Infertility myth busting

Well things have been busy lately. My husband's birthday was Monday and we've been to two Mets games in two days and are planning a third for next week. Let's just say I'm not too happy with them and I'm really hoping we don't see a third loss next Tuesday. I won't say anything more about it because I'm still pretty depressed, but it is nice to be depressed about something much more trivial than infertility for once!

That's not to say my infertility-related depression has lessened, because it has not. Actually, I feel a little better this morning, but other than that, it has been going strong for almost two weeks now. I'd like to think it is hormones, especially because the last few days I've also had a mild, yet constant, feeling of anxiety. No reason for it, it's just there. The only thing I can possibly relate the anxiety to, and I'm still guessing here, is my husband's birthday. It made me realize I'll also be turning 32 in less than four months and that seems really old. Like almost-half-way-to-forty old. And it's not getting old in and of itself that causes me anxiety (well, a little), it's getting old when we still have no children. Never in my life did I think I'd be this age without kids. Never did I think I'd be an "old" parent. The other part of that is, I don't feel old. At all. I actually still feel like a kid, in part, I think, because we don't have any of our own.

I've also been thinking a lot lately about the negative thoughts that are on constant repeat in my brain. I've just been letting them run wild and I'm pretty sure they've been contributing to my demise. When I actually stop and think about what I'm thinking about, it often turns out the thoughts are either untrue, misinformed, or just plain screwed-up logic.

Since they are probably the very same thoughts that some of you have from time to time, I thought I'd lay them all out and debunk them.

Myth #1

If other people who get pregnant consider themselves blessed, then my lack of a pregnancy must mean that I'm un-blessed.

Alright, I'm not sure 'un-blessed' is a word, but you get my point. It seems like every time I read about a pregnancy on a blog, or hear about one in real life for that matter, the mother-to-be refers to it as a blessing. I'm not saying a pregnancy is not a blessing; of course it is! But you know how sometimes a child will get jealous when their sibling is praised by their parents and they're not? Like the lack of praise makes them feel like they're being told they're not good? Well, that's kind of how I feel. When others are given 'praise' from God, or blessings in the form of a pregnancy, it makes me feel like I'm not worthy of praise, which makes me feel like I must be doing something wrong.

We all know that a parent's praise of one sibling doesn't necessarily have any reflection on another sibling's behavior, and I know how messed up my logic is. At least a kid has the excuse of being, well, a kid! I'm a grown up and I still feel this way. I should be able to see that our parent, God, is able to bestow blessings upon others without it being a reflection on me. Just as our siblings received birthday presents on their birthdays and we sat and watched (I actually never had a problem with that as a kid!), I should observe others receiving 'presents' from God in the same way. It is their time, not mine. And I receive blessings in other forms that they may not. Although, they may even receive the very same blessings as me on top of their 'big' blessing, and that should be fine too!

It should all come back to the idea that God's plan for me is His plan for me. No one else. His plan is perfect and my lack of a pregnancy is part of that. Their blessings, their children, their good fortune has nothing to do with me. One is not contingent on the other. My lack of a pregnancy for so many, many, many years (kidding) could play a super important role later in life, or I may never know the reason until, God willing, I reach eternity. But we have to trust that if He loves us more than we can imagine, if He has the ability to make anything happen, and is not making this happen, then there must be an AMAZING reason.

Myth #2

If I trust God, I will get pregnant.

I should trust God. I know this. Everyone tells me to trust God with this whole infertility thing, and it is one of my most often repeated mantras. But the notion can easily become misconstrued in my brain to mean if I trust God I will get pregnant.

Now, no one really says this in so many words, but I do think some people believe it and imply it. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the story 'As soon as I gave everything over to God I got pregnant that very month!' All stories like that do is make me feel more like a failure. I think I'm trusting God, but a pregnancy still alludes me, so I must be doing something wrong; my version of trust must not be right. Or - Oh, if I could only trust God the right way, then He'd answer my prayers! These thoughts are just plain wrong.

Trusting God is not some easy way out; it's not some golden ticket to answered prayers. I should trust God, but not because trusting Him means I will conceive. That's not the way it works. I need to trust God because He is our all-knowing creator and wants the best for us, and I should trust Him no matter what His plan, no matter what the outcome. In a way, you could say I need to trust God even more so if a pregnancy doesn't happen, because then in my confusion and despair I will really, truly need to rely on Him.

I also shouldn't worry whether I am trusting 'the wrong way' or 'the right way.' If we approach God with an open heart and ask Him to help us trust, I believe He will help us. I don't think we need to waste too much time worrying about the degree of our trust. After all, He doesn't want us to spend time worrying about anything.

The need to trust in a situation like infertility is critical. The advice given to us to trust the Lord is sound advice. But we just can't let ourselves twist it around to mean something else, which will only make us more upset in the end.

Myth #3

If I embrace the cross, I won't feel sad.

Ever since the notion of embracing the cross was first introduced to me, I've been attempting to do it. It sounds great on the surface - anything that will lessen my pain and suffering and bring me joy sounds fantastic. I don't want to cry and moan, so bring on the cross! But because it's not as easy as literally hugging a life-size cross for a certain amount of time each day in my living room, I've been kind of lost with exactly what it means. I'm not very good with these somewhat abstract ideas.

So I tried my best. I thought long and hard about it. I asked God to help me. I tried to change my heart and be more positive. I watched my thoughts and what came out of my mouth about infertility. At one point I felt as if I had arrived - I was embracing the cross and even felt a sense of peace. Then bam! I suddenly felt myself slipping into a depression a few weeks ago. But I'm embracing the cross, I cried. I shouldn't feel sad!

I was sure I had failed. Either I had stopped embracing or had never truly embraced it to begin with. But I knew in my heart I still trusted, I was still embracing, so what had gone wrong?

The truth is, embracing the cross doesn't mean the suffering ends. It actually means quite the opposite: We are opening ourselves up to the same suffering Christ so fully exemplified for us on the Cross. He embraced his cross, but did that make it easier? No! He downright suffered. He carried that heavy cross, battered and beaten, and he died a horrible death. He suffered physically as well as emotionally, as everyone screamed at him, taunted him, humiliated him. By embracing it, he endured it for a higher purpose. We can imagine that it brought him a sense of peace, but it did not make the mocking any less painful, the nails any less excruciating. It is how we endure the pain and suffering that makes the difference. When we embrace the cross we experience the pain, but we are assured it is meaningful. We are telling God that we are willing to die to ourselves, on our cross, to live wholly for Him.

When we embrace the cross we will still feel sad, and the depression may come and go. I think it is during those down times that we really need to stick close to our cross and remember that it is how we suffer that is important. We can cry, but we shouldn't feel self-pity. We can pray, ask our Lady and the saints for assistance, and even cry out to God. But we shouldn't give up, we shouldn't turn our backs on Him and lose trust altogether. It's going to be hard, and for some it may be harder than for others, but He is always there to help us through it.

In the end, I need to remember that getting pregnant is not up to me. I can't earn it. I can't will it to happen. I can ask God for it, but it is not a reward to be given to the deserving. I also can't cause it to not happen. I can't lessen my chances of conceiving and I can't do something wrong in the eyes of God to leave me infertile. Pregnancy is not only for the skilled pray-ers or the really devout. Bad people get pregnant and so do good people, atheists, murderers and saints. And just the same, there are people in every imagineable category who are infertile as well. Those who have graduated from infertility into pregnancy have not found some special key to unlock some magical door. And if that turns out to be us some day, that does not mean that we, too, have found the right combination of words, novenas, or actions to finally deem us worthy of a pregnancy.

Infertility can really play with our heads. It leaves us questioning our every action, doubting our value, and doubting God. But the truth is that our future is God's perfect plan for us, created out of love. And that's all that matters.

Tough time

I'm not doing well today. It is hard to live in a world where the reality is that not everyone is excited about being pregnant. The idea that someone could see a pregnancy as a burden, a punishment, an inconvenience, a negative, is just too much for me to bear. I know others have problems too, and they could be suffering just as much as me for an opposite reason (I'm surprised I can even admit that right now), but I can't help that it makes me feel like I've been punched in the gut.

I'm also SO sick of pregnancy and birth announcements. I know that's not the kind thing to say, but I'm sorry. Sometimes you can take it and sometimes you can't.

My mood today is that I want to beg and plead with God to take this from me. I'm desperate. I know feeling and acting this way this doesn't help. Hopefully it will pass.

It's been a long road. I'm thankful that my good days now outnumber my bad, but a couple bad days a month are still incredibly hard. Will it be like this for the rest of my life? Will I be out of commission once a month? Will I always be caught off-guard by pregnancy announcements? Will it always sting? I can't imagine it not.

The reality is this is my life. I have been unable to get pregnant thus far. I am one of those women. No one plans for this. And on a side note, I hate hearing little kids being told they can achieve anything the want if they just put their minds to it. That's not true! If I ever am blessed enough to have children I will not be teaching them that lesson. Some things are unattainable and there's no use lying to them and putting those unrealistic expectations in their heads. Although I guess the joke is on me. Most people can acheive anything they want. Most people aren't infertile.

Please, God, help me to carry this cross. It is really heavy right now.

::

On a different topic, can I just say how thoroughly digusted I am by the liberal media? I'm always disgusted, but now it has risen to a new level. Oh. My. Goodness. Just when you think it can't get any lower or any more obvious. The dems are so scared of Palin helping McCain and the excitement her pick has created among Conservatives, that they have managed to completely wrangle the media (not that they're not always on their side) into trashing her twenty-four hours a day. I have had more than enough! All I want to do is watch the news because it's the start of the convention, but I can't escape the attacks. Well, they should be happy, because they've done a wonderful job of turning our attention towards exactly what they wanted. Her daughter's pregnant. She wasn't vetted enough. Have you heard her daughter's pregnant? And that the media doesn't believe she was vetted enough? (Because, you know, if the media doesn't know something is happening then it must not have really happened! Kind of like, if a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound? I guess if the media doesn't hear it, then no!). It's so clear that they all FREAKED out on Friday and decided to put this little attack plan into motion (as my friend put it during Palin's speech on Friday, "Obama must be throwing up right now.").

Of course it's not a surprise that the dems would try this. It's politics. But I am just so saddened by the degree to which the media* goes along and gives it credence. I mean, the New York Times ran three anti-Palin stories on the front page! I know, I know. They've always been liberal. They'll always be liberal. So why am surprised? I don't know. It just shocks me every time. They're all shameful.

Here's a quote on this very topic from Newt Gingrich:

The media has figured out that she’s the greatest threat since Clarence Thomas because a conservative, professional, woman who’s attractive is an absolute mortal threat to the left’s ability to define and legitimize American politics and they’re going to come after her with everything they can get.

Okay. I feel a little better now.

Update - I hear Fred Thompson's speech is going to stick up for Palin. If it's true, I can't wait! I also heard a pollster say that American's don't like when the media attacks someone, especially when they relate to that person, and that this might end up back-firing on the democrats.

* FoxNews exluded, of course! I love how the only non-liberal network is considered to be conservative. Trust me, anyone in the media who doesn't buy into the bias is always considered to be right-leaning.

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.

Changing slowly

Tonight I was asked how infertility has affected my relationship with God, and it got me thinking about some of the hard questions I have asked throughout the last three-plus years, and how my receptiveness to possible answers to those questions has slowly changed. For example, I have many memories of lying in bed at night just so sad and desperately wanting to "talk about it." That's my husband's worst nightmare, I'm sure (remember, these were the days before I knew what a blog was and you, my dear reader, could listen to me vent). So he had to just lie there and listen to me babble on and on, asking deep, dark questions like, 'why would a loving God cause me to suffer in this way and not bless us with children, which are the very reason a man and woman join together before God as husband and wife in the first place?' He would offer very nice advice ("because his plan for you hasn't yet been revealed") and then listen as I flatly refuted it. The one argument I kept coming back to was this: Bad things happen to very holy people and there is a chance that no matter how faithful I am, I could die with no children. Then the conversation would turn to whether my reward would be in heaven and that was just too much to take in at the time. It just wasn't consolation to think that I would be rewarded in the next life. Not at age 29.

Luckily for both him and me, that has changed. We never have those late night infertility depression talks (thanks internet!) and I have to believe that even if we did, they would go very differently. The reason I know this is because I find myself giving others the very advice my husband once gave me. And I believe it! That's what happened tonight. As I was emailing someone I realized that I had, at some point, begun believing what my husband always tried to tell me. Maybe it is self-preservation, maybe I have just been worn down. I tend to believe, though, that this transformation has taken place through prayer. I have cried out to God so often to help me, hoping that help would come down like a lightning bolt and when it didn't, I wondered if he'd heard me at all. It wasn't until long after (we're talking years) that I realized I received the help I was asking for. It took a while, but I have slowly come to accept the answers to some of the very tough questions I use to ask. Like...

Question: Why does God want me to suffer like this?
Old Answer: Who knows! It makes no sense. Everyone else can get pregnant and I can't. Can he not hear me? Does he not love me?
New Answer: He doesn't want me to suffer but he allows it for several reasons, such as a) to purify my soul, b) so I can share in the sufferings of his son, c) because the suffering may only be temporary and I am just being very impatient.

Question: What if the suffering is not temporary and I never have children?
Old Answer: I will live a horrible existence, my life will be wasted and maybe, if I am lucky, I will receive my reward in heaven, whatever that means.
New Answer: If I am to never have children (biologically), then I will join millions of other couples who will also never have biological children. I am not alone and God did not single me out to hurt me. That being said, being childless never has to be the end result because we can always adopt. If, for some reason, God puts it on our hearts to not adopt, then there must be a really good reason for that and that would be something we would decide together and have to be completely okay with.

Question: What if I am never okay with not having biological children and I am miserable for the rest of my life?
Old Answer: I don't know! I guess I will just cry every day and no one will want to be around me, ever. And I will be a horrible adoptive parent because my child will always know that I am depressed and God forbid he or she finds out it's because I couldn't get pregnant.
New Answer: That misery will subside as I draw nearer to God. That might be hard to understand at first, but it will happen. This was a sticking point for me just a couple years ago, as I refused to believe the sting of infertility would ever go away. In fact, I thought it would only increase with time. I have found that while it is still painful, I have come to the realization that misery does not please God and to love him is to want to please him. Plus, if what people say is true, that misery becomes a distant memory when your adopted baby is put in your arms.

I remember one night, my poor husband was trying to read a book with me about suffering. We had ordered it online and our hopes were high that it might offer me some help. We got to a chapter about the need to find something that brings you joy in life (like an activity, such as gardening or playing the piano) and I could go no further. I literally sobbed and sobbed because I could not think of one thing in the world that brought me joy, which just depressed me even more. My husband tried his best to list off some possibilities and I just knocked them all down. And at the time, I was being honest. Nothing brought me joy. I was depressed. But I am so blessed today to be able to look back on that and say I have discovered several things that bring me joy. I truly believe God has answered my prayers and transformed me so that I am able to experience joy in the midst of suffering. That's what it is all about - living with this. It was the theme of all of my tough questions. I was afraid of how much it would hurt to live with this pain and what that meant for my relationship with and image of God. I am not on the other side of this by any means, but I really feel like I have grown so much. With God's help, I have learned that suffering is manageable and things can get better. Believe me, I still hope things get much better for me. The difference is that I now believe they will.

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?

Lessening the load

On Monday - the day I had to come to terms with not having an ultrasound series and the day I really began to feel more peaceful - my husband and I ventured into a Catholic gift shop near our home (which is interesting in its own right, since Catholicism isn't that big down here, at least compared to where we used to live. I thought I'd have a much more difficult time finding a shop). So I bought a little book of healing prayers as well as a book called "Let Go". I'm not a big reader, but "Let Go" is not exactly a tough read. It's by Francois de Salignac de La Mothe Fenelon, the archibishop of Cambrai, France, during the seventeenth century. He served as a spiritual advisor to a group of people in Louis the Fourteenth's court who were facing immorality all around them. The book is a collection of letters to individuals in this group, and deals with suffering, dying to self, and finding peace and joy.

I feel like these letters were written to me. Since they are so fitting for the cross of infertility, I thought I'd share some passages from the book. Hopefully they will help others as much as they have helped me. I'll start with just one passage in this post. This one really forces me to view the cross differently:

A cross which comes from God ought to be welcomed without any concern for self. And when you accept your cross this way, even though it is painful, you will find that you can bear it in peace. But when you receive your cross unwillingly, you will find it to be doubly severe. The resistance within is harder to bear than the cross itself! But if you recognize the hand of God, and make no opposition to His Will, you will have peace in the midst of affliction. Happy indeed are they who can bear their sufferings with this simple peace and perfect submission to the will of God! Nothing so shortens and soothes suffering as this spirit of non-resistance.

But usually we want to drive a bargain with God. We would at least like to suggest some limits so that we can see an end to our sufferings. We don't realize how we are thwarting the purposes of God when we take this attitude. ... Ah! What must be His love for those who, in cheerful and absolute abandonement, give themselves completely to be crucified with Christ!

Wow! How well do I know that resisting the cross only makes the suffering doubly painful! I need to trust that to accept it will only serve to lessen the burden. It just makes so much sense. It's always more difficult when you fight something and if we look at the cross as a gift, well, we shouldn't be fighting it anyways! And I am constantly trying to "drive a bargain with God." Anyone who has read this blog can attest to that. 'God, I will gladly suffer this cross if you can let me know exactly what is going on.. and as long as you assure that I will be pregnant in a couple years.. and if you can take away the pain.. and so on and so on.' Why do I think I know better than God? There's a lot I need to work on.

As for my current cycle, I'm on day 30 and it's my sixth day in a row of spotting. Since I have no idea when my peak day was, I have no idea how many days my luteal phase has been (do you even call it that when you don't ovulate?). I'd really like to know what the spotting is caused by (probably low progesterone) and have it treated. All in due time!