How Secondary Infertility Served Me

As my due date of Valentine's Day is a mere ten days away, I find myself learning "how to savor every moment slowly." In many ways this pregnancy has flown by, but at the same time it has felt much longer than 9 months. Many already know that this miraculous pregnancy was 8 years in the making. While I have learned and appreciated familiar reminders and many new life lessons this pregnancy, I want to take a moment to honor God by talking about what I've learned from His walk with me these past years. Many of these lessons I believe I couldn't have effectively learned without overcoming the challenges I have.

The Lord Keeps His Promises

1. It's okay to not understand how or when those promises will be fulfilled.
2. God knows and wants what is best for you. Sometimes He alone has the power to make it so.
3. Sometimes you won't want what God wants for you. And that's okay. This is one of the main purposes of prayer! In order to have our will come into alignment with the Lord's there will at some point be moments of discord.
4. Many of God's promises take time, because it's not just about the destination or end result but also about how we got there. 
5. Learning to love others means bearing their burdens and mourning with them as they mourn; empathy has allowed me to do this on a whole other level. Empathy has made me a better Christian covenant keeper.
6. Trials are blessings in disguise and we can learn to be grateful for them even while in them.
7. Patience, faith, gratitude, hope, and many other godly attributes take time to gradually develop.
8. Keeping a journal—even an irregular one—can provide much needed continuity and strength.
9. When you reach your breaking point, God can and will take your burdens if you give them to Him. Learn to surrender your worries and then not look back to pick them up again once you’ve turned them over to God. (See Matt. 11:28-30)

I didn't always view infertility as a blessing. I know it was a trial and a blessing for me but it is one that I can truly say I am grateful for. This gratitude came gradually but it also came long before receiving any medical answers or probabilities of pregnancy. Like years before. At first it felt like an emotional roller coaster of course, but not no more than half of these past 8 years felt like that. Reading journal entries in an annual fashion (similar to when Google reminds me of photos taken so many years ago) helped me remember this. Even as recently as 3 years ago I was still struggling regularly with depression and anxiety over certain things beyond my control. But getting pregnant wasn't one of those things. There aren't words to explain this gradual yet monumental attitude shift.

Patience is a Virtue

If this sort of shift sounds impossible in your journey please be patient with yourself. For me the song "Better than I" has taught me how to get there as well as become a summary of my journey.

I thought I did what's right

I thought I had the answers

I thought I chose the surest road

But that road brought me here

So I put up a fight

And told you how to help me

Now just when I have given up

The truth is coming clear

You know better than I

You know the way

I've let go the need to know why

For you know better than I

If this has been a test

I cannot see the reason

But maybe knowing I don't know

Is part of getting through

I try to do what's best

And faith has made it easy

To see the best thing I can do

Is put my trust in you

You know better than I

You know the way

I've let go the need to know why

For you know better than I

I saw one cloud and thought it was a sky

I saw a bird and thought that I could follow

But it was you who taught that bird to fly

If I let you reach me will you teach me

For You know better than I

You know the way

I've let go the need to know why

I'll take what answers you supply

You know better than I

President Russell M. Nelson taught: 

To be sure, there may be times when you feel as though the heavens are closed. But I promise that as you continue to be obedient, expressing gratitude for every blessing the Lord gives you, and as you patiently honor the Lord’s timetable, you will be given the knowledge and understanding you seek. Every blessing the Lord has for you—even miracles—will follow. That is what personal revelation will do for you.

You Can Choose

1. Not everything is beyond your control: You can choose to be helpful and hopeful rather than helpless and hopeless.
2. We don’t have to feel stress about things beyond our control: and frankly almost everything in life is beyond your control when you think about it.
3. Sometimes you will be mad at God. But you can choose not to be, and He will help.
4. Sometimes there are choices you cannot make (due to hormones, chemical imbalances, finances, whatever) no matter how much you want to. God can and will help with those!
5. God could have helped us conceive much sooner than the seven years it took, but I've learned not to begrudge Him those growing pains that I needed.
6. There may be a temptation to wait for happiness or fully living your life until the pregnancy comes: please don't wait. 
7. No matter your circumstances, you can choose a mindful—even joyful—life in the present that is full of hope for your unknown future.
8. Dream beautifully about your future. But also be willing to let go of certain dreams to make room for other dreams and realities.
9. Don’t be resentful of unsolicited advice. Try to feel the kindness of where it’s coming from even if it’s irrelevant or tactless.

Whatever your infertility journey, it doesn't have to be a hellish state of limbo. You really can enjoy a full life given your current circumstances. Even if those circumstances remain. There were auditions skipped, vacations missed, classes I didn't take, talents I chose not to cultivate, all because of the possibility of getting pregnant soon. At one point in trying to conceive, my husband and I came to terms with the hypothetical that we might be a one-child family. Surprisingly, near the end of my first trimester I had a period of mourning where I had to let go of some of the beautiful dreams we'd created for our one-child family. This had to happen before I could move from denial to gratitude and daydreaming about a very different future.

I remember being at church and hearing another friend's happy news that she was pregnant. I remember washing my hands in the bathroom and having a really brief, candid conversation with God.

Lord, I want to be happy for her. I know whether or not she is pregnant doesn't limit or affect my ability to get pregnant. I have felt this irrational jealousy in the past. But right now I just feel mad. I think I feel mad at you. And I don't want to. Please help me to choose differently.

I'll never forget the next instant when there was an immediate change. God took away the anger I was trying to give away to Him and made space for the love and joy I wanted to feel for my friend! One night I had a similar, sacred experience with anger and depression directed at my husband. When I prayed for the overwhelming negativity to be lifted I felt Christ's arms literally encircle me like a parent cradling a sleeping child as He whispered, "It's going to be okay. I've got you." Ever since then I have not struggled with choosing to lovingly communicating with my husband; it's a choice that sometimes takes more effort than at other times, but I no longer feel unable to make that choice.

Gifts of the Spirit and of Health

I remember feeling the healthiest I had ever felt physically, emotionally, and even spiritually when Victoria was about to enter kindergarten. I was enjoying regularly exercising with a group of ladies from church, several of whom also struggled with infertility. I had the stamina to do anything and everything I wanted and needed to: last minute service opportunities were a regular occurrence and and the unexpected schedule changes never felt draining. I was meeting weekly with a therapist going on two years at that point, but now it felt like our visits were less about helping me survive and more about helping me celebrate successes and learn new tools to cultivate joy and readiness. I felt like I was living life to its fullest with hope for my unknown future.

For example, I mostly loved spending all day with my daughter but I was also excited to discover new ways to build our relationship and use my alone time while she was at school all day. We knew we would be moving at the end of the school year and yet even when we weren't sure where or when, I was at peace with not knowing. With that move we didn't know whether we would or could continue meeting with infertility specialists: and we were okay either way.

1. My body was designed to bear children. But it was also designed to do a great many other things.
2. Regular strengthening and flexibility training of your physical body will impact your social, mental, emotional, and even spiritual health more than you can imagine. 
3. Finding ways to regularly serve inside and outside of your immediate family doesn't have to and shouldn't burn you out: it can and will lift you.
4. You can be a mother without ever giving birth. Look for such opportunities.
5. You have eternal worth as a woman outside of your eternal destiny to be a wife and mother: find reminders of this truth and cultivate them. Grow yourself and step into that power of being a daughter of God.
6. Make time to be with your Father in Heaven and hold yourself accountable to Him for how you're using your time. This can even be done in part through regular appointments with a counselor.
7. Mindfulness activities are a must. They increase your emotional intelligence and help deepen the benefits of your physical exercise.
8. Learn to “worry with God” instead. Imagine your fear becoming a reality and then asking, “What if this worst case scenario happens and God shows up in a miraculous way?”

Relearning Faith and Hope

1. Faith and hope in God look & feel different at different times in your life.
2. People going through the same trial go through it differently; there is grace in acknowledging this.
3. Learn to ask for help. Let others minister to you.
4. Trusting in God doesn't mean feeling joyful no matter what but for me it meant a capacity to feel peace no matter what.
5. Make and keep covenants with God & feast on His written word.
6. God wants to share in our joy.
7. He also has many "love gifts" to give to us.
8. God's deliverance can be both immediate and take time.
9. Gratitude and awe can coexist with fear and disappointment but you’ll feel more stable if you learn to cultivate the “positive” emotions while acknowledging but not feeding or being overwhelmed by the less comfortable ones.

Since it was difficult for us to conceive and took so long the second time, I sort of lost faith in my ability to be pregnant, give birth, and parent. We had been trying different methods with Yale's infertility clinic including IVF. We were able to receive through the grace of God 6 embryos for freezing. In the midst of moving across the country I was able to delay my flight so I could be 2 days PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise.) During the drawn out process of conception and confirming that my body wasn't going to miscarry, we had many angels help us in IL, CT, and WA. So many people were praying for us.

This pregnancy I have been praying to understand and receive God's love so that I can be more compassionate. I have yearned "to taste and savor His delicious love." (Song of Solomon 2:3-4) Trying to more consistently feast on His word throughout my pregnancy has given me a greater understanding and appreciation for the love of God and the unending source of strength and peace it can be in my life as a parent. (See Deut. 5:6-7 and previous blog post here.)

I hope in recording and sharing these examples of answered prayers and the Lord's undeparting kindness are beneficial for more than just myself. I can think of no better way to prepare for and celebrate Valentine's Day than to bear grateful witness of the Lord's love.