Well I've always considered myself a pretty low key, normal person! BAHAHAHA!
I am probably the farthest thing from normal! I would say that I have always been a pretty chipper, happy, energetic person. My daddy has always told me that I am very blessed because I have laughed everyday! That is very true. But my daddy has also told me that "sometimes you have to hit people upside the head with a 2 x 4 before they learn something!" Unfortunately, that is very true too!
Well infertility and God certainly knocked me out with that 2 x 4. I am a planner, and I may be a little obsessive?! People often tell me that I need to be more flexible, that I can't control everything, and I can't change the world. I used to look at them and smile while on the inside saying "bless your poor little heart, but yes I can! Would you like to watch me?" I haven't always been that way though. In fact in high school I could have cared less about most anything. I graduated with a C average, and that included my A in gym and home ec. When I went to college, my dad started divinity school. He had been out of school for 23 years and was going back to school to get his Masters. He did the one thing that he knew would motivate me! He challenged me and said he would get better grades than me! Well, it was on like Donkey Kong! At that moment I kicked it into high gear and that is how we got the obsessive, control freak I am today.
At that point in my life, everything was in my control. I chose what to study, when to go out, when to sleep and eat, etc. I learned how to solve problems relying only on myself. If I saw a problem, I had to come up with a solution and fix it! That was the only thing that made since to me! I decided to go to law school my senior year of college. So I took a class, took the LSAT, and applied to law school! I think that's where NIKE would say I "Just Did It."
But things changed when I got "the fever." Everything in my life up to that point was attainable based on my decision and action. So it made sense to me that this would be same way. How VERY WRONG I was! Remember that I was told I had a 20% chance to conceive naturally. There goes that whole denial thing again! We decided we were going to have a baby. Well we didn't really plan anything at first. I didn't monitor my periods or ovulation. I figured it couldn't be that difficult to get pregnant. I mean 15 year old high school girls do it all the time, right? (I know that sounds rude, but that's how I felt) Well, after a couple months of regular periods I decided that it might be a little more scientific than I thought. At that time I was still pretty rational!
Well the longer I had my period, the more insane I became. I started to lose all control of my thoughts and emotions. One day I was walking out of Wal-Mart and saw a very nice looking lady who was probably 6 months pregnant and holding the hand of her 4 year old son. I hated her! I stared at her like she had four heads and thought "why does she get to have two?" I literally felt my blood pressure rise, my face started tingling, and I was mad! I hated someone I didn't even know, just because she was pregnant! I got in my car and started sobbing uncontrollably. I found myself disliking women I didn't know, everywhere I went. Then I found myself being upset at women I knew who were getting pregnant. I just wanted to know one thing "why not me?" But to make things even more complicated, there were 2 special women who got pregnant during this time. I was absolutely blissful that they were pregnant. When one of them told me she was pregnant, I almost knocked her out of her chair because I jumped on her and hugged her so hard! Why didn't I hate them? (I didn't want to hate them, I just didn't understand what the difference was). What's even more interesting is that everytime I have a bad day, or get bad news, those two children are so comforting to me and I just want to hold them!
Then came the feelings that I was defective and broken. I am a woman, that's what we do! God made my body this way so I could have children. So the fact that my portable incubator wasn't working properly, made me feel like there was something wrong with me! This time duct tape wouldn't fix it, it was broke! I wasn't able to give my husband a child. Many times I have thought about how blessed I am to be infertile in this day, instead of centuries ago. I would have been discarded and shunned because I was broken. Even though I knew he loved me with all of his heart, I really believed that he would be happier with someone who could give him a child. I really believed that the fact that I couldn't have a baby would make him love me less.
I started to ask God what I had done to deserve infertility. Why was I being punished. Why could people who couldn't afford to feed a child, have four? Why could women who were on drugs get pregnant? Why could women who clearly didn't want a child, sleep with any one they wanted, repeatedly get pregnant and end the pregnancy as a form of birth control?! I don't know that I was mad at God, but I was just so confused. I couldn't understand "why?" That was the root of every question. WHY?!
Now inagine all of this craziness swimming around in your head, on top of the normal female hormones, and you can't tell anyone! I held it in, all to myself, for months. I didn't think anyone would understand! I think I knew how crazy all of these things sounded, but it was my reality at that moment. I didn't even tell Kevin. I don't suggest that as a coping mechanism by the way because it just intensifies the crazy! I never knew what kind of day I was going to have. I never knew if seeing a pregnant lady was make me cry, smile, or fume! I never knew whether watching TV was safe. What if I saw a baby on TV. Was I going to say awww and think it was cute or sob uncontrollably? It really is a wonder Kevin didn't have me committed!
Well about this time we had been married long enough that people started to notice that we didn't have any children yet. They started asking, ALL OF THE TIME, "when are you guys going to have a baby?" People started giving me advice and telling me how I could get pregnant. Now that I am much more stable, I find some of them hilarious! People told us to have sex in certain positions, put a pillow under your but, put your legs in the air afterwards, acupuncture, eat this certain food, etc. The most common piece of advice was "just relax and have fun," "you are concentrating too hard." That might be another place where NIKE would say "Just Do It." But seriously, how do you look someone in the eye, who has just given you some very well intentioned advice, and smile all while you want to kick them in the knees?
In addition to people telling me how to successfully have sex, people would try to make me feel better about the fact that I didn't have children yet. They would tell me that children were so much work and I should enjoy life without them for now. Well just in case anyone is unclear, please do not tell someone who is infertile and desperately wanting a child, that they should be thankful they don't have one. All that says to this crazy lady is "I can have children, you can't, and I don't appreciate mine."
Finally, a very great friend of mine gave me a book entitled "Empty Womb, Aching Heart." It is a book of stories told by other infertiles.That was the day my life started to look up. I learned I was not alone! I discovered that every story in the book was something I could relate to. I WAS NOT ALONE! I was not crazy or insane. I was grieving, as if I had lost a loved one. Just because I had never met that loved one didn't make the pain any less real. The pain was because I would potentially never meet that loved one. I knew I was heading out of the crazy woods when I started feeling compassion for those women giving me that siilly advice. They didn't know that I was struggling with infertility. I realized I could do one of two things. I could make those women feel an inch tall by blasting them with the news that I was infertile; or I could smile and tell them something that would change the subject (realizing they didn't know my situation). I chose to smile and save their feelings!
The biggest blessing of these crazy couple of months was realizing that I had no control over God's plan. I needed God, and couldn't do infertility by myself. I am so blessed to have a very close group of friends who are very spiritually centered, and a wonderful church and pastor who pointed me in the right direction. My friends were like bumpers at the bowling alley. Although the ball goes all over the lanes, those bumpers prevent the ball from going in the gutter and keep it headed towards its pin destination.
I have learned that I can't plan everything and that is life. I can't obsess about the things I can't control. I can't do life alone! I have met some wonderful people during this struggle. I have learned that infertility is much more common than most people know. I have learned that I am NOT broken! I found out that it is much more helpful for me to listen to the stories of others, than telling them my own. By doing that, my question for God now is "what," not why! "What is your plan for my infertility?' What are the oppurtunities you are going to give this crazy lady?" "WHAT?"
My infertility is not a curse, but an oppurtunity to do something BIG!
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