This post contains some pretty personal information. I have fought with myself over whether or not I should discuss this but in my heart, I feel like sharing our story will give someone out there comfort that they are not alone as they struggle with infertility.
When I was in elementary school, we had to take a physical fitness test every spring. I did okay for the most part but when it came to climbing the rope that was hanging like a braided-horse tail from the ceiling, I never could quite succeed. I can remember how badly I wanted to make it to the top and every year as I stood in line behind my classmates, watching as some scrawny girl with scraped knees made it to the top to write her name on a beam by the rope, I would long to add my name to that beam with a decades-worth of gym-time graffiti. I can remember taking the rope into my hands when my turn came, the rush of breath as I jumped up and wrapped my legs around it, and the weight of my body being pulled back to the earth by some invisible and bothersome force. I fought with everything in me to make it up that rope.
And eventually I’d fall to the ground, red-faced and defeated.
but I just keep falling back down, red-faced and defeated.
It was hard sitting in a room with a ultra-sound machine plugged up and turned on next to me.
The whole time we sat there alone, waiting for the doctor, it sat there like a big elephant in the room.
I would have given anything in that moment to be there with my other half, my best friend, finding out what our baby was instead of waiting for a doctor to tell me why I wasn’t having one.
Being told that I am now diagnosed with “infertility” and that my insurance will not cover anything,
not even labs, was another low point.
But the worse moment was sitting in the waiting room in the lab next to a mom with a newborn baby. She was so close, I could smell the baby powder and the moment the baby started crying, I felt like my bones were breaking from the weight of the disappointment we both are feeling right now.
I had to go to the bathroom. It was just too much to endure without sobbing right there.
Before we went to the doctor, I had a cup of coffee while watching the Today show. Author Kelly Corrigan was on the show talking about her new book Lift, which is a “love letter” about motherhood. She came up with the title after talking to a hang-glider who described the sport as “flying from thermal to thermal, looking for lift.” Apparently, inside turbulence there is a column of hot air that pulls you up and allows you to fly at a different altitude. While this whole thing has been painful for us, it feels a lot like that:
flying through a storm but finding lift to fly higher than we were before.
I know our families and friends are worried about us right now. I know no one knows what to say and sometimes it is easiest to say “everything will be okay” or “it will happen eventually.” I think I’ve almost come off as pessimistic when I’ve responded with “no, it may not.” It isn’t about being pessimistic, and if you’ve thought that, I’m sorry. It’s just that this experience is teaching us that we have to be grateful for what we have instead of feeling like God owes us something. Yes, we have a strong marriage. Yes, we try our best to be good people. Yes, we’ve been together, talking about having a “Gracie” since high school. But when it comes down to it, we have to respect what God has planned, and maybe what He hasn’t planned, for our lives. It’s really about trying to be grateful and take each day to savor rather than get so caught up in what may
or may not happen.
We’re trying (desperately) to be still and know that He is God.
I’ve had several people tell me that if this doesn’t work out, I can always adopt. Truth be told, I want nothing more than to be the old lady in the shoe with tons and tons of kids running around. Adoption is something I’d want to do even if I could have 100 kids on my own. What I guess I’m mourning (and maybe that is too strong of a word) is that I may miss out on the creative process of motherhood.
I know I’ll be a mother, one way or another.
It’s just that I want to experience all of that…well, creation.
And there have been other hurts.
I’ll be 25 in one month and this has sort of made me rethink my life. If I can’t have children, do we wait to adopt? Do we travel the world? Do I go back to school? Who am I if I can’t be a mother? And then of course, there are other things. As if not being able to naturally have a period doesn’t strip away all traces of your femininity, try growing a beard (one of the side effects of the hormones.) This has all come together to make me stop and take a long, hard look at my life (and the men’s razor section, haha.)
Last night, I had a dream that has made me feel hopeful.
I dreamed that I was a block of wood and an old man was carving me.
It was like I was outside of this, watching, and experiencing it all at once.
He was shaping me, cutting away pieces, sculpting me into a pregnant woman with a big, smooth belly.
Travis thinks that is God’s way of telling us that it just isn’t our time yet. That God isn’t finished sculpting me into whoever He wants me to be before I become a mother.
With everything in me, I hope he is right.