5 Things I’ve Learn Trying to Conceive
As some of you may know, this past week was National Infertility Awareness Week. While we aren’t officially diagnosed with infertility yet, we’re approaching a year without a successful cycle and the struggle to conceive is one I feel deeply. Grief has been a companion this year, as each month comes and goes, without success. Yet, I’ve discovered, much to my surprise, that coupled with that grief is an equally ever-present hope. In fact, as much as I thought I knew what we were getting into when we decided that we wanted to start our family last summer, this season of praying, waiting, and anticipating has illuminated so much that I didn’t, and quite frankly couldn’t, expect. It’s revealed truths about God, marriage, and myself. I thought I’d share a few.
God’s Blessing
A few months ago, I read a pregnancy announcement. It was from some special people in our lives and we were truly delighted for them — but in their announcement, they thanked God for listening to their prayers and granting them this child. I felt absolutely gutted. Why had God listened to their prayers? Why hadn’t he listened to ours? It sent me spiraling. For months I’d been praying every day for a child, for my body to create life. Why couldn’t, why didn’t, God hear them? In my brain, I knew that God doesn’t work that way — God doesn’t pick and chose people to bless and people to curse. Sometimes life just sucks. Situations like this very one have plagued Christian thinkers and theologians for generations, so much so that there’s an entire word for this question: theodicy, or the problem of pain. Yet, as much as I knew this in my head, it took a struggle to feel it in my heart. A struggle, and a book: Prayer in the Night by Tish Harrison Warren. Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren’s book was the balm my soul needed; in her clear, relatable prose, she shared her struggles, including with conception and miscarriage, and how God was present with her in her pain. In Tish’s story, I saw elements of my own, and came to see how present and how gentle God was with me in my sorrow. God isn’t a fairy godmother, waving a wand and making dreams come true or a genie, granting wishes to the master of the lamp. No, God’s blessing is so much more profound than that. God could wave a magic wand and grant wishes, but instead chooses to experience life with us, in all its love and loss. Yes, my struggle to conceive weighs on my heart every day, but God is with me in that struggle, knows my pain, and reveals joys that break through it.
The Joys of Marriage
Speaking of joy, from what I hear, pregnancy and children draw people together in ways that they never expect. What I didn’t anticipate was that struggling to conceive can do the same. That’s what those vows we made are all about; in sorrow and in joy, in sickness and in health. Austin has been my anchor, riding the waves of grief and hope that accompany each month. It’s opened up a deeper intimacy and I love him all the more for seeing him live each new day with audacious hope that something might just be different this cycle or the next. At the same time, we’ve turned to one another in joy, simply loving our life together as it is today. One of our new years intentions was to have more intentional date nights again, so all winter long we set aside an evening to ignore our phone and the world outside and focus on having fun in the moment. We struggled through puzzles, read books, made amazing food, explored mountains, and talk everything from politics to deep analysis of Tolkien to wacky childhood memories together. Every morning I wake up, and am still blown away that I get to share this life with this man, to love him more every day and be so loved in return. Our marriage isn’t awaiting a child to be complete, like that one pesky puzzle piece you just can’t find. It is complete and joyful today. A family will make it complete in a different way, certainly, but it is life-giving, joyful, and a piece of heaven on earth here and now.
The Joy of Friendship
First the marriage years come and everyone you know gets married. Naturally, often, the baby years follow. This year, it feels like everyone we know is welcoming their first, second, or third children. It’s would be easy to feel divorced from them, as they enter this new stage of life, a stage of life where we can’t manage to follow. Yet, I’ve learned how to lean into our relationship instead. On two different occasions very dear friends approached me with the deepest love and gentleness to tell me their news. They wanted to share their joy but recognized how hearing this news might be hard for me. What I discovered was that my delight for them easily overcame any pain this knowledge might stir up. I loved these women dearly, and delighted in their news with them and for them. Our friendship, built on years of trust, memories, shared love of books, prayers, and laughter, allowed me to focus on them instead of myself and my grief. I’ll still read pregnancy announcements on social media and feel the loss in my own life, but counterintuitively, its the announcements from people that I’m not close to that are the hardest to read. Yes, the absence of a pregnancy weighs on me, but it doesn’t weigh on me any stronger for seeing my friends’ joy. Instead, I feel blessed to share this journey with them, to be there through these months and to support them in this new stage of life. And there’s comfort in that. They bring me joy.
While on this topic, I also have to acknowledge the support I’ve had from friends, in all stages of life, from those with who went through seasons of infertility to those who aren’t trying to start their families yet. The chats, the messages, the support has turned what could be an alienating experience into one that strengths my relationships with these truly wonderful women.
Enduring Hope
A few months ago I commented to Austin that I suddenly understood why there are so many fairytales about couples desperate to have a child making terrible trades with witches living in the woods. Like seriously bad negotiations. I never understood, not until this year, why these characters would risk everything for the ability to bear a child. In this longing is a kind of desperation that bleeds through all elements of life. A desperation that leads you to making terrible deals with clearly suspect witches. Or, more relatable, a willingness to believe anything and everything you Google about fertility. The antidote to this desperation is hope. Hope is as tenacious as grief, if you let it. It’s taken time for me to find, but in finding it, I’ve found so much release. When we’d been trying for six months with nothing but increasing dramatic cycle symptoms, I made a visit to my doctor. She did some initial analysis, but overall saw nothing that made her think there was anything preventing pregnancy or making it harder. (She did diagnose me with atypical PCOS, meaning that while I exhibit some markers for PCOS, my bloodwork isn’t showing any signs that things aren’t working as they should.) Instead, she reminded me that sometimes it just takes time, and that I should come back in six months if nothing changed, but that she expected I’d be back sooner with happier news. Well, we’re not back yet, but there’s no reason to think that we won’t be, at least not yet. After talking with my doctor, I found the ability to walk away from that desperation. Sure, I’ve fallen down the internet rabbit hole lifestyle changes to make while trying to conceive a time or two — and while there might be a few foods we incorporate more and other less, I’m trying to let go, to live life, and to trust in the goodness of today, and of tomorrow.
Don’t Pause Life
Finally, I’ve realized that I can’t put my life on hold with the expectation that it will change in the next month or even the next year. Family planning is honestly the most ridiculous term I’ve ever heard — I can plan all I want for a family and the exact perfect date for its beginning, but most of the process is out of my hands. I can, however, live the life that I have now to the fullest. Yes, I’m tempted to get that dress that’s on sale which would be a perfect pregnancy dress or to buy the cute little fox lamp for a future nursery. I know that for generations women have collected items for a hope chest, trusting in that future, yet for me, I think it would pull me away from the present, and all the goodness that is here. So we’re planning exciting summer vacations with people we love, and if we’re pregnant by the time that comes around, we’ll figure it out. We’re making profession decisions based on the life we live today. If we’re living in a new small apartment in six months, and then discover that we’re pregnant, we’ll adjust what we can. I’ve had the months tracking my cycle symptoms, but it was draining and focused all my energy on what wasn’t coming to pass — now we just enjoy life, the life we have. We still hope in that future, and trust in the goodness of life, but what will come, will come. Today, Austin and I love each other, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the mountains call out our names.
