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.