Monday, March 13, 2017

The Power of Infertility

Infertility can change you.

Really, that's an understatement. It does change you... at your core. It has the capacity to inevitably rewrite so much about your life. About who you are. About how you see things. It has a strength that can become all consuming.

All of this starts out as the excitement for wanting to start (or grow) your family, but then slowly morphs into a desire... and then into a longing. A longing to be pregnant. A longing to have a baby. And before you know it, that longing can begin to take a painful turn.

It can become a nagging pain... and then an intense pain, that you seem to be reminded of often. Reminded of at many innocent moments when you're least expecting it. Those moments when you're driving down the street and a pregnant woman walking down the sidewalk catches your eye. The moment when your searching for a parking spot and excitedly begin to pull into an open one near the front, only to realize it's reserved for "Expectant Mothers." The moment when your colleagues begin talking about all their weekend plans with their children, and you are starkly reminded that you don't have any children... Or that awkward moment when someone asks you, "Oh, do you have kids?" and when you politely say no, they proceed to ask, "Do you want any?"...if they only knew...

If they only knew how badly I want a child. How much I'm struggling to try and have a child. How much I have gone through, and continue to go through, to have a child...

If they only knew that I think about not having a child, and about the child we had to loose, more times a day than can probably be counted...

If they only knew... then they might begin to have a glimpse into exactly the power that infertility can have, and how it can rob you of oh so much. It has a strength to begin to change the way you view the world around you, and yourself for that matter.


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All that we have gone through in our battle with infertility has definitely reshaped me at my core. It's changed the way I think, the way I feel, the things I see and notice, the things I do everyday... It's changed who I am.

But the beauty in all of this...

I still have a choice.

I can choose to let it break me, and tear me down... Or I can choose to keeping moving forward and embrace it.

Embrace it?

Yes, I have chosen to embrace (and accept) my infertility. Trust me though, it hasn't always been easy, and it's undoubtedly been a long and arduous road to get here (and truthfully, I'm probably not even here on some days).

But as I look back to the early days of this journey, I'm reminded of where I started -- of the woman I was almost 3 years ago, who was in complete denial of the dreaded word: INFERTILITY. I not only didn't want to accept it, I whole-heatedly refused to accept it. It wasn't me and I didn't want any part of it.

But that's the thing about life - no matter how hard or how much we try to ignore reality, it's still there... and it will continue to be there until the moment we're ready to turn around and face it.

So that's what I did and that's what I choose to continue to do. I've accepted that this is our reality, and now I'm learning to embrace this path we've been set on. There's no sense in denying it or fighting it, or trying to refuse the reality of it... it just is.

At every moment, I have the choice to embrace or the choice to deny... I chose to embrace. And as I embrace, I continue to fight and look forward. Fight for the family I know we will have one day. Fight for the memory of the little peanut we had to say good-bye to. Fight through all that it continues to take to one day grow our family... and look forward to the moment when that comes to fruition.

As I continue to fight and look forward, I just have to focus on those things around me that I can draw strength from. My amazing husband who has been and continues to be my rock... and really, the one person who can understand exactly what this journey is. Our supportive family and friends, who continue to fight with us.., cheer during our celebrations and cry with us during our heartaches.  And most importantly, the foundation upon which I'm able to stand while going through all of this: my faith... and trust in Jesus.

In fact, my faith even reminds me of the promise that good can actually come, even out of the most difficult of circumstances, because God always does have a purpose... and although I may not be able to clearly see exactly what that purpose is right at this moment, I still know it to be true.

Even "in oceans deep, my faith will stand"... And that, is the one thing that I continue to hold on to through all of this...