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Finding flowers in the rocky valley
When poor
little Joseph found himself on a slave caravan, he probably had one
serious pity party all the way to Egypt. He who’d been the apple of Dad’s
eye was now viewed as property. In the decades that followed, he
experienced unbelievable extremes: honor and trust from Potiphar,
imprisonment (thanks to Potiphar’s wife), and finally, elevation to being
the Pharoah’s right-hand man. We can read his entire life story in Genesis
in less than an hour, tracing the hand of God through it all. But Joseph
had to plod through every hour of every day of every year, eye-level with
his circumstances, unaware of the broader plan that God was weaving
together. |
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If you had a bird’s-eye view of your own life while you were infertile, it
would’ve made surviving infertility so much easier to endure. You could
have seen the light at the end of a distant tunnel. You’d see why God
allowed pregnancy to elude you in your younger years. You’d understand why
it took six failed inseminations, two surgeries, and two IVFs before you
achieved pregnancy. Or maybe you’d catch a glimpse of how the failure of
your first adoption attempt put you in a position later to receive the
child God had for you. Or you’d comprehend why you had to experience the
heartbreak of infertility before it dawned on you that childfree living
was as much a calling as parenthood. Your perspective makes all the
difference.
But walking through the Valley of Infertility, you have no plateau to
stand on to survey your surroundings. It’s all you can do to keep from
tripping over a boulder or getting your foot stuck in a crevice. The path
in front of you occupies your attention and concentration.
Once you resolve your infertility in some way (by solving it or resolving
not to keep trying to solve it), then you begin your exit from the valley.
You can, in time, look back over the terrain and see your experiences with
a little more clarity. You can see that there were a few scattered
flowers, tiny though they were, hidden along the way.
Maybe one flower that poked its petals from behind a rock was the friend
who remained at your side through your battle. Other flowers might be the
increased knowledge you have about medical matters or how to deal with
insurance companies. Still another could be the empathy (as opposed to
sympathy) you can feel with other infertile couples who are just starting
their journey, for the couple who miscarries, and for the infertile woman
whose self-worth has hit rock bottom. The awakening (or honing) of these
skills are the good things you take with you from your infertility
encounters—the things you learn, the people you meet, the way it changes
who you are and what you feel.
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Do old feelings ever disappear?
Some of the
feelings you have during your darkest days of infertility will never be
erased, but they definitely fade in intensity. These experiences are a
part of you; they’re deeply ingrained. When they reemerge, their
appearance can surprise you. See your response for what it is: An old
wound that got bumped. Old wounds can be sensitive for years after they’ve
healed.
Back in college, I had an operation on my leg to remove some
tissue that looked suspiciously like cancer (but wasn’t). The resulting
scar was about four inches long on the front of my shin. For at least 10
years, whenever I bumped the scar, I would recoil in intense pain. Even
now, the old wound is still more sensitive than other areas of skin. Old
wounds and scars may never completely go away, but we learn to live with
them and treat them with a little extra care.
So why do these feelings of anger or jealousy, frustration or resentment
sneak back in whenever our old “infertility scars” are bumped? Because
infertility deprives you of one of life’s normal experiences: the
predictability of bearing children. It’s a loss that’s never replaced in
your life, even though you may become a parent. You can never go back and
re-do those years of your life. If your infertility was resolved through
birth or adoption, then your life is full of parental responsibilities
that leave little time for contemplating the pain you walked through. But
when your old wound gets bumped, it’s likely that some mixture of negative
feelings will pop back into your mind. Don’t feel guilty about it. Don’t
deny yourself the right to feel. Don’t dwell on it intensely either. Just
let it flow in and flow right back out….
Minister from your own experiences
Christians
exist on the Mountaintop, the Valley, and the Plains. Eventually, everyone
sees all three locations. In traveling from one to another, we pass people
on their treks to various levels. The problem is when we forget what it’s
like to be somewhere else.
The people on the Mountaintop look out at the sky and the clouds and
forget what it’s like to be in the Valley. Those of us on the Plains go
about our business every day, comfortable with where we are. Others
descend to the Valley and see nothing but the dry and weary land
surrounding them, forgetting to look up toward the Mountain for
encouragement and strength to go on.
Whenever and however your infertility is resolved, don’t forget the
feelings that encompassed you for the season of your trial. They will
allow you to minister to other men and women in the midst of their own
private pain in a way that makes you uniquely qualified to be a shoulder
to lean on or a hand to lift up another….
Altered perspectives
One early
spring afternoon, I was puttering in the back yard (a source of endless
to-do’s), when I looked over to see Ryan using his kid-size, plastic
gardening hand-tools, industriously digging up a large pot of Allysum
seeds that were just waiting for the sun’s warmth to make them sprout into
cascades of tiny white flowers. I almost called out for him to stop, but
instead I stopped myself. Digging up the dirt (or soil, as the gardening
books say), moving small shovelfuls from the pot to the ground, was
serious work for a three-year-old. Why should I reprimand him for
exploring his world in the only way he knew how—through inquisitive
interaction. What he was learning was much more important than protecting
the contents of that planter. So I watched him, my little gardener in
training.
Some time later, the thought occurred to me that in an earlier era of my
life, I would’ve rushed to stop him from disturbing the planter. On the
whole, I would’ve done a lot of things differently—mostly I’d have been
more uptight, more exacting, more worried. Becoming a parent at 36 has its
advantages, I decided. I take life more in stride now than I did at 28.
I’m much more content with who I am as a woman, where we are as a couple
(and now a family), and where we’re going together. I’ve hammered out my
values as my own. I’ve let go of a few dreams and embraced the quiet
pleasures I found in reality. It didn’t seem like a loss when I shelved my
goal of becoming a freelance novelist, in exchange for committing my
energies to learning sign language and studying Deaf culture so I can give
my little boy a language-rich environment to prepare him for a lifetime of
learning. Funny thing, I really do feel like I’m refuting the old saying,
“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” I think I’ve done it: I had a
career that gave me incredible experiences and fulfilled one part of me,
and now I can fulfill another part, the part that yearned to be a
stay-at-home mom. Overall, I’m a happier person. And I believe I can enjoy
parenthood more now than I would have as a younger adult. My altered
perspective has made all the difference.
Your perspective has been forever altered because of the struggles you
survived, too. Your struggles were unique to you. Mine were unique to me.
Though the real-life, real-people stories in this book bear some
resemblance to each other, each person’s saga is exclusively theirs. We
were each wounded and scarred, and we are different people because of what
we faced. Our perspectives have been honed by life.
For those who know Christ as Savior, we have the added
benefit of knowing that our Lord was guiding us along the paths we were to
take, the decisions we were to make, even (or especially) in the midst of
infertility.
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lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will
guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the
rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake
them.
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