My brokenness

Beyond all the medical steps, finding new doctors, blood work, medicine, side effects, and so on, my heart and spirit have struggled with this situation in my life. Like so many women, I never thought this would happen to me. I never thought I'd have trouble conceiving, especially after my charts showed that I was ovulating and that my luteal phases seemed long enough. I also never knew just how many women are affected by some level and degree of infertility. I have found extreme comfort in a handful of my girlfriends as we've been traveling this yellow brick road together. It seems now that the two I am closest with are a bit closer to Oz than I am- both are now pregnant. And that's okay. In fact, it is exciting and amazing as both of these women are two of the best human beings that I know and will be incredible mothers. It just gets a little lonely to feel as if I'm traveling this road alone. I've been struggling with my faith, with ugly feelings like jealousy and bitterness and anger at my Almighty. I think my biggest hurdle is changing my perspective. I know that on the inside, my emotions are that of a petulant two year old throwing a tantrum when she isn't given what she wants as soon as she wants it. I can't imagine how the Lord sees me right now, as I wrestle with unrighteous anger at the Author of Life. I keep seeing him as a Lord who is refusing to bless me and fulfill this desire of my heart for some reason. One of my two prego friends, Maeve, has such a good outlook compared to me. She sees Him as a God who is grieving along with me, working to fix my brokenness that originated with Adam and Eve and walking with me each step of the way. I just don't know why I can't get it out of my head that he is the All- Powerful God. Why doesn't he just say, "POOF!" and allow me to be pregnant, especially if he is grieving with me? Especially if He knows how my soul feels ripped to shreds each month that goes by without a positive pregnancy. I know I probably sound like one of the criminals on the cross next to Jesus- "If you're the Messiah, save yourself, and us, too!" But, it's the truth, the ugly truth, one I'm trying to change. I want to change how I see my Lord, but how do you balance out this all-powerful God with imperfect, broken circumstances? Why does he choose the hard way to fix us? The difficult way? I suppose I should look back on the cross. He chose such a difficult, strange way to save the world, didn't He? Through a baby, a human man, a perfect God-man who had no guilt, hanging on a cross. Having done nothing wrong to deserve any punishment, not to mention such a severe punishment, he suffered and died. Maybe we all suffer, in different ways, for what we want. Maybe it's the suffering that makes certain things all the more special, important, valuable. Maybe we'll never know why we suffer, especially for those things we most desperately want. But if we are to suffer for what we want, and the suffering is in direct proportion to our want, imagine how much Jesus wanted us to be saved.

The beginning

Well, actually, this is not the beginning. My DH and were married two years ago, this spring. We have never used any means of contraception, but instead used the "Fertility Awareness Model," introduced to me by my older sister. I remember the months before I got married, taking my temperature each morning, keeping meticulous charts, checking my CM on a daily basis and shaking off the scoffs of friends. One friend in particular kept warning me, "You'll be pregnant by the summer if you just stick to the charts!" If only it were that easy. My charts seemed normal enough, and my cycle is consistently regular. So, for several months, we depended on those charts to dictate my fertile times (aka- "Red light!" days) and non-fertile times (aka "Green light!" days.) then, last November, after much discussion, DH and I decided to turn the tables on my charts- former red light days were now green light days, because we were on the journey to parenthood!
Now, a year later, we are about to go to our very first appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist. Twelve months ago, when I got my first negative test, I had no idea what a gut wrenching journey this was going to turn out to be. Even now, not yet knowing what our issues and options are going to be, I can only imagine how gut wrenching this is going to continue to be. I want to be a mother more than I've wanted anything in the world. To feel our child in my womb, to grow round and full of life. So now, to deal with all of these feelings and to chronicle our journey, I've given birth to this blog.