Blast From The Past

I've been following a new blog through a friends... The people that you meet, and yet don't meet...

Anyways, I read about her struggle with infertility, her desires, her struggles, searching for value. For me it is like rewinding the clock 5-7 years. It has brought back so many memories and feelings I've buried for a long time. At that point most people didn't know our heartache. We chose to keep our infertility issues to ourselves (I did share with one other friend going through the same thing).

This was the time of year I hated. I hated Mother's Day with a passion. Every year all the moms stand up at church and the congregation applaudes - my heart would break. They would generously give a mother's day gift to all of the women -but it felt like a sham and I would find a way to refuse. People would jokingly ask when we were going to join the parent group instead of being DINKs (double income no kids).

Family would tease about wanting grandkids, we'd been married long enough (by the way how long is that?) We had made the decision to start trying to have children 4 days before my dad died. He would never know...

Seemed like everyone else was getting pregnant. A 17 year old cousin, friends, family all over the place. Everywhere you went you saw babies, pregnant women, threw a shower.

What we would find out is. PCOS - poly-cystic ovarian syndrome which is closely related to diabetes. My underactive insulin caused my blood sugar to mess with hormones making it impossible to get pregnant. We started treatment but weren't sure how far we wanted to go ethicly, morally, and spiritually. I looked at adoption and Andy wasn't so sure about that. My heart couldn't handle spending thousands on treatment and come out without a child...

This was the point we shared with the people that we loved and loved us about what was going on. Realizing that we were not alone made all the difference in the world. People loved us, prayed for us, stopped rude comments that people would make.

We worked with Junior High kids and that became my outlet. I couldn't have kids, but I could make a difference in kids lives - maybe ones who's parents really didn't care. I threw myself into work, volunteering, and the lives of friends and their kids.

God ended up blessing us with a beautiful boy about 4 years ago. In the hospital I looked at his face and saw a miracle. God has since then sent us a second boy. The struggle to have children actually softened the blow of difficult pregnancies and postpartum depression. It was part of the package of my blessing.

I don't write all of this to bring attention to me, but to make others aware of the silent pain so many women (and men) go through this time of year. Be careful with your words, pray for one another, and most importantly give where you can to who you can. Never know what a difference your words and actions make.

p.s. I would still really like to adopt. I've mostly got the husband convinced. We are settling into life before we pursue it. It can be really costly and there are lots of considerations. But that's a whole other blog.