Because I can’t reply in real life…

April 7, 2019April 9, 2019 isabelrnLeave a comment

The ongoing saga with my sister-in-law continues.

I love her, I really do. She’s been a blessing to me, a friend and a sister from the beginning. She’s rejoiced in our highs and grieved in our lows. She’s fun and sweet and caring.

But as we’ve navigated this fertility and pregnancy loss journey she’s had her share of moments that make me want to just tell her what I think. It’s just not worth losing the relationship or burning bridges with my husband’s family so common sense tells me to keep my mouth shut and my fingers still.

[As a brief refresher…we started our TTC journey somewhat similarly and within a few months of each other. Initial unexpected (but still wanted!) pregnancies, early loss (mine chemical, hers a little later but baby stopped developing around 5 weeks)…and then within 8 months she was pregnant again and is due with her “rainbow baby” at the end of May. We tried for 15 months, did an IUI cycle, and after seeing a heartbeat, our baby died just past 7 weeks.]

I realized last week or so that the reason her pregnancy has bothered me so much (and especially now) is just that it is a stark reminder of how unfair this is. I don’t understand why they get their rainbow, their reminder of God’s faithfulness and grace…and we tried for months longer than they had to and then lost another baby. It just hurts. And she tries to act like she understands but as I explored in a previous post…you can’t be sympathetic if you haven’t experienced the same thing. So her attempts at encouragement and comfort often just rub me the wrong way.

Today she sent me a long text telling me about how she was hanging up clothes in her daughter’s nursery, bawling while listening to a song about God’s faithfulness and remembering how hopeless she felt in the 8 months that they tried and how grateful she is to be doing something so simple as organizing baby things…and how she is completely confident that this will happen for us too.

I have multiple responses I want to send. None of which I will, so this blog post gets to be my venting space.

“Oh, you know? Just like you KNEW that everything was 100% fine with this pregnancy?”
“Yes, the hopelessness of trying for 8 months after a miscarriage and then having a successful rainbow pregnancy is the same as trying for 15 months and losing what should have been our rainbow baby. I’m so grateful you know exactly how I feel.”
“I’m glad God is faithful to you; but it’s really hard right now to see his faithfulness to us at this moment after infertility and recurrent losses. And thanks for reminding me of that *and* all the happy baby related things you get to do while I’m still actively grieving the loss of mine and the further postponement of getting to do all those things myself.”
“Oh please, tell me more about how blessed you are to be bawling in your baby’s nursery. I’m sure that will make me forget that I’m once again not pregnant.”

Yeah, I know. I’m sarcastic and bitter.

Loss and infertility will do that to you sometimes.

Looking forward to a day when these well-meaning comments don’t make me want to crawl into a hole and die.

how to · Infertility · journal entry · sermon takeaways

When your post has a mind of its own…

December 16, 2018December 17, 2018 isabelrnLeave a comment

I don’t know if this counts as my ‘creative’ activity of the day since I’m just planning to vent a little bit…but I’m technically writing so I’ll probably count it.

I’m actually in pretty good spirits today. The sermon this morning was very encouraging and challenging; especially the bit about “rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.” More on that another day perhaps…

Or not. Suddenly I don’t think I should use today’s post to vent. I can save that for another time.

We’re going through Romans in church; and we finally reached Romans 12. That’s been a journey in itself; and we’ve been in Romans 12:9-16 for several weeks now. Today was focused on verses 14-16.

Paul calls us here to humility…humility being a state in which we consider others above ourselves. If we are considering others above ourselves, the natural result is that we sympathize with others. We take our eyes off our own situations and fully enter into the joys and the sorrows of others.

Rejoice with those who rejoice: as an early church father pointed out, perhaps Paul put this one first because it is actually harder than it sounds. Especially for a girl on a journey of infertility. I don’t want to rejoice with yet another acquaintance or friend or family member who is pregnant. But if I’m thinking of others above myself, then their joy should be mine as well.

Mourn with those who mourn: easier to understand. Not always easy to do; especially for the fixers who don’t know what to say or do to ease pain. But as I’ve already learned and experienced, in times of grief it is almost always more effective to just sit with, cry with, be with. Pastor read a reflection from someone who’d experienced loss, and the takeaway was the realization that people who come bearing platitudes and messages of hope and redemption are often the ones that we wish would leave. It’s the ones who “sit quietly, listen carefully, and pray simply” that bring the most peace and comfort.

And interestingly enough, that last bit leads into what I initially wanted to write about. I’ll close with this as a reflection instead of creating an unnecessarily long tirade. Perhaps the ‘sit quietly, listen carefully, and pray simply” is why I’m feeling so tired of all the people who want to tell me about every so-and-so they know who “tried for _____ and then got pregnant”, and especially when that includes a “maybe you should try ______.” I’m not in a place right now to hear that. It doesn’t help. I just want the people I share this struggle with to show up, listen to me vent, and then pray simply with me for patience in God’s timing (and for his timing to be soon!).

how to · journal entry · trying to conceive · ttc

On pregnancy announcements

October 18, 2018 isabelrnLeave a comment

Last month my sister-in-law found out she was pregnant. This week my sister told me she’s pregnant. As with any pregnancy announcement while you’re still trying, each one was a mix of emotions. Joy for them, excitement for the new lives (and future nieces or nephews), but also jealousy and that aching sadness that it still isn’t you. However, I noticed a few differences that has made one so much harder to process.

My sister-in-law and I were on the TTC journey together. They got married two months before we did, they conceived their first month of not preventing (which was a few months after our miscarriage), then they had an early miscarriage and had been trying unsuccessfully ever since. She and I were often in our FW and TWW together, and we shared every OPK and BBT shift and negative HPT.

She texted me within moments of taking that first test (with a barely noticeable line), which is understandable, given our history…but since that moment it is has been all her pregnancy and how she’s feeling. There was not (and still has not been) a single acknowledgement that this might be a little hard for me; especially since I’ve been trying longer. I don’t want to steal the joy out of it for her, and having walked through a miscarriage and month after month of failure as well I am happy that she finally has this. But I lost my TTC buddy and I now get to watch every moment of her pregnancy while still struggling to conceive.

My sister, on the other hand, called me up and spent a good 15-20 minutes letting me talk about how I was doing (she’s known about this struggle for some time) and letting me share my frustrations and emotions. She then chatted for a bit, and as the conversation was coming to a close she broke the news. She immediately followed it with, “I have a strong support network and plenty of people who can provide me what I need emotionally, I don’t need to you to fake that you are only happy for me, I know you are happy and I also know that you don’t want to be unhappy but I’m sure that you are hurting; this has got to be hard for you.” She absolutely and generously gave me the space and freedom to be that person who has to be told gently, because she understood and valued the complexity of emotions I was feeling.

I absolutely hate that I can’t fully rejoice with these dear people in something so beautiful and wonderful. I hate my selfishness that keeps me focused on what I don’t have. It’s something I’m trying to process.

But right now, that’s there. And being given the grace to have those emotions without judgment-and thereby having those emotions (and the TTC struggle) acknowledged-is making the transition to only being happy for them a lot easier.

—–

TTC: trying to conceive
FW: fertile window
TWW: two week wait
OPK: ovulation predictor kit
BBT: basal body temperature
HPT: home pregnancy test