Being so open and public about our infertility issues my husband and I get asked a lot of questions about our struggle. Questions about how we keep hope alive, how we keep from remaining in a pit of sadness, or how we remain trusting in God. Each question does not have a simple clean cut answer, simply because infertility is not a simple and clean cut issue. There are so many different types of infertility or even cause for the health issue as well.
One of the biggest things I personally get asked quite often is, "Why did you put yourself through a grieving process? Why not just get over it and move on?" It's a harsh and completely valid question to ask. For some people, just accepting it and pushing away those sad emotions is easy and their way of moving on. It's something I tried doing in the beginning, I would just suppress any bad emotion that started to bubble up, I would bottle it away and place it on a mental shelf far away so that I didn't have to deal with it. This has always been my go to coping mechanism, and after many years on this planet a person to me told me very nicely and very sternly, "You are doing more harm than good to yourself by bottling up these emotions and not dealing with them," Of course I disregarded that piece of advise and thought, no way I'm doing harm to myself. I'm just trying to live life without being sad all the time, without letting my emotions get the best of me. I was utterly and completely wrong.
After a few months I started to see this method beginning to backfire. I could feel myself getting angry at anything and everything. It didn't matter if it was our dogs, random people, or my husband, if they did anything that I remotely disliked I somehow managed to just let them have it. I would yell at them or mentally punish them for not doing things what I deemed as the correct way. I also found myself shutting off any emotion other than anger. I was no longer happy, I didn't want to be around people and did not feel the need to show any positive emotions.
When I realized that nothing had the ability to make me happy anymore, I saw that something had to change. I realized that in order to process all that was going on I needed to truly accept the fact that my body had a less than 1% chance of bearing kids. That I needed to finally put this behind us and move on to the next steps. I also realized that if I did not do all of this and move on I would never truly love whatever child we adopted. That I would just end up being angry at the child for no reason, or only see them as a replacement for the child we couldn't have on our own.
That's when some wise words popped into my head from a person I heard speak at Church when I was in high school about death and grieving. They said that when you go through a truly great loss of any kind, it takes a minimum of one year to completely grieve the loss. That as a sort of cleansing effect you need to go through those family holidays, birthdays, and smaller moments in general without that person (or thing). That through time, your heart will be healed or mended. But if you don't let yourself go through the process, you can end up more bitter and angry over time.
After thinking about it for a few weeks I saw that I needed to let myself grieve this major loss. Even though we never had a child or miscarriage, I still needed to grieve the fact that unless by some Biblical miracle I got pregnant, that we will never have kids of our own. Ever. Once I finally let those words sink in I felt a wave of emotions come over me. Everything that I had worked so hard to suppress for months broke though the emotional wall I had built so high, and it felt good. It felt good to finally let myself be sad, to feel emotions other than anger, guilt or rage. I finally started to feel free.
Ever since then I have felt so much better, emotionally and physically I have begun to learn how to manage the sadness in a healthy way, and to learn how to be happy again.So far the hardest part has been going through holidays and being reminded that we still do not have a child of our own to share the holidays with. Seeing other families with kids of their own to share those special moments with is still incredibly hard and frustrating to see, but it's not as difficult as it was before. And that, is a huge step forward.
It hasn't been a full year yet since I decided to do this, but it's getting pretty close. I can honestly say that I know if I hadn't started this process, I would probably be in anger management classes right now and my relationship with my husband would be in shambles. I am grateful that God prompted me to start the steps of grieving, because now I am finally able to move onto the other great things He has planned for us. I am finally at the point that I know when we adopt in the near future, I will be able to give that child my full and complete love. Love without resentment or sadness.
One of the biggest things I personally get asked quite often is, "Why did you put yourself through a grieving process? Why not just get over it and move on?" It's a harsh and completely valid question to ask. For some people, just accepting it and pushing away those sad emotions is easy and their way of moving on. It's something I tried doing in the beginning, I would just suppress any bad emotion that started to bubble up, I would bottle it away and place it on a mental shelf far away so that I didn't have to deal with it. This has always been my go to coping mechanism, and after many years on this planet a person to me told me very nicely and very sternly, "You are doing more harm than good to yourself by bottling up these emotions and not dealing with them," Of course I disregarded that piece of advise and thought, no way I'm doing harm to myself. I'm just trying to live life without being sad all the time, without letting my emotions get the best of me. I was utterly and completely wrong.
After a few months I started to see this method beginning to backfire. I could feel myself getting angry at anything and everything. It didn't matter if it was our dogs, random people, or my husband, if they did anything that I remotely disliked I somehow managed to just let them have it. I would yell at them or mentally punish them for not doing things what I deemed as the correct way. I also found myself shutting off any emotion other than anger. I was no longer happy, I didn't want to be around people and did not feel the need to show any positive emotions.
When I realized that nothing had the ability to make me happy anymore, I saw that something had to change. I realized that in order to process all that was going on I needed to truly accept the fact that my body had a less than 1% chance of bearing kids. That I needed to finally put this behind us and move on to the next steps. I also realized that if I did not do all of this and move on I would never truly love whatever child we adopted. That I would just end up being angry at the child for no reason, or only see them as a replacement for the child we couldn't have on our own.
That's when some wise words popped into my head from a person I heard speak at Church when I was in high school about death and grieving. They said that when you go through a truly great loss of any kind, it takes a minimum of one year to completely grieve the loss. That as a sort of cleansing effect you need to go through those family holidays, birthdays, and smaller moments in general without that person (or thing). That through time, your heart will be healed or mended. But if you don't let yourself go through the process, you can end up more bitter and angry over time.
After thinking about it for a few weeks I saw that I needed to let myself grieve this major loss. Even though we never had a child or miscarriage, I still needed to grieve the fact that unless by some Biblical miracle I got pregnant, that we will never have kids of our own. Ever. Once I finally let those words sink in I felt a wave of emotions come over me. Everything that I had worked so hard to suppress for months broke though the emotional wall I had built so high, and it felt good. It felt good to finally let myself be sad, to feel emotions other than anger, guilt or rage. I finally started to feel free.
Ever since then I have felt so much better, emotionally and physically I have begun to learn how to manage the sadness in a healthy way, and to learn how to be happy again.So far the hardest part has been going through holidays and being reminded that we still do not have a child of our own to share the holidays with. Seeing other families with kids of their own to share those special moments with is still incredibly hard and frustrating to see, but it's not as difficult as it was before. And that, is a huge step forward.
It hasn't been a full year yet since I decided to do this, but it's getting pretty close. I can honestly say that I know if I hadn't started this process, I would probably be in anger management classes right now and my relationship with my husband would be in shambles. I am grateful that God prompted me to start the steps of grieving, because now I am finally able to move onto the other great things He has planned for us. I am finally at the point that I know when we adopt in the near future, I will be able to give that child my full and complete love. Love without resentment or sadness.
"GOD bandages the wounds he makes; his hand hurts you, and his hand heals."
Job 5:18 (GNB)
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