To be honest, I felt like the air was knocked out of my lungs after I blogged about fertility. It was kind of scary, and I wondered why I had just posted things about my uterus to the entire world. Uh, hello! Sure, we all know that dudes have boy parts and girls have lady parts, but did you need to know that much about me?
Yeah. You probably did.
You see, we live in a fertile world. Hallelujah, this is a good and right thing! God created us so we can procreate. If you know the details about how a human life is made, then you know how amazing this process is. Thank God most folks easily make offspring. But… when you can’t make babies, this fertile world becomes overwhelming.
As it turns out, there are pregnant bellies and babies everywhere.
You know how, when you’re shopping for a new car, you start noticing that same vehicle everywhere you look? Dealing with infertility is kind of like that. Except way worse. There are, in no particular order:
- Negative pregnancy tests for you.
- Positive ones for your friends and family.
- Facebook announcements (giant groan).
- Baby showers.
- Baby showers you are asked to host.
- Commercials for diaper ointments.
- T-shirts that boldly state, “I’m so crafty I make people!”
- Cute tops in Target that you didn’t realize were maternity (whoops!).
- Aisles upon aisles of baby items that you carefully avoid.
- Conversations about pregnancy.
- Conversations about pregnancy food cravings.
- Conversations about labor and delivery.
- Conversations about diapering choices.
- Conversations about breastfeeding.
- Etc.
- Etc.
- Etc.
Here’s the thing, fertile friends. I don’t want you to stop enjoying your pregnancy because of me. You should never feel guilty about getting pregnant, about being pregnant, or about having a baby. Never ever ever. Even on my darkest days, I believe that pregnancy and childbirth and beautiful squishy babies are gifts from God.
But here’s the other thing: I don’t have to join the conversations about stretch marks and midwife visits and nursery decorating. Sometimes it’s a matter of self-preservation and I will quietly remove myself from a potentially painful situation. Ask any gal dealing with infertility about how she feels about Facebook announcements and you will learn that she will write her congratulations directly on someone’s wall rather than on a thread. Because even if she’s thrilled for the new mother, she knows better than to join a thread where she’ll be reading, “Congrats on the baby girl!!!” for the next five days straight. It’s just too painful.
So what can you do to love and care for your friends struggling with fertility issues?
You can, in private, get to know them. With a gentle and understanding spirit, ask them how they are feeling, how they are doing, and what is and isn’t difficult for them. (For example, a friend of mine doesn’t want to know anything about a birth story whereas I would join you in the delivery room in a heartbeat if you’d ask me.) Listen carefully and don’t push for answers. If your friend is uncomfortable talking with you, switch subjects and honor her desire for privacy.
You can respect their choices. Invite them to the baby shower, but be respectful if they need to opt out. If you have mercy meals at your church, allow them to sign up to deliver one to a new mom rather than asking them to do so.
You can practice empathy. Try to put yourself in their shoes and imagine how it might feel to not be able to conceive month after month. Consider that type of suffering and amp up your prayers for this friend. Send a compassionate note or an encouraging email. A little cheer, a little hope, a little good word goes a long way.
You can share in their sadness. If you are close friends, let them know you have a shoulder to cry on at any hour of the day. While you can’t have this depth of relationship with many people, you need to offer yourself to the friends you already have. Make sure the shared suffering part is a two-way street though. No one ever wants to be the only crier, the only soul-exposing one in a friendship!
**To those who have dealt with infertility, what did I leave out?
**To those caring for friends dealing with infertility, what did I leave out? Was this post specific enough? Would you like more questions answered?
More to come.
Infertile might be one of the worst words I know. Whether you’re referring to soil or to a person, infertile doesn’t describe a place where goodness is occurring. Some folks don’t mind labels, thinking “Well, if the shoes fits…” But my soul won’t allow me to work with the word infertile. In fact, being unproductive in any way is not something I want to embrace. So, infertile? Forget it.
Perhaps I’m only playing word games, but guess what? This is my blog and I can do what I want to here. Bear with me because I’m going to write about fertility. Some of you at this point might want to avert your eyes because the very thought of blogging about fertility makes you cringe. And that’s totally fine, too.
Jeremy and I have been married almost 13 years. We have one daughter who might at first glance (and second and third) look like she’s the fruit of our loins. But she’s not genetically ours; we adopted Livia at 7 weeks old. When I was a kid, my parents talked about both fostering and adopting, so I think my heart was prepared for adoption early. I always wanted to adopt, and not just after I had my “own” kids (don’t ever say that to me, by the way—Livia is my own). After Jeremy and I finished college and seminary, we moved back home to Nebraska and, within a year, began the adoption process. A lot went into our decision to adopt, but fertility never played a role.
We threw caution—and birth control—to the wind when Liv was one and just waited to see what happened. When we didn’t conceive within a year, I figured we wouldn’t be able to get pregnant. But I was only 27, I wasn’t hugely concerned, and I knew that between fertility treatments and adoption we’d be able to have more children easily. (Cough cough, some of you may now laugh at my naïveté.) A funny thing happened in the fall of ’06: I got pregnant.
Joy! Happiness! Blessing! God’s timing! God’s blessing! He smiled upon us!
For several weeks we lived as an almost-family-of-four and I contentedly carried a little life in my womb. We heard a heartbeat. It was beautiful. And then, it was over.
A fast and wrenching cramp nearly keeled me over in Target. I went home and the spotting began. And there was absolutely nothing I could do to keep that little life within me. It was the first time I’d felt an utter loss of control related to fertility, but definitely not the last.
Joy? Happiness? Blessing? God’s timing? God’s blessing? He smiled upon us? I don’t think so.
My pregnancy ultrasounds revealed giant ovarian cysts which, crazily enough, would have required surgery around 18 weeks gestation for removal. Since I miscarried, I ended up having surgery a few months later and this is how we discovered endometriosis. Going into surgery I thought I might have ovarian cancer, so the endometriosis diagnosis was no sweat. It was small potatoes, really.
To this day, I just don’t care much about endometriosis. When you have other major autoimmune disorders, you tell the endometriosis to fall in line and it will be dealt with in order of importance. Day to day, it’s not a concern. Month to month is a different story, however.
A lot of months have passed between losing that baby and now. Over 48, if we’re looking for a number. All of those months have included Jeremy and I being open to adopting more children. In fact, for most of the past five years, we have pursued word-of-mouth adoption and followed every lead, every potential adoption situation. A few of those 48+ months included fertility testing and fertility treatments. Many of those months included emails, prayer requests and support group meetings to deal with the frustrating reality of my fertility.
People don’t really talk about fertility. It makes us uncomfortable. It’s awkward. We like to say things like, “I just look at my wife and she gets pregnant” so we can laugh a little and go back to the odd-yet-comfortable pattern of saying nothing about infertility. But the reality is the infertility involves grief and loss. By its very nature, infertility is uncomfortable and sad. It sucks. But that is life, and just ignoring the issue doesn’t make it any less real. Staying silent about it won’t solve any problems and it won’t fix matters of fertility or of the heart. It’s a real issue, of real concern, to more men and women than you might imagine.
If you’re struggling with fertility issues yourself, how do you keep on keeping on? What do you think about Joy! Happiness! Blessing! God’s timing! God’s blessing! He smiled upon us! when you’re not getting pregnant? And if you’re not dealing with this topic yourself, how do you support your friends who are?
Stay tuned. I’ve got more to say.
[If you have more to say, too, and you want to talk or ask questions, give me a holler. My email address is listed on the Contact Us page.]