Lowly

One of the biggest struggles of infertility, at least for me, is that I feel so left out of the rest of the fertile world. I can't speak their mommy language, laugh at their parenting jokes, sympathize with their pregnancy complaints, or pretty much go anywhere without seeing families that remind me of my lack of one.

I have resented this for the past five years. I've wanted so badly to be part of it, to blend in. To do what the rest of the billions of people on earth do that comes so naturally, even sometimes too naturally, for 99.9% of humans throughout history.

But something occurred to me recently, which explains why God would allow me to be separate from the rest of the world: He doesn't want us to be part of this world.

I have been made so low the past five years and only now am I realizing that this is exactly where God wants me. That probably sounds terrible to a non-believer, but when you know that low is good, that the meek shall inherit the earth, that the mourners will be comforted, then it occurs to you that what feels bad to us is actually a blessing.

It's not like I suddenly completely understand this concept, but I just know it in my heart to be true. And I understand why God would not want us to be of this world. There is so much temptation, and not just temptation to do obviously bad things, but temptation to just be lukewarm. Honestly, if I got pregnant right after my wedding and had two kids by now, I'm not sure I'd have the faith I have today. I'd like to think I would have undergone the same conversion that I did a few weeks after returning from our honeymoon, but what if I'd already gotten a positive pregnancy test by then? I would have been on my way to complete normalcy, to happiness, to possible complacentness.

That's not to say, of course, that all fertile women are complacent in their faith; obviously that isn't the case. But I might have been.

I can't even describe what infertility has done to me. I keep typing and then erasing sentences. But most of you know. You just feel completely barren, literally and figuratively. Everything is stripped from you, peeled back, and exposed. You feel alone, isolated, cast out. Even though we are blessed to live in a society where we are not literally outcasts for our inability to bear children, you feel a connection to those women who were. Our husbands may still love us and our fertile friends still include us, but sometimes we feel so unlike everyone else that we might as well be thrown out of the village.

And that brings me back to my point - that that's not such a bad thing. As odd as it may sound, lately I've been trying to force myself to find a kind of contentment when I feel alone. That same feeling used to give me anxiety that my life was a disaster and I was losing control, but now I try to remain calm and think about it as a good thing. I did that in Mass this morning when I was feeling sad, and thought about how feeling alone allows me to be alone with God. There is nothing to get in the way of that connection when we feel isolated, and maybe that's what He has wanted all along. Does that make sense?

Although I'm still working out the kinks - I had to remind myself this morning that it doesn't mean I get to sulk, as I found myself doing. The fact that I might feel sad and alone has to be hidden and to the world I must still exhibit joy. This is not to say I'm doing this just yet, I just know I should.

I know it really is the opposite of what we've been taught our whole lives - that having self-esteem, being accepted, receiving accolades are all to be desired. It's kind of like I've had to turn everything I knew upside down. I should want to be last, to be forgotten, to be left out. Even to type that seems odd, but it's true.

What infertility has allowed me to do is to set my sights on God alone. And I'm telling you right now I wouldn't have done that if not for everything being stripped from me. I know myself, and if I were a mother of two right now I'd be either so blessed or so busy that I'm sure I wouldn't have stopped everything and wondered how I could learn to die to self. It probably wouldn't have been on my radar.

If this was some spiritual exercise I was doing for myself, in the middle of being a mom, there is no way that I would have allowed myself to sink to the depths that I have; I am not that strong and willing. I would have begged for a life preserver years ago, dusted myself off and maybe even thought that I had learned something, not knowing how much further I was capable of falling. I am suffering this way because I have no choice in the matter.

Infertility has forced this lesson upon me. And God's doing the heavy lifting for me - He has taken away all that would have gotten in my way and allowed me the opportunity to learn from suffering. It really is a blessing when you think about.

We'll see how this goes. While on one hand I feel like it's a new tactic I'm trying out, on the other hand I don't think I have a choice. When we feel beaten down we can do one of two things - moan and wail and pray (or, as is often the case with me, scream) that God takes it away, or we can embrace it and, in turn, hope that it's a little lighter to bear. I've tried the first way for the past five years, so I'm willing to give the other way a shot. I'll let you know how it goes.