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If you’re loading the dishwasher, you realize how much you want to be
crowding baby bottles into that machine.
At work, you pass a dozen
people who have children of their own, people with photos of their little
ones plastered all over the wall of their cube.
And several times each
week, you’ll overhear more than one conversation about the trials of
parenthood, often listening to people complaining about what you ache to
experiences.
A trip to the supermarket
means you have to pass by the baby food aisle…and the diaper aisle…and the
aisle lined with cheap, imported toys. And you’re bound to see a magazine
cover in the checkout line that offers a title like “Ten tips for getting
your baby to sleep through the night.”
Everything (or so
it seems) brings to mind an image of the baby you’re trying to have. It’s
all so unfair.
“Why can she get pregnant and I can’t?”
Now that’s a question that’s echoed through every millennia. Hannah asked
it. Elizabeth struggled with it. Rachel’s heart cried over it. David’s
first wife Michal likely uttered it in bitter frustration. Almost every
person interviewed for this book acknowledged their frustration over the
agony of “natural selection” that seems to heap fertility on some and
deprive it of others.
You can go over sanity’s edge trying to figure out why teenagers get
pregnant so easily in the back seat of a car. You probably have to slap
your hand over your mouth to keep from lecturing the pregnant 15-year-old
who waddles down the mall, window-shopping at the upscale maternity
clothes store. Your soul screams, “Lord, this is just not fair! That girl
doesn’t know how to raise a child. She can’t support a child, can’t wisely
discipline a child, can’t love a child unconditionally. She’s just a child
herself! Lord, what were You thinking when you let her get pregnant and
not me?”
What you’re feeling is a combination of emotions—anger, confusion, grief,
envy—customize the list as you need to. And it’s understandable. Becoming
a parent is vitally important to you, and that vitally important thing has
happened to someone else, someone who didn’t have to work nearly as hard
at it as you have. In the most difficult situations, it happens to someone
who is wholly unprepared to assume the role of parent. That scenario makes
you additionally angry at the dismal environment the child will be born
into. You grumble, “What chance will that child have for a decent life? We
could give a child a happy, loving home with a bright future. Why not us,
Lord?”
As a Christian, you consider the role of parenthood to be as sacred as the
marriage vows you pledged. You see how nurturing children is part of God’s
incredible plan for not only mankind’s continuance, but also that children
have a part in God’s kingdom work on earth. Those who are raised by godly
parents have the best chance of becoming faithful, effective participants
in God’s ongoing mission. Parenthood then is one of your faith
missions in life. And when you see how flippantly some people treat
parenthood, it makes your blood boil.
Then there are people who are a lot like you who get pregnant and don’t
think twice about it. You can’t get mad at them for getting pregnant
(well, you can, but you feel rotten about it later). How do you handle
those feelings?
Survivor's Quote: Most couples
we knew seemed indifferent to our position and at times, it seemed that
they went to great lengths to talk about their pregnancies and babies in
our presence. While we knew that was not the case, the insensitivity
caused problems at the time. You find yourself avoiding situations where
there will be a lot of unstructured time for talking, because you know
that with a group of young married couples, most of whom are either
pregnant or trying to be. The subject will eventually involve who’s
pregnant, who’s trying, when the babies are due, or how awful it is to be
pregnant. (Angela and Jim)
Your friends from church,
work, school, or from the health club—they get pregnant in a flash. You
have so much in common, but then you have nothing in common. Wherever you
look, whatever realm of your life you study, you see that the quest for
children has made its mark there, too.
Other topics covered in
this chapter:
Pregnant women
everywhere
Now that you’re having trouble conceiving, you’re seeing pregnant
women everywhere, aren’t you? Welcome to the club. We’ve all been there.
Fertile family,
infertile me
(or Why am I the only one in the family who’s infertile?)
You can really get your fur up when you see women who get pregnant and
then don’t value their pregnancy. But anger, even jealousy, can overflow
to married people who have as much right to a child as you do and who will
cherish the children God gives them. Especially disturbing is when you
find yourself envying your own family members who have no trouble
conceiving.
These are the people you
love the most—your own brothers and sisters, your cousins, your aunts and
uncles, your nieces and nephews. But there they are, busy with children of
their own—and you with none.
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Handle yourself with
grace
Rejoice with those who rejoice. How do you do that when your heart
feels like a Mac truck rolled over it, and your throat is strangled as you
choke back the sobs?
For starters, when a
family member announces they’re expecting a baby, remember that the advent
of a child is a blessing, even if that child is not yours. Even if it is
your turn to be making the announcement. Even though it’s not fair.
You cannot rewind and re-do moments like that, as if you were rewinding
and re-recording a videotape. Hold yourself together until you’ve
retreated to a safe place to vent your disappointment….
Where’s the justice?
Job, the most afflicted person in the Old Testament, was never faced
with the struggle of infertility, but he was leveled with a lousy series
of personal losses—the deaths of his children, the natural destruction of
all his property and livestock, and the loss of his own health.
In Job 34, he said, “I am innocent but God denies me justice. …Far be it
from God to do evil, from the Almighty to do wrong. It is unthinkable that
God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice. Who appointed
him over the earth? Who put him in charge of the whole world? If it were
his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all mankind would
perish together and man would return to the dust. …(God) shows no
partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor, for they
are all the work of his hands” (vv. 5, 10b, 12-15, 19).
We always think of Job as the humble, spiritually immovable man who
endured more heartache that any known human. In parts of the above
passage, I wonder if Job was being cynical, in other parts angry and
frustrated. Too often we read Job’s words and give him a saintly voice
that utters only calm words of endurance and humility. We have to remember
that the guy was just as human as we are, and the losses he incurred broke
his heart. Job must have wondered at least once or twice why God wasn’t
cutting him a little slack, even if he didn’t state it in so many words.
Justice—the big
picture
To help you settle the horrible pain in your heart that is embodied by
this chapter’s title, we really do need to get to the bottom of this need
for justice. And to do that, we need to think about justice outside of its
implications to infertility. We need to think bigger than that.
Justice is something
doled out by a judge. And in the eternal perspective, God is the ultimate
Judge. Let’s think on that eternal plane for a moment. Pull yourself up
out of the miry muck that is ripping apart your heart as you struggle with
the injustice of infertility. Think about a judgment day that is yet to
come….
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