Six years in waiting

As I may have mentioned, I'm currently in the dreaded two week wait; I test on April 11. Speaking of waiting, I realized yesterday, by glancing at my TTC ticker at the top of my blog, that we've been TTC for six years now. Six years in waiting.

Six (6!) years.

And a couple days.

I wonder if I can come up with a pearl of wisdom for every one of those six years? Can I think of six somethings, for six years, that I can say I came away with... Something that would make all this grief and pain and... this heartache - a little less empty?

See, it feels so meaningless and pointless - so needlessly cruel.

I've spent a lot of the six years wondering WHY. Wondering if I did something wrong. Wondering how to get the exact right combination of factors to work in our favor... wondering how to fix it. Wondering what the meaning in all of this is... wondering what I'm supposed to learn.

So let's see if I have learned six things, one for every increasingly painful and heart-wrenching year of infertility. I've never been one to be short on words or ideas, so I'm betting I can do it!!

1) Not everything happens for a specific reason.
Yes, God has a plan, but that doesn't mean every thing happens because of a specific reason. Telling that to someone in despair is likely going to hurt them more than they already are. I think this is sort of a generic optimism, not a Christian teaching. I'm not Bible scholar, but I know this: we live in a fallen world. Illness, grief, death, and general ugliness are all consequences of this fallen world. Infertility is an illness, like so many others. Did I do something to deserve it? No! Hmm, did I do anything to deserve all my blessings? No... Can good somehow come out of this horror? I only see now with a veil over my face, but yes - I believe so. That may not mean I get the outcome I want, but it means that God is still at work in me and that "His grace is sufficient for me." (2 Corinthians 12:9) Trusting in that is a comfort to me, not the thought that this is all happening for some grand reason.

2) God is (still) so good; my circumstances do not change God's goodness!
With all my heart, I believe this. There are probably a bazillion verses to support this, but this one is striking me right now, perhaps because "brokenhearted and crushed in spirit" have been my middle names for these six years. Yet I still know, from the depths of my being, that God - Is - Good. Through it all, I still know how incredibly blessed I am.

Psalm 34:17-19 "The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all."

3) Clubs are not always of our choosing!
In my early years of IF, I had the love and comfort of my husband, which is the most priceless of my earthly blessings!!! I still do, of course! I am constantly amazed at his love and goodness to me!! I can't emphasize this enough, I just don't have the words! Even so, I now know this with certainty: an infertile woman needs the companionship of fellow infertile women. It was lonely to know no one else who had this problem - and mind you, I already have completely amazing, long - long time friends in my life. They are wonderful! Yet I felt like a freak, the one person in the world who couldn't manage to do one of the most basic things a woman's body is supposed to do. So few people can really understand it, so there's a lot of suffering in silence... a lot of walking wounded. Well, it was really only the last couple years that I started looking at groups online - lurking from a distance. It was only a year ago when I started this blog and found a couple friends through it, and when I took a risk and joined a private Facebook group. These have been just God-sends to me!!! I am not alone!! There are people who understand. I wish so much, for their sake, that they didn't understand... Yet I'm so grateful that if we have to go through this, we don't have to go through it alone. Community. We were made for community. I have been so blessed in this way. I have become part of a club that none of us wants to be in, but the friends I've met in this club are just more precious than gold to me!

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” (C.S. Lewis)

4) Reaching out for help is not only ok, it's vital:
It was also a year ago I started talking to my doctor about the panic attacks. I'm so glad I did. I suffered a lot longer than I should have because I felt ashamed, and because I felt I could and should beat it by myself. I'm strong, right? Wrong!! I am not as strong as I liked to think I am, and that's ok. This has all made me such a crusader for more openness, and less shame. Life is not easy. We all need some help sometimes. There is no shame in this. The only shame would be in living a life of defeat because we're too proud to just say "Hey, I need some help - I'm not doing so great here..."

II Corinthians 1:3-5 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows."

5) Writing is good therapy!
When I first acknowledged the panic was starting to become a major interference in my life, I sort of randomly decided to start a blog. Journaling and blogging were never activities I was interested in - at all, I didn't see the value. And then... I came to the point in my life where I could barely get in a car and drive somewhere without completely freaking out. It took all my energy to hide the anxiety and grief from the world, only my darling Ar knew. It was exhausting, and insult to injury, really... At this point, all I knew or cared about was that I needed to get it out. There was a big ugly jumble bangin' around up there in between my ears, and it needed to be let out. Writing has been an amazing outlet for me; I feel like it was the beginning of things turning around. The quote below completely resonates with me!

“People who engage in expressive writing report feeling happier and less negative than before writing. Similarly, reports of depressive symptoms, rumination, and general anxiety tend to drop in the weeks and months after writing about emotional upheavals.” ("Writing to Heal" by Dr. James W. Pennebaker, Department of Psychology, The University of Texas)

6) "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."
Hope is the most bitter of sweets, isn't it? Hey, it springs eternal, right? My blog subtitle says so, so it must be! I think I've never known people with more hope than those of us childless mothers. We hope, and we hope, and we hope. Despite all odds, we hope. Despite all our experience, we hope. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we hope. Hope keeps us alive. Hope unfulfilled, or deferred, crushes us to our very depths. Every month we go through this cycle of hope against all hope, and crushing despair. The more we hope, the harder we fall. And still, we hope.

Proverbs 30:15-16 “There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, ‘Enough!’: the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, ‘Enough!’"

But I have learned, in these six years, that my true hope must not be in reproductive medicine, or traditional Chinese medicine, or this or that supplement, in full fat dairy, or my own strength - or in the optimism of the world. Truth is, my hope of motherhood may never be satisfied. It may be a sadness I take to my grave. But my hope must remain in Him, the only true Hope. It is hard. This is hard. And this veil in front of my face doesn't help... but my Hope, my Hopest of Hopes remains in Him.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit.”

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So there you have it, six thoughts for six years. A lot of this was probably redundant if you've been reading my blog already, but hey - my six years, my six thoughts, right? ☺ Besides, summarizing things like this always helps me. I have a decent memory, but sometimes it's good to keep our eyes on the big picture. Wishing you peace and love tonight! ♥