Attempting to live and breathe for an audience of one
I turned 40 this year. I’m officially middle-aged and old. I’ve decided at 40 I am not taking any prisoners and have decided that I won’t allow people to fuck with me.
What the hell does that mean?
Continue reading “Over the hill and through the woods”Although I have a son, the pain of infertility still resonates with me. I still want to assist others who struggle with having children. I want to encourage others going through fertility treatments. I don’t want to look down upon the different options of fertility treatments. Each couple has their own path to parenthood. My husband and I chose the path that we were most comfortable with.
Stigma surrounds infertility. If you read through the Bible, it’s something women have struggled with since ancient times. Children are often seen as a blessing. What appears to be the “withholding” of children seems to be a curse. I struggled long and hard with feeling like I was cursed. That God was holding out on me. Each month of “no” that went by stung deeply. I simply wanted to be a mother. And that’s the desire of so many women. Some couples who get pregnant easily can be quick to deny alternate avenues of pregnancy for others.
The struggle with infertility is hard. I experienced it for nearly 5 years. Here are some of the things that I faced:
The decision to pursue IVF was somewhat difficult. From a Christian perspective, my husband and I at first weren’t sure if we were “playing God” by taking matters into our own hands this way. But we came to the conclusion that God provided a miraculous way for infertile couples to conceive. We aren’t Christian scientists. We believe that God provided Tylenol and technology to help people recover from illness. Why can’t God be involved in the process of creating a child scientifically?
When I spoke to Christian friends and family about our decision to pursue IVF, everyone was supportive. My husband and I agreed beforehand that any viable embryos would not go to waste. Five eggs were extracted from me . While all five eggs fertilized successfully, only two were viable. We chose to freeze (cryopreserve) one and transfer the other. “The other” is now our 11-week-old son. We have a picture of him before he was transferred into my uterus.
I praise God for the existence of modern medicine, technology, and science that gave my husband and I the ability to conceive when we would otherwise likely be childless. Some Christians, however, have issues with infertility treatments, such as egg freezing, donor eggs, donor sperm, and surrogacy. I think each couple has to come to a decision that they’re comfortable with. My husband and I were not comfortable with donor options and surrogacy. There was no need for egg freezing in our case. But for those who struggle with infertility, egg freezing, donor options, and surrogacy might be legitimate fertility routes although there may be legal complications with surrogacy.
A Christianity Today article, The Overlooked Ethics of Reproduction, questions the moral ramifications of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). I couldn’t help but feel a little indignant in reading the article. It was as if the author was passing judgment on Christians who chose to pursue various fertility options, namely surrogacy.
The fact that so many people fail to consider the moral implications of IVF suggests that in the age of fertility treatments, surrogates, and modern family-building via parenting partnerships, a woman’s womb has come to be seen as a somewhat arbitrary location.
As Christians, I think we need to consider the moral implications of ART but not be quick to dismiss them as evil or ungodly. Every couple (or perhaps woman) has a certain comfort level with ART. And if a Christian couple decides to do something that doesn’t seem to line up with biblical principles, such as abortion or discarding viable embryos, I think that is something they will have to eventually explain to God. That couple’s final authority is God, not man.
The following post recounts how my son was born. It gets detailed at times in terms of body language but that’s just par for the course in describing these kinds of stories. Buckle in; it’s a long read. Continue reading “My Son’s Birth Story”
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I struggle with childlessness. I have not willingly chosen to be child-free as some couples have. It’s just a matter of not having been blessed with children at this time. As my husband and I determine our next course of action, I recognize that there are benefits to not having children. There are things that I would be willing to give up if we are blessed with kids, but at this time, I might as well enjoy myself!
1. Waking up without having to tend to someone else’s needs.
If I plan to balance my checkbook for an hour, I don’t need to worry about anyone crying as he or she wakes up from sleep. I can go about my business as planned.
2. Eating out when I want to.
Although eating out regularly gets expensive, I’m not a fan of cooking. With a child, eating out will become a luxury because we wouldn’t be able to afford the extra expense and getting an active toddler to sit at a meal for a while would be a challenge.
3. No extra anxieties.
I’m already an anxious person. Can you imagine the anxiety I’d develop as I worry about a toddler trying to get into all the cabinets or climbing the dishwasher onto the counter? I’m not constantly freaking out about being put in jail because I failed to get the most secure lock on the cleaning products cabinet.
4. Traveling isn’t a hassle.
Travel and packing is already stressful for just me. Having to pack for myself and for another one might drive me insane. And if we’re stuck in traffic for 4 hours, we don’t need to pull over for anything except maybe refilling the tank. Oh, and I’m not that mom in the plane who everyone wishes would shut her kid up.
5. Earning money is rewarding.
Being a mom is a thankless job. So are a lot of other regular jobs but that paycheck is not thankless; it’s rewarding. Being a mom sometimes doesn’t feel so rewarding when you do the same things day in, day out without a thank you or any kind of paycheck. Right now, I feel like I’m contributing to my family in a way that yields instant rewards.
6. Relatively clean and intact items around the home.
We don’t have animals either so nothing has been pooped on, drooled on, or torn apart. The worst my books and furniture have to endure are dust and wear and tear. (Okay, maybe I scribble on a few things…)
7. Quiet.
No babies crying, no children pestering me with questions like “why” for everything, no teens constantly asking me for cash. If my husband is silent and I am not talking, it is quiet. I should relish this for as long as I can.
Again, these are things I am reminding myself to enjoy as I pursue a dream of having children. Is there anything else you can add that I’ve missed?
Two years ago, I began a journey to have a kid. I wrote about the implications of trying to conceive (TTC) and mental illness on my other blog, depression introspection, more than a year ago.
Now thousands of dollars and a few medical treatments later, I am still childless. Sure, I haven’t been on the infertility journey for as long as many other couples but to hear doctors already talking IVF (in vitro fertilization) doesn’t give me much hope.
I’ve been using my conception journey as a form of gauging how much God loves me. Yes, I know, it’s inaccurate. Yes, I know, being childless is not God’s way of punishing me and my husband. I know these things.
And then I see people conceive on the first try. “Fertile Myrtle.” I watch other women cry over brief pregnancies and think, “You’re still more of a mother than I’ve ever been.”
It’s interesting how there are different ranges of infertility. In the course of two years, most couples who have tried for that long have experienced at least one miscarriage. So far, we have no hope that we can ever conceive a child. And it makes me angry.
I’m angry because I thought God called us to be parents. I’m angry because I hated kids, didn’t want them, and now I’m sitting here grieving over what I don’t have and money I hoped would get me to where I wanted to be.
I’m sad because I watch parents take their children for granted and not realize what a blessing it is to have what so many others cannot.
And I’m angry with God. Because this is all under His control. At the end of the day, I play roulette with science and hope in God. And God consistently tells me “no.”
So what am I supposed to do? Where do I turn now? Where do I go?
I know that being pregnant won’t make things A-OK with God. I have a lot of issues to work through. My husband does too. But I just want to know that I’m not some woman filled with a delusion of being a mom. I want to know that God is somewhere saying, “Yeah, keep working at it, but not yet.” I want to know that He still cares about me and my husband.
And I was really hoping to give a big middle finger to the doctor who made us feel like we were wasting our money during the last cycle. I guess he knows what he’s talking about and we’re the fools who threw money into a long-shot gamble.
I’m just beside myself with grief and pain today.
After hearing a good friend’s testimony on Saturday, I was reminded of an important truth. Maybe it wasn’t so much a reminder as it was a revelation: “my” children won’t belong to me. They will be “on loan” from God. As a result, only He only will choose when to lend me His creation. Just like library materials aren’t completely mine or Netflix movies aren’t mine but I’m fully responsible for them when they’re in my possession, so it is with the children bestowed upon me. I must remember that God is not withholding anything that is “rightfully mine.” (Technically, nothing is.) I should look at motherhood as a privilege God will allow me to partake in rather than something I inherently deserve simply because of my gender.
I hope I can remember this as I struggle with childlessness each month.
I haven’t blogged about this topic often, and in retrospect, I’m not sure why. (It’s my blog; I can say whatever the hell I want.)
Millions of women go through the same thing I go through each month and they seem to be just fine in public. Sometimes I cannot go out in public because I’m so affected. Continue reading “Christian and Childless, Not By Choice”
“To lead a better life, I need my love to be here.”
I have a bunch of things I feel like writing about but they’re not topically related so here’s my mishmashed post.
Music.
I am enjoying listening to Danger Mouse’s new group, The Broken Bells. Hat tip to Derek Webb on that one.
Theology.
Up on The Resurgence blog this week:
Question 74 – Should infants, too, be baptized?
Answer – Yes. Infants as well as adults belong to God’s covenant and congregation. (Gen. 17:7; Matt. 19:14) Through Christ’s blood the redemption from sin and the Holy Spirit, who works faith, are promised to them no less than to adults. (Ps. 22:11; Is. 44:1-3; Acts 2:38, 39; 16:31) Therefore, by baptism, as sign of the covenant, they must be grafted into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. (Acts 10:47; I Cor. 7:14) This was done in the old covenant by circumcision (Gen. 17:9-14), in place of which baptism was instituted in the new covenant. (Col. 2: 11-13)
I seriously struggle with the idea of infant baptism also known as paedobaptism. I am a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and appreciate that I do not need to agree with the concept of paedobaptism to be a member of the covenant community. I’m not even fully convinced that I hold to covenant theology but that’s too broad of a matter to tackle within the subject of paedobaptism.
The best case I’ve seen for infant baptism has been presented by Greg Bahnsen here. But again, it’s not that I’m not open to viewing infant baptism as scriptural or that I am adamantly opposed to it per se but I find that there is a clearer Biblical case for believer’s (or as some have called it, “professor’s”) baptism.
Perhaps, however, if I fully subscribed to covenant theology and saw baptism as a replacement for circumcision, then infant baptism would make logical sense. As a Christian who previously subscribed to dispensational theology, the jump to covenant theology is not easy. (Here’s a chart for a comparison between the two. However, I did stumble upon this, and from a quick glance, it would seem like I agree more with New Covenant Theology.)
Scripture.
Relevant Magazine had an article on the most misused verse in the Bible:
Jeremiah 29:11 that says, “‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”
I thought the article had great insight, especially given that as humans, we have a tendency to look at God as a vending machine: pop our prayer request in the coin slot and wait for our requested result. The author expounds on the context surrounding this oft-quoted verse which shows this verse is not telling readers that God will give us whatever we desire.
Stay-at-home dads.
Matthew Paul Turner at JesusNeedsNewPR tweeted a link to Nicole Wick’s post about Mark Driscoll who bashed stay-at-home dads.
The video is a little old but I was surprised to hear this view from Driscoll given the fact that I usually agree with him. The fact that he was only willing to make “rare exceptions” for men to stay at home to take care of the family was rather appalling to me. In this economic climate and culture, it’s possible for wives to have a better-paying and steadier job than their husbands. In that case, the right way for a husband and father to provide for his family is to let his wife bring in the necessary income for them so that he can be at home rearing the children. (We are assuming in this scenario that the parents have decided they will live off of one income so that one of the parents can be home to raise the children.) An ideal situation would be for a mom to be at home with her children (should she choose to do so) but that is not always the case and I don’t believe that it must always be the case. Driscoll is way off the mark here.
Miscellaneous.
I think there’s more a-brewin’ in my head but the words are all jumbled and I can’t get them out coherently. Some other things going on:
I’ll begin editing on my novel soon so that will be quite a challenge. (See hard copy mess in right photo.)Perhaps you didn’t care to know all that but it made me feel better to type it out.
What does it look like for God to be working in my life? What do I expect?
In August 2008, God flicked some kind of switch inside of me that made me desire to have children. I was absolutely distraught upon the realization of this. I’d never desired children of my own before then. In fact, my current husband and I nearly broke up over the issue when we were dating because I was so adamant about not wanting to give bear children.
But a lot can change in a few years.
That August, I cried my little heart out because I never, ever wanted to have kids of my own. I didn’t want to be pregnant and I didn’t want to go through labor. (I still don’t but it’s kind of necessary to have a baby biologically.) I was very angry with God. And in many ways, I still struggle with this because I simply didn’t think it was fair for Him to change my heart to something I never wanted. (Nevermind the fact that He controls the universe and other important miscellany.)
Before that fateful August, I could babysit kids or serve in the church nursery and think to myself, “Ah, this is the best form of birth control.” Now, my heart aches because every time I hold a child, I know I’ll have to give it back because it’s not my own. And it’s frustrating to feel this way when I know the happiness of not feeling that way.
I don’t like talking about my desire for children because I’m still not completely comfortable with it. But then again, I’m not completely comfortable with the fact that I’m a woman with an emotional pendulum now.
I need to accept that as a result of getting older, some things will change. My moods are like roller coasters and I cry more often. And boy, do I hate crying. In fact, I loathe it. I loathe it when women cry at the drop of a hat. And to become one of those women disturbs me.
So now I cry at least once a month when I am faced with the fact that it is yet another month that I am not with child. The crazy thing is, I don’t think I want a child that badly. But I do find myself a bit more sympathetic to women of the Bible like Sarah, Hannah, and Rachel who struggled with barrenness—especially since their worth was essentially based off of whether they could bear children and how many of them they had bore (namely sons).
And with a few pregnant friends, I find myself battling with envy. I want to be totally happy for them. What bothers me most is that two years ago, I was able to be genuinely happy. But now, I think to myself, “Why not me? What’s wrong with me? Am I meant to have a child? My cycle works just fine so why is it taking me so long?” I wouldn’t want to take away from the happiness of any of my friends but at the same time, I find that my envy prevents me from being happy for them as I’d normally be.
I tried to explain my puzzlement over my enviousness to my husband. I said, “I don’t think I’ve really struggled with this until I desired a kid of my own.” He countered, “Oh yes, you do.” He began listing a few moments in my life where envy reared its ugly head and I immediately found myself forced to agree with him.
“Remember how you felt when you saw what your college classmates were doing and where they worked?”
Oh yeah. They worked at the New York Times, the NY Daily News, the NY Post, Newsday. Ah yes, and Newsday, a place I could have worked at too. (Now, I’m glad I effectively slammed the door shut on the opportunity. It’s a sinking ship.)
I spoke to a friend recently telling her of my struggle with envy. She wisely encouraged me to repent of my sin.
An issue I struggle with is not coming to terms with my age. I recently turned 28 but am often told I look like I’m barely 21. (This agelessness runs in my family.) Since I don’t look 28 and don’t “feel” 28, I don’t consider myself to be 28. I still view my peers to be older than me. (In many instances, they are but not by much.)
So when I see so many of my friends getting pregnant and having children, I am baffled as to why there is this baby boom I’m stuck in the middle of. I’ve always looked at other pregnant women and thought, “I’m too young for that.” I tell my husband that I hate being part of trends so I’ll probably wait until all my friends are done having kids. Then he drops the bomb on me: if I wait, I’ll be 40 before I can have kids.
My husband proceeded to tell me in no uncertain terms that the reason many of my friends are pregnant is because we’re all at that age. While I’ve accepted that my friends are old enough to have steady jobs, get married, and have kids, I never lumped myself in that group. I’ve always thought “I’m too young to have kids” when I’ve grown into an age when it is acceptable for me to do so.
Having been brought up in the New York City (NYC) metro area, I grew up with the mindset that I’d graduate from college, become a career woman, get married between the ages of 25-30, and maybe (maybe) have or adopt children in my 30’s—if ever. In NYC, children are not something you seriously consider before the age of 30.
My mindset has been perpetually stuck at 21 despite the fact that I’ve graduated college. Factually, I know I’m an adult, I can drink alcohol legally, hold down a job responsibly, and get married. Factually, I understand this like 2 + 2 = 4. And for a long time, I was always the youngest in the family, looking up to older people so I still possess that “I’m a baby” mentality. And babies shouldn’t be having babies, right?
But I’m not a baby anymore. Someone needs to hammer into my head that I’m almost 30 and married. Someone needs to shake me and tell me I’m a responsible adult now and it’s okay for me to have children before the age of 33. Someone needs to tell me that I’m getting old and by the time I start to “feel” 30, it’ll be too late for me to have kids.
Readers already over 30 years of age will probably scoff and think, “Oh, whatever. You’re still young.” I’m not arguing the fact that I’m still young. What I am saying is that I’m not as young as I think. And it’s a problem I’m not sure how to rectify.
This Journey Is My Own 