Healing

Holidays are tough for the infertile. In many families, the holiday celebrations revolve around the kids, shining a light on the gaping hole in your own little family. We all sit around and watch the kids open Christmas presents, hunt for Easter eggs and blow out birthday candles. Holidays are filled with reminders of what you don't have and desperately long for.

Mother's Day is no exception, obviously. Over the past couple years, I would skip church on Mother's Day and try to pretend it was just another day. Being there would have been far too much for me to bear. I would have been a sobbing mess, destroyed for the rest of the day. This year, I agreed to sing with the worship team, before realizing that it was both Mother's Day and baby dedication. Heaven help me.

The service was oozing with emotional Mother's Day goo. There was a video about moms, featuring drawings and narration by children, a picture slideshow of moms with their kids, a prayer for all the mothers in the church and the dedication of a handful of little ones (including heartfelt letters read aloud by the parents). And I was fine. I was a rock. Not a tear was shed. (OK, maybe I teared up a little during the video, when the children were asked, "How are you different from your mom?" and one little voice said, "My skin is a different color." I mean...come on.) 

Healing comes and it takes time. Maybe ALOT of time. But it does come. I know we have heard this our whole lives. "Time heals all wounds". It's a cliche, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.  I've seen it, I've lived it. There is a huge difference between the condition of my heart and mind today and the shape I was in a year or two ago. Little by little, God was healing me, repairing the cracks, smoothing the ragged edges of my heart. He was carrying me along the path that HE laid out. I didn't even realize it was happening.

I am so thankful for a God who loves us and cares for us. He didn't just give us salvation and then leave us here to live this terribly difficult life all alone. He doesn't leave. He is here, every day, in the trenches with us, seeing our tears, hearing our prayers and cries of despair. Feeling our pain and loving us through it.

Your love never fails, It never gives up, It never runs out on me.

The "I" Word

I recently learned that infertile women experience the same grief cycle as someone dealing with a terminal illness. This probably would have been helpful to know while I was in the midst of it, for one of the hardest parts of the whole process was feeling like I was the only one. I knew, of course, that there were infertile women and couples all around us, but I didn't know any of them personally. I had no family or close friends who could relate. They had no idea what it felt like, so it was impossible for them to comfort me. I know that I would have liked to read something like this a couple years ago. May it bring you some peace, weary, broken soul. You are not alone. It is normal and ok to feel what you are feeling.

Shock/Denial: I stayed in this stage for about two years, feeling crushing disappointment month after month. I was simply not ready to hear that we had a problem. Living with the unknown was a special kind of mental torture and after two years, I spoke to my doctor. As I sat in the exam room, learning about the first test she would do, hearing about the possibility of being referred to a fertility specialist, I remember thinking, " I cannot believe we are having this conversation. I am healthy. I am only 26 years old. This shouldn't be happening"

Anger/Guilt: What a dark time in my life. I did not feel guilty, but oh boy, was I angry. I was consumed with anger, self-pity, bitterness and jealousy. They suffocated me, blackening and hardening my heart. My journal entries from this time are not pretty. I didn't want to attend church and listen to sermons about a loving God when I felt that he had abandoned me. I couldn't sing worship songs about a God who answers prayers when I felt like He was ignoring mine. I didn't want to see the babies that people brought into the sanctuary or the woman caressing her pregnant belly. There was no escape from the things that set me off. Facebook, family gatherings, the baby section at Target, baby showers, playgrounds, TV shows. It was so much easier to just hunker down in my despair and feel sorry for myself. Which brings me to the next phase.

Depression/Despair: I don't know when one phase ended and the other began. I believe they were interwoven. Honestly, getting some medical answers helped immensely with the whole process. There was a renewed sense of hope. I am a list-maker, an action-taker. I needed a goal and way to get there. We pursued in vitro fertilization. The countless doctor appointments gave me something to do, somewhere to go. It wasn't pleasant. There were painful procedures, multiple shots every evening that marked and bruised my skin, burning as the medicine entered my body. Blood drawn every other day, internal ultrasounds, waiting and hoping and praying. We ended up with only three embryos to transfer. They showed us the picture of these embryos and the nurse said, "These are your babies." She shouldn't have said that. They never got the chance to be babies.  The doctor called me at work and I knew before the words left her mouth. It hadn't worked. I wasn't pregnant. And we were done. I didn't want to try again, even if we could afford it. So I waited to sink into the deepest depression I had ever known.

Acceptance: The depression didn't come. I waited for it. Day after day went by and I felt alright. At peace. You see, somewhere along the way, my prayers had changed. I stopped praying for a baby and started saying, "God, whatever You have for us; however this ends...help me accept it. Prepare my heart." And He did. He may not have answered my prayer for a baby, but He certainly answered this one. He had a different plan for us. I can look at it now from His perspective. Watching me banging on closed doors on every side of me, on the brink of completely falling apart, waiting patiently for me to see the door opened at the end of the hallway, leading us to South Africa.

The Cure

I don’t know exactly how long I have been feeling this way. I try to think back to high school, a decade ago, and recall the kind of person I was.  I was moody, but that’s to be expected of a teenage girl. I recall being irritable, sullen, sarcastic and disrespectful. Again, par for the course, I suppose.

But now, here I am: 28 years old, married to a wonderful man, three adorable pups to snuggle, homeowner, employed full-time at a good company. And I am still irritable, sullen, angry and tired. No, exhausted. Mentally, physically, emotionally. And I don’t know why. My body aches, I feel like I can’t fully breathe. I literally feel weight on my shoulders, a heaviness on my chest. Of course, I rack my brain and examine my inner-most being,  searching for the cause. For if I can find the reason, I can fix it, right?

The last 3+ years have been taxing, to say the least. Three years of infertility, one failed In Vitro Fertilization cycle and now, an international adoption. I also blame my job. I am here more than I am at home, and I find no joy in it. There is no fun, no laughter, no satisfaction or purpose.  Would leaving this place take care of the problem? I don’t know, because I can’t leave. We need the income. I feel such a deep sense of responsibility, it would be nearly impossible for me to just quit because I don’t like it.

I had a couple sessions with a therapist. It wasn’t terribly helpful, but one of the things I took away from it was that I have an under-current of anger. Like it’s always simmering just below the surface. Molten lava ready to spew forth at the tiniest provocation. When I relayed this to my mother, saying “I’m an angry person” she replied “Yes, you are”. So apparently the therapist is not the only one who noticed.  My mother then asked, “Why are you so angry?” I don’t know.

I suppose I am angry that we don’t have children. I am angry that it is so easy for so many other people. I am angry that God has chosen us to walk this painful path. I am angry that I have to work at a job I don’t love. I am angry that I can’t just do whatever I want, regardless of how much money I make doing it. I would like to think that when we bring home our little South African, I will be happy. When I can work part-time or not at all, I will be happy.

I read a blog earlier today, about being hungry for God, feeling empty and run-down inside. It resonated with me, because that is how I feel. I have been attributing my unhappiness, and let’s face it, my depression, on circumstances of this life. My job, my life without children, debt, finances, etc. Which ultimately means, I am counting on these things to make me happy. But is this what God wants of us? Is this what He tells us in His word? I certainly believe that children bring joy, and He intended it this way. But does He say that being debt-free will make us happy? That having a fun job will make our life worth living? We are to depend on HIM, not things of this earth, not life circumstance.

I've had a revelation, of sorts, regarding my depression and the “cure.” Maybe I shouldn’t be waiting for my life circumstances to fix my heart and my spirit. Maybe I should be relying on my Savior, my Father, the One who loves me more than anyone, to fix my heart and my spirit. How do I let Him do this? Will reading His word and having more quiet time with Him change the way I feel about everything in my life? Is it really this easy? My heart (or the Holy Spirit) is saying “Yes. It will. And yes, it is."