In Between

Followers be advised: This blog entry is going to be a bit deeper (and longer) than my usual entries. No photos of Kendry, no photos of our yard and foliage, no photos of my neurotic cleaning/organizing projects (like you would miss those anyway). Its just me and my thoughts. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Having experienced some interesting emotions over the last few weeks, I began conferring once more with my online friends in the reproductively challenged community, whom, I'm very ashamed to say, I have essentially avoided since becoming pregnant in late 2008. Ironically, the very reason I am currently reaching out to these fellow IF (code for "infertility") friends is the very same reason I began avoiding them a year and a half ago: I have become an "in-betweener". Before you start thinking I am so hip that I have formed my very own slang term to describe a generation - what the heck is a "tween" anyway? - allow me to clarify for you. I am in between in that I know the hardships of infertility, which means I have a kinship with members of the IF sisterhood; but I also know the joy of finally becoming a parent, which grants me admission to a club on the other end of the spectrum: parenthood.

To my non-IF friends, I have joined their ranks as a parent. We brag about our wonderful (and in my case brilliant) children and dissect the many facets of parenthood, and I realize some of them have probably forgotten (at least for the moment) that not too long ago I was an outsider with barely a slim hope of ever joining their exclusive club. Some of them really do forget, casually asking "So when do you think you'll have Baby #2?" And I smile politely. If only it were that easy. But the truth is in that atmosphere even I don't feel like I am an IF survivor. I feel just like the other parents around me. I feel normal. I feel like I could go home and tell Justin "Let's try to get pregnant again", and mere months later we would be announcing our pregnancy to these same friends.

To my IF friends, I am an ally, but I can also cause them pain. We are all going through the battle together; but along the way I managed to find a victory in fertility treatment. Others have as well. We all celebrate these victories together; but when the victory doesn't come to you, it hurts to be around those who have found it. You are happy for them, but you hurt just the same.

Does parenthood remove us from the IF sisterhood? Not quite. We are still infertile, and as long as we desire to have more children, we will continue to experience the pain and emotions of IF - perhaps now with a little guilt mixed in. God has blessed us with the very thing we desired, a child. So why aren't we content? Simply put, our hearts desire more than what biology has given us to work with.

I recently visited a blog called Stirrup Queens, where I learned about Infertility's Common Thread, a concept I now have referenced on the right side of our blog. The blogger's description of how this concept got started really hit home to me:

"...there should be a secret handshake for those who have experienced or are currently experiencing infertility. She was finally pregnant after multiple miscarriages and she wanted infertile women to know when looking at her pregnant belly that she was one of them still - in heart and mind..."

This is the sentiment I want to communicate to my IF friends. I may have been blessed with my miracle baby, but I am still one of you. I have been there. I am still there.

Right now I have at least 12 or 13 friends who are currently pregnant. I am so very happy for every one of them - one in particular as she is making me an auntie again! Some are having their first baby, others their third or fourth. And at this very moment I feel like an outsider among them again. Not because I am not currently pregnant, but because I don't know if/when I will be pregnant again.

One fellow blogger, now into her 2nd trimester after IVF, captured it so well:

"Hope becomes such an integral part of the IF journey, we try to protect ourselves against the worst possible scenarios while still balancing the hope that what we so desire could really happen."

God has blessed us above and beyond by giving us the miracle that is our beautiful son, and I thank Him every day for Kendry. But since my childhood I have known I wanted to have many children; I never saw myself with only one child. One day when I was feeling particularly down I simply cried out to God and asked Him why I had those dreams of so many children when He knew I was going to face IF. I heard a small voice reply "Child, who do you think placed that very dream in your heart?" And then I understood God gave me those dreams and desires for a purpose. So I do have hope. I firmly believe God will bless us with more children. When? I do not know. As Joyce Meyer says: God is never late, but He is rarely early either. He knows the exact moment we will be ready for what He has in store.

So is the emotion and confusion I am currently experiencing inappropriate? Is it wrong for me to claim that I have hope, but still express my frustration? God gave us emotions for a reason, but we have to be careful that our emotions do not control us. I would love to be pregnant again tomorrow, but until that opportunity comes I have to choose to still live every day to the fullest, appreciating every single moment. And I have to refuse to be a slave to the emotions of the IF rollercoaster, knowing that even during the "in between" God is working His bigger plan. May He be glorified through it all!