Broken and Becoming

Five days ago, I had a hysterectomy.  In January, my doctor told me that the disease in my uterus was getting worse, and that my ovaries did not respond well to the meds last year, so the chances of getting pregnant, even with IVF ($$$$) would only be around 15%.  My pain was becoming daily, and I was losing at least a week of my life every month as I had my menstrual cycle.  So, we made this decision.

My physical recovery is going well.  I'm tired, which is to be expected, and a little sore, but the pain is not terrible.  Emotionally, I am just starting to process things.

I will never get pregnant. I no longer have a womb.  Over the years, I asked God to open my womb more times than I can count.  But now, that miracle cannot happen.  I will never get to find out if I could handle natural childbirth like my mom did.

I also never have to cry with crashing disappointment each month after scrutinizing every physical twinge or symptom in my body searching for a morsel of hope.  Oh, I imagine there will still be tears of disappointment and frustration.  I don't fantasize that adoption or surrogacy will be smooth sailing.  I guess the truth is, we don't grow without pain.  Pain opens us and stretches us and allows us to be healed, stronger than we were before.

Ernest Hemingway wrote, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places."  I do feel broken. I've felt broken many times in my life.  And those areas of pain are now the areas God uses the most to help others.  I will have a child, and hopefully two or three children.  I believe that God is using my pain to make me the mother He needs me to be.

When I was in graduate school to become a mental health counselor, I knew that I could have rushed through my program, made good grades, and graduated within about 2 years.  Instead, I decided that it was more important that I become the person I needed to become, the person God needed me to be to help those He chooses to bring into my life.  It took me 4 years to finish a "2 year" program, and I do believe that those extra two years make a world of difference in my work and life today.

The pain is part of the process.  I am becoming the mother God needs me to be to the children He has for us.  I don't know how or when those children will come into our lives, but they will arrive at just the right moment.  My job now, though, is to process and acknowledge the pain and hurt.  To experience my emotions, not ignore them.  To accept the work that God is doing in me.  And to continue to accept and trust His love, even when it doesn't make sense.

Advent I

I don't love Christmas, and I've struggled with this the past few years.  Today I think I'm beginning to understand why.

On the way to church this morning, I started thinking about how much I love Advent and how heartbroken I am to be celebrating another Christmas without a child.  I thought about the reasons why I love Advent, especially as I remember the Hebrew people who lived in a world without the Light of their Messiah.  They had hope, but often felt hopeless.  They trusted God, but often could not understand what He was doing.  They trusted that He had a plan, but it was very confusing.  I'm sure they even felt angry with God for not sending the Promised Messiah soon enough to save them from their suffering.

I realized that infertility often causes many of these same thoughts and feelings in me.  I feel hopeless, angry, confused, and disappointed.  At the same time, I feel hopeful, trusting, and expect to see God fulfill the desire that HE put in my heart.  

Maybe one of the reasons I love Advent is because I know about waiting for a child to be born.  I know what it feels like to think God is taking too long to fulfill His promise.  I know what it feels like to sit in the darkness of depression, despair, and hopelessness, and beg God to just fulfill the desire of my heart and fill it with His Light.

I hope that this Advent season, God will fill my heart with His Light, even if He does not fill my womb or my arms with a child.  And I will allow the dark, quiet, hope and expectation of Advent to be my comfort.  It is a time when it is okay to be sad.  It is okay to slow down and rest.  Our priest read from a devotional today that Advent is not a time of joy and happiness, but a time of wailing and sobbing.  That's where I am.  And that's okay.  

The time of joy and happiness will come as promises are fulfilled, and they will be.  Obviously, I don't expect our child to save us or to be a Messiah, but the emotions of my experience are ones that I believe were similar for the Hebrew people.  

And in a few short weeks, we will begin the Christmas season, and I hope that by then, God will have grown the joy and happiness of Christmas in my heart.  But right now, I guess I'm going to allow Him to do His Advent-work in me, and part of the process of getting to the joy and happiness includes the wailing and sobbing.

Disappointment--A Broken Car and a Broken Uterus

Do you remember when my car broke down in July?  Well, it's still in the shop.  It's been one thing after another, and now the mechanic is waiting for a friend who is a specialist to look at it.  The mechanic has been very generous, and has knocked off hundreds of dollars from the bill because what he originally thought was wrong was not the whole problem.  Even though he's had it for 4 months and replaced the entire, our bill is only going to be around $1200.  Because of how generous he's been and kind, we don't get mad at him for taking so long.

However, I realized last night that waiting for my car feels very similar to how infertility feels.  Both are such a roller coaster of hope and disappointment.

And I'm starting to believe that neither situation will ever work out.  And, in both situations, if we could just know what was going to happen, we could make decisions about how to move forward.

For instance, if we knew that the next fertility treatment would definitely give us a baby, we would do it.  But if the next one fails, we always wonder if we would have been successful with one more try.  And with the car, we rationalized that if we could get it fixed, we would still be saving money over buying a new car, but now it's still not fixed.  We don't want to give up and buy a new car because just as soon as we do, the mechanic will have figured out the last little problem (making sure it starts consistently is the only problem at this point!), and we would have bought another car for no reason (nevermind that buying a car would take our saving which we plan to use to pay the mechanic).

I started 2011, thinking that if we could go to a fertility specialist, we'd get treatment and have a baby. That didn't happen.  I took, the car to the mechanic thinking he'd fix it in a couple of weeks and I'd have it back.  That hasn't happened yet either.

I'm tired of disappointment.  I'm trying to fight the lies in my head.  I'm trying to beat back depression with a big stick of Truth.  But I'm so tired.  I know God is working, but I don't understand Him at all.

Michelle's World

• Still on break from treatment.
• I got my period 2 days ago,
• But I can't do treatment this cycle because I am travelling the next couple of weeks.
• This week, we are going to Kentucky for my (baby) brother's wedding.
• And next week, I'm going to Level 2 of School of Healing Prayer.
• So, I'm just trying to survive the pain,
• And not use up my pain pills too quickly.
• I need a refill before my next period.
• My car is still broken.
• Which is very frustrating.
• Thankfully, my in-laws are very generous and have been allowing me to use their second car.
• Leaving them with only one, 
• Which isn't really convenient for them.
• But they want me to use their car for now.
• My long-term patient left a week ago.
• She was doing much better when she left.
• I've continued to pray for her.
• I may always worry about her.
• I hope she is doing well.
• I joined Wei.ght Watc.hers a month ago.
• I've really changed how I eat.
• Most of the food I eat now is whole, fresh food.
• And for the past two weeks,
• I've been getting up 30 minutes early and exercising!
• I feel amazing, physically,
• And very proud of myself!
• I know that I need to get healthy to be a mom.
• If the last IUI cycle doesn't work,
• Maybe things will get better if I lose weight.
• I hope the last cycle works though.
• I really want to have a child, 
• So I can be a mom,
• So I can have a family,
• So I can raise and care for a person.

Stress

I'm having a hard time keeping up with this blog.  Fertility treatment is not going well.  It's such an emotional rollercoaster.  For instance, on Tuesday morning, at my 7dpiui appointment, the doctor counted 9 follicles, which means at least several of them probably produced eggs.  I was happy, although slightly freaked because my chances of having multiples with that many follicles is high.  By 2:00 that afternoon, though, I found out my progesterone level that morning was only 5.4...which is terrible, especially with 9 follicles that should have been corpus luteum by then and producing tons of progesterone.  And all hope for this cycle was gone...especially when I started spotting the next morning and then full fledged period by Thursday morning.

And now, three weeks after my last period, I'm once again trying to endure the pain (hopefully this time without a trip to the ER for IV na.rco.tics to manage the pain).  I can't even say it was "last month's" period that was my most painful ever...because this is my second period in August.

I'm taking a 2 month break from treatment before I go back to have my last IUI cycle.  I'm relieved that the doctor recommended this because I'm worn out.

Research has shown that the stress of infertility is equal to the stress of having cancer or heart disease.

Michelle's World

• I'm not real good about blogging.
• I often think of this blog,
• But I so often just want to avoid thinking more about infertility.
• So, what's happened this month?
• I grew lots of tiny follicles, 
• But none big enough to ever lead to ovulation.
• So, after 18 days of meds, the doctor cancelled this cycle.
• Now, I'm taking meds to help induce my period.
• Hopefully.
• (Not that I really want to have my period).
• Work has been very difficult and stressful this month.
• I feel like I have one patient
• (although I usually have several at a time)
• Because this one patient is in a life-or-death battle with herself.
• Caring so much for her is painful for me.
• But I'm not going to give up.
• And I'm so thankful for my team at work who provides the support I need.
• We went to an outdoor music festival last weekend,
• And it was wonderful.
• I miss it.
• I started seeing a chiropractor this week for neck pain and hand numbness.
• I kinda love my chiropractor,
• Even though my pain is not gone yet,
• I believe that she will help and it will go away.
• My car broke down this month,
• But it looks like it is going to be fixed soon.
• It will likely take all of our savings to pay for the repair.
• But buying a new car would have also taking all of our savings.
• I worry that we won't ever have children,
• That we will never be able to purchase a house,
• That we will never been able to pay off our debts.
• I'm glad we had some savings,
• But I'm sick that we will have to start over.
• I certainly didn't envision my life being like this.

Not Sure.

I am sure that I am not pregnant this month.  In fact, I've already started injecting my 3rd month of meds and I'm going in for my four day US tomorrow morning.

Last week, my dear friend texted me, wondering what God, with His good character, is doing in my life in this time of waiting.  The question (but not my friend and her pure intention) made me angry.  I don't know what God's doing.  No clue. 

And I was (mostly) okay with that until this question, with all of its baggage, came into my awareness.

Growing up, in Bible college, and in churches I attended in my twenties, I was taught to seek God and His will.  I was taught to think in black-and-white, right-and-wrong answers.  I was taught that God "teaches a lesson, then gives a test (to see if you've learned the lesson, and if you didn't then He'll keep teaching you the same lesson, until it gets through your thick skull)."

I no longer believe that there is ONE right answer, ONE right lesson to be learned, ONE right path of God's will in my life.  God sent Jesus so I could have a relationship with Him, not so I could be "right" or "sinless" or "never mess up."  Not everything I encounter in life is meant to be some secret message from God that I need to decode.

Is God working? Yes.  Does He love me?  Yes.  Do I need to know what He's doing? No.  Will not figuring out His secret message to me going to cause Him to withhold His love or blessing from me?  No.

I hope that I can be surrendered to God, without having to experience the anxiety involved in trying to figure out how to be "right and not wrong."  I hope that I am surrendered to God.  I don't think it's primarily about "His work in my life," anymore though; I think it's about being surrendered and being in relationship with Him.  Period.