John 12:24

We all don't like to get unsolicited advice from people especially if we just spent time pouring our heart out to them. While I was in Alabama I asked for some advice from a woman named G who has been married about 20yrs. and they were never able to have children of their own. They got married when they were in their early forties and knew that they might not have children, even knowing this they were still disappointed. I asked her "how do you do it? How do you live or start to live your life knowing that children won't be a part of it the way you had hoped?" G explained to me that she didn't get too wrapped up in the disappointment or TTC she just lived her life with her husband. She said she poured her maternal instincts into her nieces, nephews, godchildren and children that God put before her to take care of. They never looked into foster care or adoption because it didn't really cross their mind. G told me to not give up hope that I will be a mother to a child here on earth someday and that it's all in God's hands and His timing. G told me to love my goddaughter and get to know her more, to pour my maternal instincts into loving her. Overall I left the conversation with G feeling very blessed and refreshed in hope!

Another scenario that happened while I was in AL was a woman who I have known since I was a teenager showed me a picture of someone I had gone to youth group with, in the picture she was holding her healthy baby that looked about 6months old. This woman knows our struggle very well and I asked why she was showing me this picture especially since the woman in the picture was not really a friend. She asked if I knew that the Drs. told the mother that the baby was not developing properly and would need surgery upon delivery if the baby had survived. She said they had a lot of people praying for the baby and when the baby was born she was fine, no surgery needed. I said I had known the story, puzzled the woman asked if something was wrong. Due to my post peak PMS bravery I told her that it is so hard sometimes to see pictures and hear stories of "miracle" babies when we don't know if that will ever happen for us. We don't know if God is promising us children now or in the future, that is what we are trying to discern. She seemed taken aback by my honesty and still confused as to why I would not find this story comforting. Believe me I am happy for this woman and that her baby is healthy but I left this conversation feeling like I was broken.

I don't want people to walk on eggshells around me because of IF but I do want to inform people that IF is no easy road where it is just peaches and sunshine as you wait and trust in God. The encouragement that they are trying to give you can call attention to the wound when you were not even thinking about it or leave you feeling like you are not doing enough. IF is a fight, a wrestling, a struggle, an inner war and an uphill battle as you try and make sense of the situation and then on top of that to try to follow God's will. You can't just wish or pray your IF away, which is super frustrating because believe me I have tried! Even if a beautiful healthy pregnancy occurs or an adoption takes place it does not magically make you "fixed" now or give you joy. Will you be happy? Of course, but it will not erase the pain that you endured and could still endure from the years of IF and/or miscarriage.

Now I have heard these lines of encouragement from people many times before "it's all in God's timing" or "its not God's will yet" or"you should relax and go on vacation, that's when it will happen" or "it will happen for you I just know it" and it would always frustrate me because I thought that the person didn't understand what I was trying to say, they didn't understand the pain and hurt I was in. So I would always brush off their advice or words of "encouragement" I would especially brush them off if they had children and had not gone through IF or miscarriage. It is very easy to dismiss those who "just don't understand." A lot of the times I would hold bitterness in my heart about their comments and warn myself never to share our struggles with those people again. It is very easy to turn inward and become bitter from IF and miscarriage.

Oh miscarriage, it.is.so.hard and I feel like my life changed forever the day that I started to miscarry. I no longer looked at our journey with a wave of hope, instead I saw a wave of disappointment that would continue for quite some time. I turned inward and started to guard my heart even closer, closing myself off from forming new or closer bonds with friends w/children or staying away from babies as much as possible. Part of this was a natural part of grief and part of it was self-pity. I turned inward in grief only revealing my true feelings to God alone, I barely started sharing some of these details with JJ. Then while in AL God gave me a glorious opportunity to share my heart with my husband. I let him in on the pain I experienced last year, he knew most of it but there was still stuff I was holding back. God convicted me while I was in AL of self-pity and many other things. It was such a wonderful release to lay it all down with Jesus and allow Him to start to heal those wounds from losing Cecilia. God did a wonderful thing to start to heal my motherly heart that was in so much pain.

I started to feel guilty about all the thoughts and feelings I had last year and then I realized that it was all part of a necessary process. It was all part of the process of grief. The day we were leaving for AL we got to have a private Mass in our Carmelite friars private chapel w/ one of the priests that was going with us. The Mass was at 3:30am as we had to be at the airport by 5am, so God gave us the grace to wake up for it. It was such a beautiful Mass and my Carmelite heart was so happy! This line from the gospel for that morning was very poignant for me and it kind of became my theme for the trip:

"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." John 12:24

It's kind of cryptic I know, but it really stood out to me, unless I die I will not produce fruit. Does that mean physically die? What do I need to give up? This got me thinking and journaling about this gospel verse. During one of my holy hours in AL I let my mind wonder on this subject...

I certainly felt like I died last year when we miscarried and JJ had his horrible accident at work. I felt like God was stripping everything that I loved away and I felt like death was ever before me. As a melancholic I think I am going to die all the time or the people I love most will. The gloomy outlook is something I am used to dealing with but last year was something different, death became really real. I always knew that my family, friends and I would die someday but suddenly my life became a real journey toward one end, heaven. To get to heaven we must die. Sorry to make this post so morbid it gets better I promise!

I started to think of this pang that I feel in my heart from IF and losing Cecilia. It gets better where you don't always think about it but it is still there always, like chronic pain you learn to live with. Then I thought this is kind of like the stigmata that some of the saints had. Now I am not comparing myself to some great saint but it reminded me that those saints had this special painful thing about them that kept them in constant union with Christ and His sufferings. This pain allowed them to constantly remember that their ultimate goal was Heaven and their life was naturally ordered toward Christ.

Then I realized that I would rather go to Heaven than have children. Not that children are evil or anything like that but that I need to NOT make children an idol before God. I need to stop turning inward and start turning outward toward others especially JJ. I need to not hold back love from humanity by saving it for my children that are not even here yet or my child who is not here on earth. I need to open up my heart more to those around me, keeping some boundaries obviously. I need to not just brush off people who are fertile or don't understand me. I need to not think my pain and cross are bigger and heavier than everybody else's. I need to realize that infertility and PCOS are just medical diagnoses I have, they are NOT who I am. All in all I just need to get over myself! This is not to say that I will be happy go lucky and the ever optimist, that's just not me or that the pains of IF will not effect me anymore. It is to say that I don't want to just remain a "grain of wheat" anymore I want God to take me to places I never thought possible. I am ready to bear some fruit  ;)

I will leave you with a song that has been my theme song this summer. It is kind of long but well worth the listen.  

Shalom

Among the many meanings of the word shalom, one is peace. I sign my emails and text messages with Shalom and we even have a wooden plaque on our front door from Israel with the words Shalom on it. My husband has more of a peaceful and calming presence to him than I do, so he has definitely brought peace to my life and person.

Since the miscarriage I have not been at peace and have been dealing with a lot of inner turmoil and anxiety. The anxiety got worse when my husband was seriously injured at work back in June and was hospitalized for a few days. I almost had a nervous breakdown when he had to stay at the hospital and I had to go home alone at night. Even my husband has been less at peace because of his injury and recovery on top of us having to deal with my health issues. When he went back to work in August after his recovery we went through some separation anxiety from each other. I was worried about him while he was at work and he was worried about me and my out of control hypoglycemia.

We have had a traumatic year so far and have clinged to each other through it. I know that we have been giving every situation to God including our health and our fertility but I have still felt a lot of anxiety about things. During Mass I have prayed that we continue to carry our crosses and unite ourselves to Jesus in his sufferings, we have also prayed for people in our families and for God to heal the generational sins in our families.

Despite doing all these things, I have still not felt peace. So a couple of weeks ago at a women's group we were discussing what virtue we think we most need right now and I said peace. I find it funny that I would pick peace not realizing that it is not a virtue I can work towards it is a gift from God. Since my nature is to try and do things as perfectly as possible it is odd that I would pick something that I really don't have that much control over. I can only ask God for peace and wait; which reminds me of a Mumford & Sons song called I will Wait.

So this weekend I realized that I was more calm and peaceful about things even though it would have been prime time to not be because of PMS and CD1 coming soon. I got to paint all day on Saturday while my husband was working. There were a couple of places I could have gone like exercising w/ my SIL or to a bridal shower but instead I wanted to be alone to paint. It was not a brooding kind of day where I wanted to sulk or anything, it was a reflective day. As I was painting I was reflecting on our struggles w/ IF, the miscarriage, my relationships with people that have become strained and awkward, my marriage and how it is not what I ever expected, my internship, needing to get more clients, conquering the world with NFP, our foster care/adoption questions, and how I don't have confidence that my body can actually carry a child to term.

Instead of getting anxious about everything which is what I would usually do, there was a calming peace that I felt. It was incredible! I have no idea what the next year of our lives will be like and we don't necessarily have a concrete plan either; foster care/adoption, another surgery, going back on cycle plans w/ Dr. Awesome, and looking into buying a house are all on the discussion table. There is so much prayer and discernment that we are doing but I am not anxious about any of these things, well maybe the possibility of another surgery makes me a bit anxious. Peace in each situation and abandonment to God and His will are difficult in any situation but it is especially hard when dealing w/ IF. Instead of fighting the pain, anger, and frustration we just need to experience it for what it is.

This feeling of peace has not left me yet and I thank God that He is giving me this peace. I will take this wave and ride it for as long as I can! This peace has given me a chance to be more thankful for what I do have. I have an amazing God who loves me unconditionally and a husband who loves God and me. During this time of not having children we have been able to make our marriage a high priority so that when we are blessed with children we will hopefully be better parents. We are able to go to adoration together whenever we want or hang out with our friends on short notice. I can paint all day on a Saturday or schedule my follow-ups with clients without having to worry about someone watching the kids. This probably all sounds like we have a very selfish life but we don't. Our desire for children is still strong but we are not anxious about it as much as we were. I am thankful God has given us peace while we wait, for now.

Here is the bible verse that correlates with this gift of peace
Philippians 4:7...