Sometimes I'm not sure if spending time with children is more healing or painful. Young children are my passion, my life. I thrive around them. They make me happy. Any day that I get to spend time with babies, toddlers, or young children is a good day. I honestly can't put into words how being around children makes me feel. I feel completely happy and whole around them - like "this is what I was made to do."
But then I have to leave them. And go home to my childless life. And it hurts a little bit more than normal.
Yesterday I got to spend time with 3 precious siblings, all under 5. I got to laugh and play with the older two, and cuddle the baby. And I couldn't be happier.
But today I am home, without any children, and it hurts. I cry out, saying "God, You know the cry of my heart. You know my deep desire to have children. You gave me this desire, this passion. As deep in my core as it is, it can only have come from You. Knowing that, I trust you. But sometimes I still wonder why, when this is from you, you're making me wait so long to pour my heart and passion into my own children."
I know God has a plan. I have hope, amidst the pain. My hope rests in His faithfulness and the fact that this passion/desire does come from Him. Days like yesterday renew my hope, and make me excited (and impatient!) to have my own child. I am trusting His timing.
Recently there have been a couple of instances that made me realize that my mindset has changed - to one of hope.
The first was: I became an aunt again last week, and while my family members were talking about my new niece, they mentioned something about "when you have a baby...", and I was able to have a conversation about when it is my turn - instead of just grieving that this time wasn't my turn.
Second: I was out shopping with some single girl friends, and found an adorable baby item - a Batman bib complete with cape, and booties (I'm obsessed with Batman, fyi)- and I picked it up and said "when I have a kid, they're getting this!" Not that long ago I would have looked at it and mourned the fact that I didn't have a child to buy it for.
Third: On a related note, I am actually considering the idea of starting a baby hope chest, for all the things I see that my child will "need", but know that I won't likely be able to find it again. 6 months ago when this idea was mentioned to me, I wouldn't consider it, because at the time it would have just made things harder. I was pretty hopeless then, and having something like that just seemed like either a reminder that I didn't yet have a child to give these things to, or like a sign of false hope.
In the past couple of months I have gone from hopeless (where I had been for a very long time) to acceptance, to surrender, and now I've moved into hopeful. (You may have noticed these changes if you've been following my blog since the beginning)There has been no physical change, simply a heart/mind change. ( I say simply... a change of heart and/or mind is usually harder than the physical. And not something we can do by ourselves.)
Hope is a good thing. No one will argue with that. I was telling my husband about my new outlook of hope, and how I didn't know if it was a good thing or not. And his response was simply "It is." I know that it is, but I needed the confirmation. Sometimes I wonder if hope makes the pain gentler or more intense, though. I think that on a daily basis, it does ease the pain (I certainly have more up days than down) But then when the disappointment comes, it hurts even more than normal. Sometimes I get momentarily scared when I admit to myself that I do have hope, because I'm afraid it might be false hope.
But I have to remind myself, when I'm scared to hope, that my hope is in God. Just look at the progression of my mindset - hope came after I surrendered. That's not a coincidence.
The Bible has so much to say about Hope. Here are just a few passages that I found: Psalm 42:11 (and really the whole chapter)
"Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my savior and my God."
Psalm 62:5
"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from Him"
Romans 5:5 (and surrounding verses)
"And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us."
Hebrews 11:1
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see"
That last verse mentions both faith and hope. Those two are often mentioned together in the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:13, for example), and I believe there is a reason for that. Without faith, our hope is a false hope. Without hope, what is faith? At first when I realized that I was not going to get pregnant as easily/soon as I hoped, I prayed that I would get pregnant/we would be blessed with children/for healing. But then I started praying that God would help me get through this. That He would help me trust Him, and His timing. That He would increase my faith, and give me peace in my situation. That's another thing that goes along with faith and hope - peace. And now, along with hope, I do have peace. The kind of peace that only comes from trusting (having faith) that God is in control and knows what's best, when it's best. Philippians 4:6-7
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus"
My prayer for my friends/any readers who are struggling through infertility is not just that they will be healed, but that they will find hope and peace, through faith.
Ephesians 3:20-21
"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."
-MNM
Ps. I wrote a post back in November with the same title, but if you read that one, and then read this one, I think you'll find a distinct difference, and that this one is much more suitably named.
Ah, Mother's Day. What a wonderful day to recognize how wonderful our mothers are.
I appreciate my mother more than I can express. I wouldn't be who I am today if it hadn't been for her. She is my role model when it comes to being a wife, mother, teacher, homemaker, pretty much everything.
I appreciate my mother-in-law for raising my husband to be the man that he is today. And for accepting me into her family with no hesitation.
I appreciate the mothers around me who let me love on their children (several come to mind).
Thank you, Mothers.
My initial reaction to something that is going to make me sad or uncomfortable is to want to avoid it or pretend it doesn't exist. That's pretty much impossible with Mother's Day, though. Everyone on social media is posting pictures of their moms, and talking about how much they appreciate them. All the commercials/ads and store displays say "buy this for your mother!" The Sunday School lessons and sermons are all about mothers. Ignoring Mother's Day just isn't feasible. Nor should it be - we NEED to appreciate mothers - they are pretty special. After all, the reason Mother's Day is hard for me is because I know how special mothers are - that's why I so long to be one!
It has been encouraging to see a few people include "mother's who long to be" in their well wishes on Mother's Day. And to see others acknowledge that this day is hard for the infertile. I follow enough infertility blogs that there have been many encouraging words that I have read. And I also received a very sweet message this morning that was just what I needed to read.
We need to be careful to not let our pain turn into cynicism, or our envy negate how precious those who are mothers are. When I started writing this blog post last night, that's exactly what I did. I wrote an entire post, that was just incredibly cynical, bitter, and just not appropriate. Thankfully, I am in a better place now, and can be more optimistic and encouraging.
Yes, I cried today, but I was also able to love on the little girls in my two year old class. And to ooh and aah over the newborn. And to hold the 5 month old, and enjoy how adorable she was. Honestly, I think those interactions were healing for me.
My prayer today, for myself, for all my friends, and other readers struggling through this Mother's Day, is that this will be the last Mother's Day that we have to grieve instead of celebrate. Pray that with me?
A few days ago I was laying outside, (gettin' my tan on!), and as I lay there, I was thinking and praying (there's not a lot else to do...). And I came to the realization that it was time (or, you know, way past time) for me to surrender my infertility to God. A week and a half ago I posted about how I feel like I'm slowly moving toward acceptance of my infertility. That's not a bad place to be. But today I want to talk to you about surrender, and how it's different than acceptance.
Surrender involves acceptance, but it's more than that. According to Wikipedia : "Surrender is willful acceptance and yielding to a dominating force and their will."
Surrendering means giving up any control I think I have. It means giving the situation to God for Him to take care of... and leaving it there. It means becoming completely helpless, and instead putting complete faith in Him. It means acknowledging to the fullest that He is in control and that His plan is best. That His timing is best. Not just saying and knowing those things are true, but believing it and acting on it. It means trusting Him... which means not worrying. Not dwelling on it.
I know this will be an on-going process. And I'm not really sure what it will look like. Mentally, I have an idea, but I don't know what it will look like as far as the things I'm doing. Does it mean that I stop all charting? Does it mean that I don't seek medical advice? Does it mean that I stop reading infertility books/blogs? Does it mean that I stop blogging? I don't know. It doesn't mean I'll forget about it, or stop hoping.
I am not really familiar with the God's Word Translation of the Bible, but I like the way they translated Psalm 37:7a "Surrender yourself to the LORD, and wait patiently for him. " -MNM
Has anyone ever told you "Be careful what you pray for - you just might get it!"? I'm not a huge fan of that phrase. I find that it implies that God isn't sovereign, but instead just gives us whatever we pray for, no matter whether good or bad.
(Of course, the last time someone said something like that to me was in reference to me wanting kids. Yeah, that one didn't go over too well.)
But, today, I'm here to tell you just that. Except not because I think that God's plan is wrong, but because it's way harder than I ever would have imagined it would be. I have two specific instances to relate:
1. When I was about 16, watching so many of my peers go through relationship after relationship and heartbreak after heartbreak, I prayed earnestly that the only man I would ever date would be the one that I married. God answered that prayer... 5 years later, when I re-met the man I would marry. Which was about 3 years after I wanted that prayer answered.
For those 3 years, my "prime dating years", I was so very lonely, and wondered what was wrong with me. It was hard.
But now, I have no regrets in praying that prayer. I am so incredibly glad that I was able to enter the relationship with my now-husband without a history. He was my first everything. First date, first kiss, everything. And that is so nice to know (and to make it even better - I was the only girl he ever dated too!).
2. Several years ago (I don't remember when exactly, but before I got married) I decided that I was going to let God determine the size of my family. Typically that means not preventing pregnancy by any unnatural means. I was all ready to do just that - I knew of plenty of families who were living that way, and I thought it was great. But now here we are, 3 years into our marriage, with no kids. So now I have to remind myself of my resolution - because I am still having to trust God to determine the size of my family. But now, instead of trusting Him for how many children He wants us to have, I'm trusting Him to give us any children. Period. And it's oh so hard.
I do not doubt God's sovereignty. I know that He is in control and that His plan is best for me. I truly believe that He was the one who led me to pray both of those prayers in the first place - I believe that they were according to His will and are part of His plan.
So when I say "Be careful what you pray for", I simply mean that sometimes what we pray for, even if it is in God's will, and is ultimately the best, the journey to get to the answer may be incredibly hard.
It's like He's saying "Remember how you decided to trust me to take care of this? Trust me."
*Disclaimer: Header photo was not made by me, and I make no claims on it. It comes from this blog, who I highly recommend that you follow!
This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. As I mentioned in this post, one of the big reasons that I
even have this blog is for Infertility Awareness. I don't like that it's a taboo subject and that everyone (those
who are dealing with it and those who are not) skirts around the subject.
I want you to be aware of the fact that there are many people around you who are unable to have the children that they so desire. And while you are frustrated with your children, they are longing to have children to be frustrated with.
I want you to be aware so that you can be a bit more mindful before you ask the hurtful questions or say the hurtful things.
I want you to be aware so that you can have a little more grace for people. This doesn't only apply to the people around you who are struggling with infertility, by the way. We need to have more grace for everyone around us. And I have a feeling we would be, if we only knew what they were going through.
Please, just be aware. -MNM PS. I plan on writing at least a couple more posts this week, so stay tuned.
I know I haven't been writing as much as I was when I started this blog. I would apologize, but in reality, it's an indication that I'm in a better place than I was. And for that I won't apologize.
I've started to realize that emotionally I'm slowly improving. I don't know when/why the shift occurred, but I think it was probably just gradual enough that I didn't notice it.
I feel like instead of constantly being in the "waiting" stage, I have started to move on with my life. Recently I had to make a choice as to whether or not to get a (mostly) full-time job. The fact that I was willing to (even though it didn't pan out), whereas previously just the thought made me very anxious (I didn't want to make a commitment to a job when I knew as soon as I had a child I'd quit), was an indication to me that I am at the point where I can accept that we're just not going to have kids at this point in our life. Coming to that realization hurt a little bit, but I knew it was a good thing.
Now, even though I am in a better place, it doesn't mean that I don't still hope to be pregnant every month. It doesn't mean that I don't still shed tears in hopelessness and heartbreak every so often. But it does mean that I don't shed tears as often.
It doesn't mean that my heart didn't ache this week when I saw two of my friends posts, back-to-back, on Facebook about their little girls. But instead of only hurt, I can see my friends' children and smile/laugh at how adorable they are.
It doesn't mean that it won't hurt a little when, in the next few weeks, two tiny new people will be added to families that are a big part of my life. I can't wait to meet and hold and cuddle these two new baby girls.
I am coming a place of acceptance. 6 months ago I didn't know if I would ever reach this point.
