Tuesday, December 12, 2006

A Walking Reminder

I promise it isn't me. I can only get on blogger about twice a week these days. Maybe it is the new computer? Someone doesn't like my cookies.

Any-hoo---

A good friend of mine miscarried last weekend. I hate that. It makes me angry. I hate that there is usually nothing that can be done when it happens. But,

She and her husband are strong. I have heard enough of the story to know that they are doing as okay as they can spiritually, emotionally, physically and they will get past this. So for a moment I'm going to go into the all-about-me mode.

The poor girl had to spend four out of the last eight days with me. Four in a row. Me, in all my shining, glowing, blooming, undeniable in-the-family-way glory.

I've been on that side of it. I've miscarried and listenend to some pregnant woman complain about how tired, hungry, or swollen she is. And I'd wonder why she couldn't tone it down. (In my case it was usually because she had no idea.)

I have such a hard time on my side of things. By my 31 years I've suffered three years of infertility. More than one miscarriage. A lot of hopelessness. A lot of hope. I've had the opportunity to adopt and I love it. I want to adopt again. I've been miraculously healed. And now I can get pregnant at the drop of the hat (or whenever God tells me to which is, of course, the preferable method). So I understand both sides of the equation.

I know how annoying it is to see pregnant women when you want to be and can't. I understand how annoying it is to hear pregnant women gripe about the side effects. I understand how annoying it can be to hear moms complain about their bad days.

And I totally get how hard it is to guard your every word around people that are having trouble. Or to not feel free to express the diffuculties of parenting. Or to not feel that adoption is sometimes a stinking lot easier (even though in the throes of it, it didn't feel that way).

So anyway, I'm suffering a guilt complex because I know I'm a walking reminder of what a lot of people want this season and can't have. So I find myself trying to hide behind a coat or big clothes and pretend that I am not blessed indeed. Which I think is again closing myself off.

Sigh.

2 comments:

kpjara said...

What an interesting perspective...you've walked on all sides...adoption, infertility, and childbirth!

Speaking as someone who is still 'stuck between infertility and adoption'...what I've finally found myself saying is: "God's ways are not my ways."

I may not understand why so many women are and can get pregnant so easily and I can't...but that doesn't mean God loves me less...some days it works...others 'not so much'. Go with your heart. You strike me as such a caring, kind person!

Chaos-Jamie said...

Infertility sucks.

It does.

And it was probably the greatest gift God could have given me (aside from my husband and children)...considering that I am on this side of it. I am so thankful for the perspective it has given me. Because there are sides of being fertile that I would never have appreciated without all those years of heartache.

I'm not saying that it will be everyone's greatest gift, just that it has been mine. Even when that perspective makes me crazy trying to always say the right thing.