I remember the day my heart broke. I could feel it crack, break apart in a million little pieces. My heart could no longer hold the hurt. It wasn’t meant to.
4 years of questions. The indescribable pain of loss. 4 years of faking it. I was okay. Really. I wanted to count it all joy, pass the test, stand strong in my faith. I couldn’t cry. I refused to be broken. My heart was full of unspoken dreams and I clutched tightly to this private pain.
That night I let go. …on the kitchen floor in our tiny railroad apartment. I cried. The tears rushed free in a flood that wouldn’t , couldn’t be stopped. Falling to my knees, my heart broke. A reward for the breakthrough, freedom was the prize. I claimed it. It was a process…but it had begun.
I began to talk about it. First to people on the fringes. Infrequent and generally unplanned interactions felt safe. I worked towards the inner circle, ending in full disclosure with my best friend. She knew of course…but I’d never said a word. Full of pride and not wanting to appear weak or out of control, I hid behind conversations focused on her. My story crept out slowly..in pieces – much like the remnants of my heart. Reconstruction was a promise and I prayed for its fulfillment.
The complex emotions of infertility demand expression. An outlet for the grief we silently carry. It’s hard to talk about something no one can see. The inner turmoil of our private yearning is not up for discussion. Classified as bedroom talk…we don’t speak of such things publicly.
Give yourself permission to grieve. Your disappointment isn’t selfish. Tears are cleansing and you don’t always have to put on a brave face. You were created human..perfectly and beautifully flawed – human. Designed for connection with God and man…you have a heart. It belongs to Him. Trust Him to heal it as you grieve.
Don’t get lost in grief but feel free to have a good cry when you need to. Your sacred circle of family and friends will be there to catch you. They’ll encourage and pick you up if you stay down too long.
Your emotional health is important. Make the powerful choice to take care of yourself. Get the help you need to process the emotions of infertility. Free yourself with the gift of tears. Feel free to grieve.
Have you given yourself permission to grieve? Do you have a safe space to share your feelings about infertility?
A little word:
My life dissolves and weeps itself away for heaviness; raise me up and strengthen me according to [the promises of] Your word. (Psalm 119:28 AMP)
a little of my ordinary grew my hair, dance ministry, designed dresses, #1 auntie
You’re no ordinary girl. Singled out when you’d prefer being like the others…you want to blend in. You’re here and you don’t want to be. Forced to stand in line. You’re here because you’re different.
You can’t make sense of this line. Who’s next you wonder? There’s no first come, first served, it isn’t organized alphabetically. You’ve seen women jump ahead of you from the back of the line. For no clear reason. Is it the perfect pale yellow of her blouse or does she have an in with the Teacher? No. You’ve been pulled aside and asked to wait.
You wanted to be like them – the ordinary women
Their bodies, cycles, births…. a hushed given
They carelessly fall pregnant while you stand in line
To learn a few lessons, pass a few tests in a school for the broken
Hopefully your time will be short. Prayerfully you’ll learn a few things…there’s grace, compassion…gratitude. You’ll be tried beyond what you think you can stand. You will undoubtedly question your identity…because infertility is nothing if not a breaker of wills, a killer of self-esteem. It will be hard. Waiting is hard and infertility isn’t for ordinary girls.
I wanted to be like them. Make love to my husband. Get pregnant. Sounds simple enough. But you see, I’m like you…I wasn’t ordinary either.
I had an ordinary body that refused to do an ordinary thing
Conception was normal and my body wouldn’t do it.
So while they planned baby showers and talked breast-feeding
I window shopped or did yoga…anything to keep me from remembering I wasn’t like them
I wasn’t ordinary
And I wanted to be
I’d have given anything to be ordinary but I had to learn to embrace my own path. My own, common, run of the mill – ordinary. Restrict time spent glancing back at what others were doing. Because their ordinary wasn’t mine and coveting it only held me back from walking in a life that could be extra ordinary. I learned we’re all different. Unique creations of an amazing God – we’re all different and whose to say the line was a bad thing anyway? *
What will you do while waiting? Will a good book pass the time? A few long over due conversations with friends? I know this is hard to hear…but it’s important. Because the years pass and you don’t want to take for granted the beautifully ordinary gift of life. You have to choose life.
You can serve others by offering your gifts back to God. Sow your energy and time as a servant to your community. Because this time is special. As a woman without children you are free in a way you’ll never be again. It’s up to us to draw out the advantages of the situations we find ourselves in. Extract His goodness and enjoy every drop of the nectar of life.
Friends, we get to choose. Choice is a gift. An overlooked bit of ordinary grace extended to us because of love. We “get” to choose. Let’s choose to thrive.
We can pass the time together – create our own club. We of the rare breed, the different cloth …are warrior women. We can redeem the time by shouting the walls down. We may have to wait but we haven’t been silenced. Let us redeem the expression of our worth, creatively explore our callings. Let’s tell our stories and in the telling be healed. Let’s revive our hearts through communion with His spirit. Living this way makes your ordinary extraordinary.
Experiment with this for a few weeks. You’ll find fulfillment. I promise.
So here’s to being healthier and happier while waiting. How will you embrace yourordinary?
* I spent enough time on and off the line to say it produced compassion, faith and resilience. I wouldn’t trade the experience. Other warriors say the same. Beauty was found in the brokenness…and remains…in my gorgeous ordinary.
A little word
I pray to God —my life a prayer— and wait for what he’ll say and do. My life’s on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning. (Psalm 130:5, 6 MSG)
So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith. (Galatians 6:9, 10 MSG)
Questions about faith, science and fertility left me alone and in the middle of the darkest part of the journey. What is infertility but a confounded mess of injustice..a relentless and underhanded foe? In the darkness, I blindly groped for truth. I struggled. I had to fight for the win. Infertility for the Christian woman is hard and I questioned God every step of the way.
This is an area you’ll have to conquer alone. Faith is like that. Your friends can believe for you but the road is yours to travel. You’ll have to figure out where the three collide. Reconcile your beliefs with the reality of a faith shattering experience. I wish I could do this for you. Meld them together, make it all make sense. What I can do is share my story. Believing the redemptive expression of a story can play a significant role in healing..I share it openly.
Here’s the hope…. There is light at the end of the tunnel. The collision of your faith with anything can create a miracle. It’s that powerful.
So let’s do this…I’m re-posting today. I wrote about this topic earlier this year. I’ve revised it a bit and chose to expand on a few points but basically I’m sticking with everything I felt and said. This is an important one friends…breathe deeply and get ready for the battle.
photo: gregory colbert I see myself dancing, sometimes wrestling with God as I wait on Him..Isaiah 40:31
Faith. Science. Fertility. Three powerful words. Standing alone they define themselves. Their meanings …clear. But together, they cloud your usually 20/20 vision. When trying to conceive you’re left standing alone with a cartoon bubble full of question marks over your head. How do you define them? How do you put them together to bring that still , quiet knowing called peace to an ever-searching heart? I am tearful as I write this because these 3 words have perhaps brought me the most significant challenge of my life and I want to lay it out here in hopes of helping someone. I pray it is useful.
I gave my heart to God at 23. The man I now call husband brought me to church as part of our courtship. My relationship with him developed as I got to know the greatest Him of all. Up until that point in life I can say I had never been acquainted with loss. Having grown up surrounded by 2 parents, family and friends that supported and loved me, I was living the blessed life. Certainly I cried the crocodile tears of first love. I’d even felt my share of betrayal, but had never known the soul crushing pain I would experience as a newly married woman.
A year and a half into our marriage I conceived and miscarried our first child. 14 weeks. No heartbeat. No life. Gone. Gone. I was Devastated. my heart? Broken. Initially I martyred it off. Professing my wholeness after what was seemingly God’s plan, I took 2 weeks off and returned to life. I didn’t know it at the time but the experience had changed me forever. Slowly, over a period of months and years I lost my faith and lived in unbelief. All of this closeted, because I still attended, sang in and served in church. I knew God was love. I didn’t believe He loved me. How could He and allow me to lose our baby? My faith was being tested and it didn’t matter to me because I didn’t know where it was and a part of me didn’t care.
This is where it gets tricky. I love science and have always had a whimsical curiosity about the wonders of the universe. I never doubted God as creator of it all. I respect the medical field. I believe God gives wisdom to doctors to create treatment protocols and uses them as instruments of healing. Yes! I believe this. Then why, when considering treatment for the disease of infertility, did I believe I wasn’t exercising my faith if I sought advice from a doctor? This misguided piece of information is subtly passed among the pews of too many churches with regard to barrenness. It leaves a trail of confusion and guilt that God did not intend. I vacillated on this one for a long time and was led to see a doctor. I saw it as exercising my dust-mite sized faith with a corresponding action. But that initial message haunted me.
My journey down the path of medicine did not lead to a baby. I travelled the road as long as it felt comfortable and got off just a few short exits from my starting point. I was ok with it. Emotionally and physically I was tired but I thank God I was able to get on and off the roller coaster of treatment at my choosing. I appreciated the doctors and nurses I met that acknowledged the god factor in their efforts. Their approach was refreshing and gave me peace during a particularly vulnerable time.
Time in and of itself is a healer and as the years went by I regained my faith. I reached a crossroad in my walk with God where it was either put up or shut up. Everyone gets to this point. Something happens that rocks your core and you have to either pick up your cross and keep it moving or walk away…empty handed and full of pride. Why can’t I, why won’t you? No. Crack addicts have babies! Why not me? This is a sampling of the stream of internal dialogue I had with God. I was angry with Him. I did not like Him. His love seemed cruel and unkind and I wanted no part of it. I’m sure somewhere in the heavens a door slammed every time I ran off to my room crying. I was mad. But as I said, time healed and I grew up in the things of God. I made my choice and decided that baby or no baby I was in this thing for good. I began to listen for, hear and obey His voice. He called me to the ministry of adoption and I answered yes. I became a mother and got a glimpse of the wonderfully delicious life He’d planned and set aside just for me.
photo: gregory colbert
By the time I conceived my only biological child I was 44 years old. Every thing the doctors said had been a problem before, plagued me still. But God said yes. I will say, that by the time he was conceived, I had begun to want to believe for a miracle baby. Being under the teaching I was receiving, a fire was lit that made me want to have this thing I had long since put on the shelf. I sowed for him, I prayed for him but I really don’t remember the stress of all that. I had found the peace I’d searched for. Whether I ever achieved a full-term pregnancy and healthy baby had already been dealt with. I had made peace with God.
I know intimately the pain of infertility and to this day wear proudly, the scars it left behind. I know I survived and I know my God is using my experience to His glory. However, I could never tell a fellow fertility warrior that she doesn’t have a baby because her faith isn’t strong enough. That is just not a call I am designated to make. Only God knows and sees the heart of His creation. I urge you to believe God. Regardless. He is a miracle-working God and He can work a miracle in your situation. For me, the miracles began with the adoption of my first spirit baby. At the time I thought I had reached the summit – reached the high note of my life…could go no higher and get no happier – but there was so much more. So believe Him. Not solely because you think there is a biological child at the end of the road but just because you believe Him – whatever the plan for your life may be – because that is what faith is.
Praise God for science and the changes and growth in reproductive medicine that have allowed hundreds of thousands of women to become mothers. There is no condemnation in Christ and there should be no faith-bashing of women who are seeking treatment of a disease from a medical doctor. This also applies to women who seek treatment from naturopaths and herbalists. The reality of food as medicine is powerful and we use wisdom when we carefully consider the connection between our diet and state of health. He meets each of us where we are and there should be no judgement. Too many women have been fed these lies and are allowing the enemy to slowly kill their dream of parenthood.
There’s an addendum to that dreadful memo about fertility and it pertains to adoption. No one says it, but many believers feel the adoption of a child would somehow nullify their faith walk. Let’s be clear – If God calls you to motherhood, has given you a passion and desire for it, then know that – it is yours. The details of how it will happen may not be clear but please know that seeing a doctor or adopting a child are not automatic faith busters. Even unbelievers tuck a prayer card in their pockets when visiting a doctor and I can’t begin to tell you about the faith required to consider the adoption process. In the end…it’s all faith.
Show me your ways, Lord,teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me,for you are God my Savior,and my hope is in you all day long. Psalm 25:4-5
Your parents understand in a way no one else will. Your friends love you and really do want to see you happy. God is not punishing you.
When we’re hurting its easy to shut people out. Those closest to us. And God? He’s allowing this. By some crazy defect in His decision making process, He’s allowing you to suffer. How can you connect with Him?
We have to learn to let them in. Our tendency to isolate leaves us vulnerable. Like wounded puppies we retreat to a corner to take care of ourselves. Problem is…we aren’t designed like that. We were created for connection. We crave community and thrive on our ability to engage one with another. We need each other.
I know. No one wants to say they need any one or anything any more. But we do. When faced with infertility you do.
True, people say insensitive things. But they don’t mean them, and if we don’t engage in relationship, they’ll never know their words hurt. They won’t understand. They’ll repeat them. The cycle continues and that’s sad. Because it doesn’t have to be this way. We have a responsibility to each other – to offer support through the hard stuff. We have a responsibility to experience each side. As encourager and as one who needs encouragement. In this way we engage in the beautifully organic reciprocity of community. If we let it… it could heal us. Create the kind of paradigm shift whereby love could infiltrate the cracks in our community. Healing could be real.
we let them in – vacationing with the Marcels after our first miscarriage Puerto Rico (some time in the late 90’s)
But we have to let them in.
Here’s the promise: in community we find God. His hands and heart are made available to us on earth through relationship. Our friendships refine, undergird and increase us. Our friendships free us from the secrecy of silence. When we let them in…they validate and bring truth. They are the witnesses who hold our stories. Because we can’t hold them alone.
We’ll have to open the door.
When we open the door we receive prayer. We get a shoulder to cry on, someone to laugh with. Opening the door presents opportunities for grace. We hear and are heard. You won’t regret opening the door. When you share your story you’ll hear whispers of warriors all over the world as they cry out “me too”. Those powerful, grace-filled moments of shared experience assure us of His presence. We are not alone.
I didn’t always get this right. The pain of infertility often promotes a cycle of silence wherein the people going through it don’t even reach out to each other. That’s changing and that’s good.
Maybe you don’t want your friends to know, maybe you’re embarrassed but today – there is no reason you can’t have a cushion of community to love you through this season. You don’t have to and you shouldn’t suffer alone.
