The Infant

I've been meaning to write this post for a couple weeks now. It's just that what I'm about to write is so important to my infertility experience that I wanted to give it its due, and each time I sat down to write it I was either too busy, or there was too much going on around me, or I just wasn't in the right frame of mind. And, as with many experiences, I needed to capture it while it was still fresh or I might begin to question its importance or doubt its authenticity. I have already begun to do that to some degree.

Okay. Now that you're hopes are officially raised... (Seriously, don't get your hopes up. Forget I gave it any introduction or that I teased it all week. I'm just about to write a random post that you happened to come upon.)

So let's go back a little bit to early August (I'm going to tell this story in the timeline I experienced it). I was getting ready to travel up north for the big premiere, when I got a phone call from Betty, the woman helping to organize the event. She's the coordinator of the perpetual adoration chapel featured in the movie. At the end of our phone call, she said she was praying for me to have a child (as always) and was talking about how maybe God will bless me with that now that the movie's done, but maybe He won't. Then she asked me what my production company, Es.therJa.ne Productions is named after. I told her it was for my grandmother, Esther, who died when I was seven (we were super close and it seriously took me like 15 years to get over it and greatly affected my childhood). Then Betty said, out of the blue, "You know, you should pray to your grandmother. She's part of the communion of Saints and we don't utilize that enough." Well, that's all I needed. It's safe to say I took that as a sign that I was supposed to pray to her. I can just imagine her up there looking down on me, watching me go through this struggle with infertility. It must be breaking her heart, if that can even happen in Heaven.

I asked my grandmother for her intercession that night, and the next. Then a couple days later as we're driving up north, I mentioned Betty's remark to my husband, Ry.an, and told him that I'd prayed to my grandmother. He asked, "Didn't your mother have a dream about your grandmother and you and a baby, or something?" I answered, "That sounds oddly familiar, but if she did, how in the world would I have possibly forgotten something like that?" I mean, seriously, I'm seeing talking babies, yet I erase from my mind a dream involving me, my deceased grandmother, and a baby?

[I should also add that my mother and her mother (not Esther) have both had dreams involving deceased relatives throughout their lives. It's not something they talk about at all, and it doesn't happen very frequently. She's even had a few about Esther, including one in the days after her death that my mother isn't even sure was a dream. She saw her standing in her bedroom, clear as day. The other few were definitely dreams, but extremely vivid nonetheless. We'll get back to that later.]

So fast forward to the night of the premiere, after the movie is finished, as people are leaving. As I'm standing with one of my good friends (who also happens to be featured in the film) she mentioned to me that she'd been praying for me, which is not surprising in and of itself, but as she put it, "I have no idea why, but I've been praying for you to the Infant of Prague." A light bulb immediately went off in my brain and I probably sounded like an idiot because my reply was, "Uh, um, that sounds familiar. There's something about that...I need to ask someone..." My mind was doing cartwheels as I was trying to put it all together. My grandmother. The dream. The Infant of Prague.

Because that night was one of the craziest nights of my life, I wasn't able to speak to my mother about this. Meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I was worrying that it wasn't the Infant who was in her dream, that it was some other saint or image of Christ. As soon as I woke up the next morning, though, I asked her about it over the phone as she was at work.

"Mom, this might sound weird, but did you have a dream about _____ [name I called my grandmother, Esther, which is very far from Grandma or Granny or Nanny, so I'm gonna leave it out. Think baby's-first-words-but-unfortunately-not-directed-towards-her-father-like-they-should-have-been], a baby and the Infant of Prague?"

Yes, she did, she said. It was probably about a year and a half ago, and she told me about it at the time, but I still have NO IDEA how this slipped my mind (one a side-note, my sister thinks I wasn't supposed to remember it then, and that it was meant for now). She also said that at the time she wasn't worrying about my infertility at all. Here's the dream:

My mother sees me lying in bed in my childhood bedroom, as a child, and an Infant of Prague statue is over my bed (I should also add that I didn't have a statue over my bed as a child; my family didn't even own one). For some reason, she has a hard time describing what the statue was on or in - a shelf of some sort, but then she says it was in some sort of frame, yet it was a statue, not a picture. Probably not important, but you never know.

Cut to the next 'scene,' and I'm an adult, holding a baby. As my mother looks at me, surprised, my grandmother appears. "Don't worry," she says to my mother. "It's the Infant of Prague."

She said my grandmother went on to say that the Polish people have a devotion to him (my grandmother was 100% Polish, and while I haven't found a great deal on the internet about the Polish devotion to the Infant, I know that it is true because I have other, unrelated, Polish relatives who also have a devotion. And while the Infant of Prague is obviously in Prague, in the Czech Republic, the country still borders Poland).

I couldn't believe it. It was all starting to come together. A few things became very clear to me that morning, namely, 1) God himself wants me to have a devotion to the Infant of Prague, 2) my grandmother is definitely watching over me and taking care of me, specifically when it comes to infertility, and 3) she said "Don't worry." Don't worry! I seriously take that to mean that everything WILL turn out okay. And let's just add that I was holding a baby when she said it.

Was I holding the Infant Jesus? I'm not sure, but probably. Was I holding my future baby? I don't think so. One way you could interpret it would be to say that it means I won't have a baby of my own, but I will always have baby Jesus to hold. While I'm ever the pessimist (no offense, baby Jesus, at all), I just don't think that's what it means. And surprisingly, this isn't the first time someone has had an image of me holding Christ as a baby.

So back to the story. The next day, I'm online looking for an Infant of Prague statue, when I suddenly notice its feast day. January 2nd. My birthday. And St. Therese's birthday, who also happened to have a devotion to Him. I shrieked. I couldn't believe it; it was another sign. (I should also add that since that initial discovery, I have realized that there is quite the discrepancy over the Infant's feast day. Some put it in May, others put it in late January. But I'm fine with that, because my birthday is still in the mix. I don't think that's a coincidence.)

It's safe to say that I immediately jumped head first into a devotion to the Infant of Prague. I know God wants me to. I'm still looking for just the right statue, and someone told me the other day that it has to be given to you. That might be more of an old-wives-tale sort of thing, but as I continue to scour the internet, I am praying that the right statue will find me. We are more than half way through a novena which I plan on saying each month. And we even visited an Infant of Prague shrine about an hour away this past Saturday. We both described feeling very calm and serene as we prayed before the Infant in the quite loud church (Mass was letting out).

I truly believe that God was giving me a grace with this glimpse into Him, and perhaps it was no coincidence that he did it on the night of my premiere. I'm not saying I deserved a reward or that God even works like that, but this has been a hard-fought battle and I'm just starting to turn a corner and I think God likes that. I prayed - hard - for a sign, all while asking His forgiveness that I needed a sign in the first place. I shouldn't. But He knows we are human and He sees us struggle. He knows when our intentions are pure and we are not attempting to prove His existence, just get some much-needed help along the way as we bear our Cross.

In the weeks following this turn of events, my mind, naturally, has begun to downplay it. Even as I write this post I'm worried some may read it and think I'm looking too far into a silly dream and some additional coincidences. I can't let that doubt creep in. (And, for what it's worth, there are documented miracles attributed to the Infant that involve dreams.)

As all of these events were happening, my view of this struggle of infertility completely changed. I was holding a baby, my grandmother told my mother, "DON'T WORRY." This message makes me realize I can do this, I can get through this. God, Himself, wants me to be strong. He was in my arms in the form of a baby, what I want most in this world.

I have felt much more peace in the days since, and I truly have the utmost confidence that the Miraculous Infant is taking care of me and doing His best to grant me my heart's desire. This was all a gift from God, and to now downplay it would be to make light of a gift that I prayed for from Him. Thanks, God. That was a pretty good try, but could you be even more obvious next time? Maybe come to me in a crowded shopping mall and publicly declare the day I will conceive? Oh, and I'll also take an order of financial security and health for my entire family with that. Thanks.

I'll probably need to reflect on this in additional posts, but this is the main story for now. Thanks for reading, and feel free to offer any insights you may have on it as well. There's definitely a lot for me to think about!