Bits and pieces

If you could diagram the stages of grief for the infertile person, there would not be a nice chart with appropriate terms, or some sort of diagram that accurately represents what it looks like. Instead, I think there would be a big knot, like a pretzel, or a tangled up ball of yarn. One of the reasons is that there is no real closure, no finality to this. We most likely wont have a baby. But.....we aren't sterile.....there's a really small chance.....it's happened for others....probably not for us....BUT.......we could adopt....but then we are STILL infertile...it doesn't change...

You don't just "move on" from being infertile. It makes up who you are and who you will become, just as being a mother defines someone who has a child, not having one has defined me. I have no say in this. It really bothers me when a fertile doesn't understand why we can't just make a decision, or move on - don't we want to be happy? Boy, the point is so missed. If you lost a child, would having another, or adopting a child "make up for it"? Of course not. What is the appropriate amount of time to pass until you "do something about your infertility"? I don't know, how long after losing your spouse do you get remarried? How long after losing a child do you think about having another? Or has it not even occurred to you to think about having another child because loosing one and having another HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER?

Infertility has completely torn us apart as individuals. There are pieces of our broken hearts everywhere - they are shattered so fine that they are just dust. One piece is with our lost embryo, another was left at the RE's office when he gave us no hope, another was left at the park when I had to endure watching a mother play with her baby, every pregnancy and birth announcement breaks off a piece of my heart, every minute I have to listen to mothers talk about their children, every family gathering we show up to with empty arms, every commercial I see with a baby in it....each moment takes a chunk of your heart away. Bit by bit our hearts have been broken and bit by bit they have to be put back together.

We have decided to see a counselor to help us with our grief and also to help us communicate our feelings to each other. We are struggling with knowing what to do next because we both have different opinions on what that means. It's really hard to be in this place. It makes us stop. It forces us to live with childlessness and not "try" to do anything about it. If we don't "try", then how can anything happen? The truth is, it won't happen and we really just have to live with it. And now we have to face all of our feelings about IF, about each other, about life. We have to HEAL. Healing is hard when your grief is a knot and not a "stage" on a diagram or line on a chart.

I was not sure if our counselor would really understand the grief of IF, but she really seems to have a grasp on it. She said two things that really struck me:

1. Dealing with the grief of IF is like dealing with the grief of a mother whose child has been kidnapped.

2. Even sex is grief.

Ok, she understands it.

I know that God is healing us, but I don't think that true and complete healing really will occur until we get to heaven. Lately I have been trying to see how God will write this story for us, rather than trying to write it ourselves. In some way, it has given me peace, knowing that ultimately, God can bring glory through this, and he WILL bring glory through it if we allow Him to and have complete trust in what He has in store.

In our church service this week, this passage was read as a reference to the main topic, and of course it has nothing to do with IF, but for some reason it struck me:

Hebrews 6:7
"Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God."

I think that verse is so beautiful. It made me think about how the rain has been pouring on our lives for so long, we have been waiting and waiting for this storm to be OVER. But what if the rain has a purpose right now? It is nourishing us and preparing us to produce something wonderful, and not only wonderful, but a crop that is "useful" as the verse says. The rain is preparing for us something useful, and that itself will be a blessing from God.

"But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned".

In context though, I believe the verse is referring to how God pours HIMSELF out for us. Will we drink Him in and bear fruit as a result? Will we allow this season of our life to produce thorns and thistles or to help us produce something useful, something that is a blessing? I wish each day that I chose the latter, but it is a daily, sometimes hourly struggle and I so often fail. I know the woes of IF naturally bring out so many thorns and thistles, and they are ugly and they HURT....ouch. I don't want this. I would rather have fruit.