Praise God for giving me a taste of this peace!  I hope it lasts.

The One Year Mark

Infertility is defined as the inability to conceive after one year of trying. 

My husband and I hit that one year mark just over a month ago, and I still cannot say the word infertility out loud in reference to us.  Hitting that mark was mostly devastating, but there was also a small dose of comfort.  It felt devastating because I realized that we were almost certainly not going to "just get pregnant."  There is a reason the medical community defines infertility as trying for a year - it's because if it has been that long, something is wrong.  It's as simple as that.  In one frustrating day I moved from just trying to conceive to this horrible label of infertility.  I went from optimistically thinking that any month now I would be pregnant to knowing that unless we figure out what is going on and manage to get it treated, my odds of getting pregnant in any given month are very, very slim.

Hope versus The Odds

What is frustrating to me is that even with this knowledge that it almost certainly cannot happen until something changes, I still get hopeful that this will be it.  Every month I tell myself that this time I will truly hold my emotions at bay, and this time I will not expect anything and will therefore not deal with the sadness and disappointment.  After all, if I can just keep myself from hoping, I won't be so devastated, right?

Well, one problem with that plan is God.  God makes it impossible for me to lose hope.  After all, God is the one who creates all life and who gives the gift and blessing of children.  I know this, and I know that God loves me, so every month, even if I know that statistically speaking my chances are slim to none, I pray to God and ask him for a baby, and then when I do not get one, I am surprised.  Every time.  I know that God not giving me what I want should not be surprising, but I have such faith in God's goodness and love for me that I keep thinking that it will happen and God will answer my prayers.  I think that maybe he was just trying to teach me patience, and maybe I've learned enough for him.  Maybe he was just waiting for the perfect timing and maybe its here.  I cannot see into the thoughts of God, so I have no idea when he will answer my prayers.  But every month I manage to rationalize a reason why God is probably going to answer my prayers with that YES that I so long for.

While hope in God is usually a great thing, in this context I hate it.  I know that sounds terrible, but it is true.  I sometimes feel that it would be easier if I had no reason to hope, because then I would not get these hopes up and I could avoid such crushing, recurring disappointment.   But I do know God, and I do know he loves me, and so I do hope, even when I try to remain realistic.

So how do I handle this conundrum? How do I balance my hope and faith in God with the fact that it probably is not going to happen this month?  I have no idea, but each month is a fresh opportunity for me to try a new approach. 

Dealing with the Label

Along with hitting that lovely one-year-mark comes another issue.  As much as I run from it, that term infertility is probably not going anywhere.  We could still get pregnant this summer, but more likely we are going to struggle with testing, doctors appointments, expensive treatments, and so on for at least a little while if not much longer.  So I struggle with the fact that only two people in my life other than my husband have any idea that this is going on.  If this is going to be an issue for us, maybe we need support from our families.  Maybe they should know.  But for some reason it is hard for me to figure out how to tell them.  And I do not even know if I want to.

When we started TTC we were firmly in the camp of "This is very personal, and no one needs to know that we're trying until we're 12 weeks pregnant."  I think this would have been my attitude at any time in my life, but especially since I am pretty young to be TTC, I did not want to deal with questions or judgments about our life choices.  We did not start this journey without careful thought, months of waiting, and both feeling ready.  The fact that we are young is not relevant to us, because we are emotionally ready and financially able to take care of a child.  I knew that people would question our judgment, and I did not want to deal with that.

But now that a year has passed and this dumb infertility label has shown up, I have no idea how to approach the topic, and I still do not know if I want to approach it.  It seems horribly weird and awkward to bring it up, but it also seems weird to not have people know.  Any other medical issues that J or I have are shared with our families, so omitting this one feels almost deceitful.  But I think a part of me is still afraid that the judgment I feared initially might still be there.  And what I absolutely do not want to hear is how we are young and we have plenty of time.  Time will not fix this if nothing else is done.  Also, even though I know we have lots of time, I am still sad and struggling.  My life dream was to be a mom of a large family.  I wanted at least eight kids, and I wanted to have them while I was young and have lots of energy.  Even though I know that we will still have children one way or another, I feel this dream slipping away from me.  I find it very hard to believe that we will have that many children, and I am saddened at the potential loss of my dream family.



So these are two of the issues that passing the one-year-mark has brought to the surface for me.  I hate labels, and this one is my least favorite of all.  I am still in the process of figuring out how to deal with it.