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.]
