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!

Your Cross

Shannon at A Friend of Gianna shared this prayer on her blog recently and I thought it was perfect for the struggle of infertility. I hope it can offer help to someone who happens to read it today...

Your Cross

The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from
eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift
from His inmost heart. This cross He now sends you He
has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with
His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with
loving arms and weighed with His own hands to see that it
be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for
you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with
His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage,
and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from
God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

-St. Francis de Sales

Pleasing God

I have been doing fairly well lately, but tonight infertility is weighing heavy on my heart. In particular, I'm having, once again, a difficult time with the question of why so many families are blessed with many children while so many of the rest of us are left with none. While blog-hopping, I seemed to keep landing on blogs of huge Catholic families. I think sometimes these families are the most difficult for me to see and test me the most when it comes to jealousy.

I know we all have our own crosses to bear. I try to remind myself that these families with their photographs of beautiful, smiling children have problems of their own. Perhaps the parents had difficult childhoods, didn't have the love of parents that I did, or have dealt with serious illness in their lifetime. The truth is that everyone has varying degrees of suffering and some may not be called to suffer much at all. Whatever the case may be, it does me no good to compare my suffering to the sufferings of others. I am trying to stop questioning God and just let things be, but tonight I am failing.

It's just one of those times when I just can't believe this is happening to me. Like always, I'll tell myself that God is with me, even when it doesn't seem like he is. I'll tell myself that there is a plan, and not having children must be part of it. I'll tell myself that there is still hope, and I could be pregnant one day. It's just that I've been telling myself those things for nearly four years now and it's becoming harder to believe them. I need some new lines for my pep talks.

When my husband was in the hospital earlier this week, a brought along the book that came out last year about Mother Theresa - the one that caused the big stir in the media at the time. The headlines were 'Mother Theresa questioned God's existence'. What the media failed to mention (not surprisingly) was that despite feeling like God was no where to be found, she remained confident he was there (I'm much more simple-minded - if I don't get my prayers answered, I don't think he's there). What an amazing faith she must have had, but it wasn't perfect. She did question it and in the book's commentary, it says she was afraid. But...

With the help of her spiritual directors, she progressively came to grasp that her painful inner experience was an essential part of living out her mission. It was sharing in the Passion of Christ on the Cross - with a particular emphasis on the thirst of Jesus as the mystery of His longing for the love and salvation of every human person. Eventually she recognized her mysterious suffering as an imprint of Christ's Passion on her soul. She was living the mystery of Calvary - the Calvary of Jesus and the Calvary of the poor...Although this intense and ongoing spiritual agony could have made her despondent, she instead radiated remarkable love and joy, because she had built the edifice of her life on pure faith.

While I am far from the person Mother Theresa was (the understatement of the year), I can relate to her suffering and feelings of abandonement, and I can look to her example for how she responded. I really like the image of Christ's thirst. I definitely thirst for children (obviously silly compared to Christ's thirst for the salvation of all humans, but you know what I mean), and I know that I, too, shouldn't be despondent. I definitely do not radiate remarkable love and joy.

I kind of seems silly that I could possibly radiate joy in my present state, but Mother Theresa actually did it. She was grateful for the suffering - grateful! - and saw all loneliness and darkness as an opportunity to "drain out of me every drop of self." Here's what she wrote:

...so the darkness is so dark and the pain is so great, but in spite of it all - my retreat resolution was the same

A hearty "Yes" to God

A big "Smile" to all

and it seems to me that these two words are the only thing that keeps me
going...Pray for me Father, that I may just keep the two words "Yes" &
"Smile."

The difference between her and me (well, one of the many differences, of course) is that she set out each day to please God in every breath she took. Let's just say that I do not. I obviously need to try to remember to please God in every thing I do. When I'm inclined to feel jealousy I should ask, "Does it please God?" When I'm spending too much time on the internet and not enough in prayer, I should ask "Does it please God?"  When I wake up, I should ask "What can I do today to please God?" Acting that way doesn't bring with it a promise of a lighter load (or, more specifically, a first-class ticket to pregnancy-ville), as it surely didn't for Mother Theresa. And that's clearly not why she did it. But doing so will please God, and that should be all that matters.

Some help from St. Augustine

The other day I came across something I had scribbled down a a year or so ago. It had fallen out of my "infertility folder," this bright green folder given to me by my Creighton instructor at our introductory session. This folder contains my entire infertility world, all my charts, my blood work history, even my thermometer. It has been through a lot - two moves, to Italy and back, to Omaha twice, not to mention it travels from room to room with me now that I take my temp and pulse four times a day! - and it's safe to say it has been past its prime for several months now. (Sorry for the detail, but my green folder is a big part of my life.)

Anyway, so this little scrap of paper fell out of it a few days ago and when I picked it up I realized it contained a passage that I had written down months ago. I remember that I thought the passage would help me during hard times, but it turns out I completely forgot about it. So, it would make a much better story if I had found it during one of my days of mild depression late last week, but I did not. I was already feeling better when I saw it, but I figured there is probably someone out there who could benefit from it right now, so here it is:

There are days when the burdens we carry
chafe our shoulders and wear us down,
when the road seems dreary and endless,
the skies grey and threatening,
when our lives have no music in them and our hearts are lonely,
and our souls have lost their courage.
Flood the path with light, we beseech Thee, O Lord,
turn our eyes to where the heavens are full of promise!

-St. Augustine

We could all use our paths flooded with a little light, couldn't we?

My American Idol post

Maybe it was hormones, maybe it was the confetti, maybe it was the fact that producers lied about the "biggest star in the world" making an appearance (sorry, George Michael), but the American Idol finale left me in tears. I was a Jason Castro supporter until he was kicked off (and yes, very happy he reprised 'Hallelujah', but was I the only one waiting for some big name to come out and duet with him? Ray LaMontagne, or Damien Rice, perhaps? Missed opportunity, Fox. And speaking of Jason, did you catch him getting a bit too close to the pyro at the end of the first number? Be careful with the dreads!). After Jason left, I became a David Cook fan. Yes, Archuleta was great too, but I just wish he wasn't so "adult contemporary" at the ripe age of 17. I just think David Cook is so nice, and how sad is it that his brother has brain cancer? All I keep thinking is how hard it must be for that family, especially for their mom. One of her sons is on the top of the world, while the other is possibly dying. So, anyways, that explains my tears I guess.

Okay, so AI is out of the way and Fox's very best reality talent competition can now begin - So You Think You Can Dance! That's right. I love it. If you've never watched, give it a try. You won't be disappointed. Unless you hate dancing.

Back to infertility now.. I came across a great blog tonight that maybe you all already know about, but it's new to me. It's called The Apostolate of Hannah's Tears. It's a Catholic infertility/adoption blog and offers links to several great resources. One part I found especially interesting was a list of patron saints of childless couples. Since I happen to get a lot of visitors who find my site after googling "patron saint of infertility," I thought I'd post the list: St. Anne Line, St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Colette, St. Gummarus, St. Henry II, St. Julian the Hospitaller, St. Agnes of Rome, St. Gianna Beretta Molla, St. Nicolas of Myra, and Sts. Perpetua and Felicity.

And now I just realized that when people land on my site in the future via a "patron saint of infertility" search, they'll forever be forced to first read my American Idol review, wondering what this blog has to do with infertility. Well, if you made it this far, just consider it an extra treat.

My patron saint and me

Today I received my patron saint for the year from yourpatronsaint.blogspot.com. I read about the site on another blog and was immediately intrigued. All you have to do is email someone through the site and they match you up with a saint. I'm not sure how they actually do the matches, but they say the saint chooses you. So, of course, I emailed the woman to ask for my saint for the year with the hope that it would provide some insight into my infertility and whether I'd soon get pregnant (everything with me revolves around possibly gaining some hint from God as to whether I'll ever have a baby. Probably not a good thing).

Well I received my saint today via email and it's (drumroll please).........

Saint Isidore the Farmer.

That's right, Farmer. As in one who works on a FARM. Well, if St. Isidore chose me, there must be a reason so I immediately googled him. Turns out there is a connection, and an initially depressing one at that.

Here's a quick synopsis: St. Isidore and his wife had one son who died unexpectedly as a child. They were in such grief that they decided God did not will for them to have children (ya, that's right). They decided to live a chaste life (yes, they lived together without having sex for the rest of their lives) doing good works.

Wow! My immediate reaction was easy: A childless saint chose me therefore I will be childless. Plain and simple. It took me a little while to get past this, at which time I realized I should probably look more into it; I at least owed that to St. Isidore.

What I came up with is that St. Isidore choosing me may not be a sign that I will be childless, but it may be a sign that he knows what I'm going through. Sometimes I like to picture the saints watching us and feeling sad for us. I'm not sure there even is sadness in heaven, but thinking that they feel sorry for me makes me feel a little better. I'm not sure why, but it does. So maybe St. Isidore feels my pain and wants to comfort me.

We obviously don't share the death of a child, but then my mind immediately went to miscarriage. Will I suffer a miscarriage this year? But I realized that I don't think God is trying to give me hints. God doesn't send us cryptic messages to decipher and find hidden meaning in. He also doesn't want us to worry all day about something possibly happening. So I don't think that was the intention.

I also started thinking I could probably learn a lot from St. Isidore's reaction to his childlessness, which was vastly different from my own. He started going to daily Mass and decided to take the quite drastic step of living a chaste married life. I don't think God wants that of me (the chaste part at least.. I should go to daily Mass) or for us to give up trying for children, but I'm not even in the same stratosphere as St. Isidore when it comes to our reactions. He embraced God in a radical way, while I am fighting God's will tooth and nail.

So I think I'll start asking St. Isidore for his intercession. When I feel like no one understands, maybe St. Isidore will. His grief moved him to change his life for the better and to focus on his true calling - worshipping God. All I'm doing in my grief is feeling sorry for myself. I guess there's a lot I could learn from this farmer.