NIAW
I wrote the words below last year for National Infertility Awareness Week but then chickened out and never posted it. I just stumbled across it and decided I wanted to publish, even though I'm on the 'other side' and am now a parent. Reading it now makes me so grateful and relieved to know the parts of our story that were unknown to me for so many years. Infertility doesn't go away, but the emptiness has become eclipsed by the joys of parenting and it no longer consumes my emotions and thoughts. Glory be.
_______________________________________________________
(written 4/23/2018)
It's National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) and I've been reading story after story of other's experiences with infertility and it has made me reflect more on my own story. The stories I'm reading are from women who have found their children via treatments or adoption, and they are sharing their story now that they know how it 'ends'. My story with infertility is still TBD but I wanted to jot down some things anyway.
I've always had a weird relationship with the word 'infertility'. Doctors never specifically told me I can't have children so I never felt like I could claim that word...especially because I never felt compelled to pursue fertility treatments. I feel like an imposter to that group, but if you look up the definition of the word, it's exactly what I appear to be: unable to conceive children.
I always wanted to be a mom. Recently my mom was reminiscing that in 4th grade they covered the topic of careers and my teacher shared with her that I stated I wanted to be a mother as my career, which she thought was a noble answer. In college, anytime someone would ask me what my career goals were I would tell them I wanted to be a "Christian mom" (I was studying religion as my major), and then I would follow up with a joke and say, "Yes, I realize I'm paying a lot of money to become a certified Christian mom".
Infertility did not exist in my husband's or my family (that we were aware of), so as naive, young people we naturally assumed starting a family would go our way. To really drive the nail home about how naive and ignorant I was at that time, I told people we were pregnant in our Christmas letter the year we got married and then at the end said "JUST KIDDING". I was always trying to find ways to make my Christmas letters fun and entertaining, but I most definitely went too far that year.
Go ahead and hate me. Believe me, I hate myself for doing it. Innocent as my intent was, that was a very insensitive joke and I often have moments when I'm convinced we can't have kids as karma for that dumb joke. It's a gut-punch to myself and every other couple who struggles to have children. But honestly, at that time, I had no concept of infertility. Not one person I knew had ever talked about it.
We married fairly young and we're planners so we had a plan to enjoy being a couple for about 5 years and then start a family. We did lots of fun things, became best friends, and right on schedule 5 years later we were ready! I remember at Christmas in WA that year, we were sharing something we hoped for in the new year and I announced we were going to start our family. Everyone cheered and teared up, I was SO excited.
Obviously you know how that turned out. It's been 8 years and we've never been pregnant. Wah-wah.
Despite having a life-long career goal of being a mom, I've not felt the frenzy of trying anything I can to have children. Don't get me wrong, I want it so bad it hurts sometimes, but there's always been this underlying calm about it all. Until my birthday last month, I always believed that we would still have a biological child 'someday'. Right now I feel that ship really has sailed. It's too late and if I'm honest, I don't even know that I want to be pregnant anymore.
It feels counter-intuitive to say I don't want to be pregnant after 8 years of longing for it, and it feels like I'll be disqualified from claiming to be a member of the infertility community if I admit it... But I think everyone is different and it doesn't minimize all the years of gut-wrenching sorrow, of grieving the loss of the future I had planned, and of the sheer pain I've felt in my heart at the thought of never seeing what a child made from my husband and I would look like, or sound like, or be like.
A big part of that shift has been our adoption journey. What a tumultuous journey full of anger, and research, and pondering, and curiosity, and trust, and pain, and disbelief, and eventually excitement and hope, and longing! My brain has no room for thoughts of pregnancy at this point. My focus is on growing a child in my heart and while that gestation period is proving to be much, MUCH longer, I'm hopeful it will be just as fruitful and worth the wait.
I still don't understand why this had to happen to us. I haven't seen enough of our story yet in order to make sense of it. All I know is that it helps to talk about things and to read the stories of others, to help you know you're not alone and realize chances are high that there's a good ending coming for you, too.
I long for the day when the emptiness of infertility becomes something we used to deal with, when it's a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of this life. And when I will finally be able to look back and see God's redemptive history come to light in our story.
_______________________________________________________
(written 4/23/2018)
It's National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) and I've been reading story after story of other's experiences with infertility and it has made me reflect more on my own story. The stories I'm reading are from women who have found their children via treatments or adoption, and they are sharing their story now that they know how it 'ends'. My story with infertility is still TBD but I wanted to jot down some things anyway.
I've always had a weird relationship with the word 'infertility'. Doctors never specifically told me I can't have children so I never felt like I could claim that word...especially because I never felt compelled to pursue fertility treatments. I feel like an imposter to that group, but if you look up the definition of the word, it's exactly what I appear to be: unable to conceive children.
I always wanted to be a mom. Recently my mom was reminiscing that in 4th grade they covered the topic of careers and my teacher shared with her that I stated I wanted to be a mother as my career, which she thought was a noble answer. In college, anytime someone would ask me what my career goals were I would tell them I wanted to be a "Christian mom" (I was studying religion as my major), and then I would follow up with a joke and say, "Yes, I realize I'm paying a lot of money to become a certified Christian mom".
Infertility did not exist in my husband's or my family (that we were aware of), so as naive, young people we naturally assumed starting a family would go our way. To really drive the nail home about how naive and ignorant I was at that time, I told people we were pregnant in our Christmas letter the year we got married and then at the end said "JUST KIDDING". I was always trying to find ways to make my Christmas letters fun and entertaining, but I most definitely went too far that year.
Go ahead and hate me. Believe me, I hate myself for doing it. Innocent as my intent was, that was a very insensitive joke and I often have moments when I'm convinced we can't have kids as karma for that dumb joke. It's a gut-punch to myself and every other couple who struggles to have children. But honestly, at that time, I had no concept of infertility. Not one person I knew had ever talked about it.
We married fairly young and we're planners so we had a plan to enjoy being a couple for about 5 years and then start a family. We did lots of fun things, became best friends, and right on schedule 5 years later we were ready! I remember at Christmas in WA that year, we were sharing something we hoped for in the new year and I announced we were going to start our family. Everyone cheered and teared up, I was SO excited.
Obviously you know how that turned out. It's been 8 years and we've never been pregnant. Wah-wah.
Despite having a life-long career goal of being a mom, I've not felt the frenzy of trying anything I can to have children. Don't get me wrong, I want it so bad it hurts sometimes, but there's always been this underlying calm about it all. Until my birthday last month, I always believed that we would still have a biological child 'someday'. Right now I feel that ship really has sailed. It's too late and if I'm honest, I don't even know that I want to be pregnant anymore.
It feels counter-intuitive to say I don't want to be pregnant after 8 years of longing for it, and it feels like I'll be disqualified from claiming to be a member of the infertility community if I admit it... But I think everyone is different and it doesn't minimize all the years of gut-wrenching sorrow, of grieving the loss of the future I had planned, and of the sheer pain I've felt in my heart at the thought of never seeing what a child made from my husband and I would look like, or sound like, or be like.
A big part of that shift has been our adoption journey. What a tumultuous journey full of anger, and research, and pondering, and curiosity, and trust, and pain, and disbelief, and eventually excitement and hope, and longing! My brain has no room for thoughts of pregnancy at this point. My focus is on growing a child in my heart and while that gestation period is proving to be much, MUCH longer, I'm hopeful it will be just as fruitful and worth the wait.
I still don't understand why this had to happen to us. I haven't seen enough of our story yet in order to make sense of it. All I know is that it helps to talk about things and to read the stories of others, to help you know you're not alone and realize chances are high that there's a good ending coming for you, too.
I long for the day when the emptiness of infertility becomes something we used to deal with, when it's a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of this life. And when I will finally be able to look back and see God's redemptive history come to light in our story.
Comments
Post a Comment