So, about a week ago at work as I furiously battled tears, I wrote this:
"Every time when I think the pain is starting to subside and I feel I can begin to move on, a child is born to someone we know, or someone posts photos of their newborn child on Facebook, or someone announces their pregnancy... I'm feeling tempted to resent you, Lord, I cannot fight this battle without you. Hear my plight Lord, let me put on your armor so that I may get out of this depression... my heart, my whole being aches. I have a knot in my throat and tears I'm fighting to keep from dropping. Infertility is such a horrible agony. Free me, O Lord, from these demons that torment me; help me move on to the place where You want me to be. I'm powerless without You, Lord; I beg You, listen to my plight..."
A part of me felt awful about not being able to see my sister (sister-in-law really, but I love her so) and her beautiful baby girl. That day, as the delivery time approached, I prayed and pleaded that both momma and baby would be okay. I checked my Facebook a hundred times, waiting for Shelby's first photos. I could feel the excitement, but it was all cloaked with such a mournful sadness. I'm working on a present for Shelby and this somehow makes me feel better, because it makes me realize that I will see them fairly soon. I'll have to time it just right so that I'll be in the chock-full estrogen part of my cycle, as the odds of being content are so much higher then.
We have also begun calling adoption agencies and are slowly learning about the process. It's a daily struggle to accept that becoming parents will likely take a year and a half, at minimum. This is twice the amount of time a woman is pregnant, and it means spending so, so much more money than if it could happen "the natural way". I'm trying to move on from what we could've had because, well... nothing comes out of that. But like I said in my prayer, permanent infertility is agony. A cyclical agony.
I found this article titled "Infertility Etiquette", which I found quite interesting in that, the writer herself KNOWS. Women like her are the only ones whom I can truly, truly relate to. It reminds me that I'm not alone, even though many times I do feel pretty lonely. This particular fragment gives a very accurate description of the struggle:
"Infertility is, indeed, a very painful struggle. The pain is similar to the grief over losing a loved one, but it is unique because it is a recurring grief. When a loved one dies, he isn't coming back. There is no hope that he will come back from the dead. You must work through the stages of grief, accept that you will never see this person again, and move on with your life.
The grief of infertility is not so cut and dry. Infertile people grieve the loss of the baby that they may never know. They grieve the loss of that baby who would have had mommy's nose and daddy's eyes. But, each month, there is the hope that maybe that baby will be conceived after all. No matter how hard they try to prepare themselves for bad news, they still hope that this month will be different. Then, the bad news comes again, and the grief washes over the infertile couple anew. This process happens month after month, year after year. It is like having a deep cut that keeps getting opened right when it starts to heal."
No comments:
Post a Comment