Mixed Emotions

Infertility is a strange beast that steals the simple joys of pregnancy from a couple.  It gives you this weird mix of emotions once you finally do get pregnant.  On the one hand you are overwhelmed, overjoyed, and even relieved when you see those two lines for the first time.  The treatments have worked and the endless doctors visits and blood draws and sonos and long drives to Shreveport will soon end.  Then you are scared and worried.  While most couples see those two lines and enter into a state of bliss, when I saw those two lines, after my initial sigh of relief and tears of happiness, I entered into a state of indifference.  My confirmation appointment in Shreveport was not what I had envisioned two years ago that my first doctors appointment as a pregnant woman would have been like.  All the nurses were excited and since we did two treatments in one round, they were "fighting" over who actually got me pregnant.  I began to feel bad because I wasn't excited like they were.  I was relieved to know that I was pregnant, meaning yes it was possible, but I also had a huge fear things would go wrong and so I let myself be indifferent to the pregnancy.

After confirmation that the baby had implanted in my uterus and the pregnancy was not ectopic, I felt a little relief, but then came the questioning, Why Me?  I know so many people who are struggling with infertility and have been much longer than Stephen and I.  While I am excited, I don't feel like I can fully indulge in that excitement because I know how badly those who are still in treatment of limbo want a child and how much it hurts to see others become pregnant.  This is why you won't be seeing belly pictures or sono pics on my facebook.  Other than my initial tag of my last post, if someone wants to know about my pregnancy they are going to have to seek out my blog.  I don't want to be that person who's pictures overwhelm the facebook news feed with pregnancy everything.  Please don't hear me say that you shouldn't do that if you are pregnant.  Please do.  You have every right.  It is the most exciting thing in your life at the moment!  But uunfortunately for me, because I have walked this road I know how hurtful it can be to those experiencing infertility.   It's weird with infertility, you are part of a closed community in which no one can understand how you feel except those going through it, but as soon as you beat the it you become and outsider again.  You don't move back into the land of fertiles because you now have an acute awareness of the pain infertiles are living with, but rather you are in a new group, the infertiles who now appear to be fertile. 

One of the biggest things I struggled with during this process is the idea that children are a blessing from the Lord.  So on the flip side of that coin I began to feel that the lack of children was a curse.  I know this is not true, but on my darkest days I often believed it.  So it makes me cringe just a little when people in response to hearing you are pregnant say, "What a blessing!"  Please don't get me wrong, it is a blessing; but I often wonder if society puts too much emphasis on this blessing and therefore ignoring all the other blessings we have as well.  I had to come to realize that just because I was not pregnant didn't mean that I was being curse and it also didn't mean I wasn't blessed.  God has blessed me with many things:  a wonderful husband, an amazing extended family, a job, health, a home, and much more!

I know this post is just a mix of rambling and not very well written.  I guess what I want people to understand most, is that Stephen and I are beyond excited that we are pregnant; however, our outward emotions might not be what you expect to see.  We are cautiously excited and also want to be respectful of those struggling with infertility who have not yet beaten it.  Most fertiles would be surprised to know how many are silently struggling with infertility.  This pregnancy is a blessing because God has answered our prayers, but even if he had not answered them, we are aware that we are still blessed beyond measure!  And at the end of the day the truth is that my identity is not found in being a daughter, a sister, a wife, or even a mother; rather it is found in Christ and above all that is what's most important!