Wednesdays are for Fertility!! 

This is a long one so buckle up!! And thank you for reading!

Some types of emotional pain do not lessen with age or time. Infertility is one of those pains. Even those families who struggled through it and are on the other side with a beautiful child or children, always remember the months and months, and perhaps years of tears and heart-wrenching pain ripping at their incomplete souls. 

Thoughts on Fertility from a religious scope

Religions prescribe that if you follow the rules and have faith things will turn out alright. Life is not perfect, individuals will still go through trials and hard times, but well enough that you won’t feel like you are in an endless abyss of torment in the pits of…well you know. 

Romans 8:28 in the bible says: 

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” 

Then explain to me, a good Christian girl who tried to follow all the rules, served a volunteer mission, married a good Christian boy, reads my scriptures, prays, attends church, etc., etc; how wanting children is not advancing God’s purpose? What rules did I break, and what purpose-seeking did I fall short of? Why are baby things not working together for MY good?  Additionally, how does this scripture explain couples who struggle to have children for years and are never able to successfully reproduce? What rules did they break? Or for that matter what rules did my peacemaker of a husband break to deserve to be born without the ability to naturally conceive a baby? 

Sometimes I wish I wanted to be in the childless-by-choice camp, so the pain would dissipate. But I don’t. These wounds could heal, with either the acceptance of childlessness or the fulfillment of the dream of becoming a mother, but the scars will always remain. I understand that it would be easier to accept my fate and move on, travel the world, to go where I want, when I want. To not have to worry about calling a babysitter, or child care if I decided I wanted to work and have kids. But I don’t want to accept that fate. I’m not quite ready to give up. And can you blame me?

I was conditioned by my religion and upbringing to want children. On the one hand, my upbringing stunted me a little with the way Christianity so heavily focuses on motherhood for women. As I result, I always thought by now I would have at least a child or two and be spending most of my time raising them. If I had known ten or even five years ago that I wouldn’t have children yet, I may have pushed harder for a career in the field I’m currently getting a master’s degree in. I married young (age 23), fully expecting to be a stay-at-home mom with 3-5 kids, Muffler (my dog), and chickens. I’m mostly joking about the chickens. 

I fear the religion I was raised in has not set up a good, safe, non-judgmental environment for people in my childless predicament. The sad reality of my environment is that due to my motherhood status, I am unintentionally excluded from the club. 

I don’t want to buy myself flowers. 

At my church women, in leadership roles, reach out when someone in the area loses a loved one asking for monetary donations to buy the individual or family flowers. Which, is of course a nice gesture to someone grieving the loss of a family member. Why can’t someone (not my husband) bring me flowers with a note saying “Sorry for your loss. Sorry that you once again got your period and that’s devastating. Sorry that infertility is so, hard and unfair. Sorry that life is a little mundane and a little empty right now. Sorry that a religion that is supposed to be filled with love, and acceptance is making you feel a little sad, ostracized, and excluded at the moment.

Or something like that.    

Social Media Pitfalls

My neighborhood and church Facebook pages often have event posts about the children in my area and I just have to scroll past them because there isn’t an ‘ignore or does not apply” button for posts inside of groups. 

Another social media trigger came self-inflicted this week when I commented on a fertility post. Lately, my Instagram and Facebook have been force-feeding me every product and ad on the market about fertility, balancing hormones, and conceiving naturally. 

The post asked the question: “What would you do if IVF was no longer an option?” and then posted several slides about natural conception not being impossible. To which I responded:

“Natural conception is sadly impossible for us and IVF is literally our only option, but it’s great that you are trying to help other women conceive naturally.”

I expected some pushback of “but natural conception is possible for a good majority.” instead this make-a-dollar fertility “influencer” said, “My program works great alongside IVF as well!!” 

Still thinking this was a good-hearted soul wanting to help those on my same journey I clicked the link. The 4-week health detox, cleanse was $700. No, thank you! I could buy a similar detox book I found written by a doctor for $15.99. These courses are being marketed to women with unsuccessful IUIs, IVF, and years of trying. They are charging vulnerable women hundreds of dollars to do a detox that may or may not result in pregnancy. Women who have already had years of failed fertility treatments, and possibly thousands of dollars of sunk costs tied into those fertility treatments. These women probably struggle with feelings of inadequacy, have baby hunger on the level of starvation, and are willing to do nearly anything to become pregnant. What a disgusting trend. I quickly clicked off the page and fumed about it for a while. 

Announcements, Announcements, Announcements!! 

Announcements, announcements, announcements!
What a terrible way to die,
A terrible way to die,
A terrible way to be talked to death
A terrible way to die!

Remember the announcements song from years at church girls’ camp. 

While writing this my brain accidentally connected baby announcements to death. But for the sake of analogy, I guess I do die a little emotional death with every new baby announcement. 

Look, I don’t expect family and friends to withhold information about having a baby from me, I can handle it. If everyone tiptoes around the topic for fear of how painful baby news is for me to hear, I will either accidentally find out, which hurts more. Or there would be a bunch of toddlers running around that I wouldn’t know existed. This would certainly be an odd way to attempt to keep friendships strong. Babies are a natural flow of life. Besides, if no one ever had them, humans would eventually become extinct. Just be sure, no matter how you decide to tell us, who can’t figure out this fertility thing, be gentle. Our hearts have been through the ringer of disappointments where babies are concerned. 

I remember when my seven years my junior sister announced to my husband and I that she was pregnant. She planned to tell our immediate family together one evening when my brother and his family were visiting, but we had to leave early that day, and some of the family hadn’t arrived back at my parent’s house yet. So my sister and brother-in-law awkwardly waited for us in the garage while we said our ‘see you laters’ to my parents. 

Then we got in our car and my brother-in-law asked if they could ride in the car around the block for a minute. As soon as our vehicle was in reverse I looked at my sister sitting in the back seat and she started crying and I started crying. My confused husband kept asking “‘what was happening” and I said “She’s pregnant.” And he suddenly understood. My sister knew this announcement though happy would bring me some pain. She made sure of a few things:

1. That I heard it from her and not from someone else. 
2. That I was not the last to hear the news.
3. That I was in a safe space to cry when she told me. 

Though, when they shared their news with the extended family (Aunt’s, Uncles, Grandparents) a couple of months later, an off-handed comment about “finally” was made during their slide show presentation, which triggered me into spending the next half hour crying in the front yard of my aunt and uncle’s house away from inquisitive eyes. Yes, “finally,” after two whole years. I admit that I am overly sensitive about the topic, but I feel my tears are justified by the level of hard extended infertility brings. 

I carry zero resentment for my sister, and I absolutely adore her now one-year-old little boy. 

More recently one of my best friends just announced the pregnancy of her third child. Thankfully she allowed me to be disappointed with grace, by telling me three weeks before she told her parents and then subsequently the rest of the world. Who knows how my sarcastic shoulder demon would have clapped back at the devastating betrayal if she had waited for me to find out with the rest of Facebook. Again, thankfully she saved our nearly two-decades-long friendship by telling me before so I could process the announcement, grieve my own circumstances, and muster up all the happiness she deserves, by the time the sonogram pictures hit my feed. I am further grateful I didn’t have to simultaneously click the like button and have a cry about it, as the crying was already done weeks ago. 

Avoidance is sometimes less painful.

I also just found out that my cousin’s wife is also pregnant. And fairly far along as she is starting to plan her baby shower. I don’t think it was a secret, but nothing was posted on their socials, and nothing was mentioned while my husband or I were within earshot. I learned off chance when my aunt mentioned being nearly a grandma on one of her recent Instagram stories. 

I woke Sunday morning fully prepared to attend an extended family luncheon (with that side of the family), but thankfully I woke up with a terrible sore throat, a headache, and a cough. When are you thankful to wake up sick, one might ask? When a baby shower for said pregnant cousin’s wife is discussed, especially when you have known about the pregnancy for what feels like only 10 minutes. Therefore,  you’re extremely unprepared to be excited, and would probably burst into tears instead. 

And because I was sick this past weekend, my grumpy sass wanted to text back “No thank you!” when my mom sent the save the date for the cousin’s baby shower this summer (in a text group with my mom and sisters – no cousins). However, I also learned that this cousin and his wife, who are almost a decade our juniors, want to have a happy little tea party baby shower, and because I am the resident expert on tea parties I couldn’t exactly “nope out.” The date in question for the shower happens to be the morning of my husband’s birthday. I cannot criticize them too harshly for picking that day as it is also my cousin’s birthday, and it makes sense that the couple would want to celebrate two things that day. Luckily I have a few months to put my emotions in order before the party. 

Now, as grateful as I was on Sunday I have been far less appreciative of that cough the past three days and simply want it to disappear.

“March comes in like a lion, What else…” 

While the song refers to the weather, much like a lion referring to harsh weather conditions, early March was an emotional blizzard. 

We had an immensely heartbreaking setback in March, on top of a few things on our baby side quest taking longer than expected. [More on Side quest news later]

So, late one night, a few weeks ago, Brent came out to the living room to quite a scene. I was in full-on break-down mode. Sobbing so hard I was shaking. I had tried to cry quietly, but at this sleep-deprived midnight snack moment, I couldn’t hold in my emotions any longer. We sat in tear-filled silence, while Brent held me for a while before I finally wiped my eyes on my pajamas and we headed to bed. 

The longer you’re in the trenches the harder each failed attempt hits. And the harder it is to pick back up and try again. Sometimes in this journey, I pendulum between spontaneous outbursts of tears, when my brain quiets for a moment between focusing on other tasks, and just feeling numb. 

Finding a balance between what I can control and what I cannot control, but would like to, seems a daunting and unmanageable thing. So,  for now, I’m trying to find peace in the middle zones, when we are in the waiting period,  between treatments or events. 

Infertility is a disease that affects too many people. While infertility is probably not a “this century” problem, it is a first-world problem exacerbated by processed foods, harmful environmental toxins, and genetic conditions. 

My therapist recently took another opportunity. So now instead of talking through my traumas, I bottle them up inside until I find the right word to write here. Hopefully, they are clear and not word vomit.

While we wait for the pendulum to swing in our favor, my next step is a four-day liquids detox I assembled after extensive Pinterest, Google, and Youtube research. I’ll let you know how it goes. 

Here are two pictures of my dog as a final parting gift for those who at least scrolled to the bottom.