I always thought I would grow up and have lots of babies. I know that this is partly due to my family and extended family and my religion, but I always just felt like I would have them and that I would be an AWESOME mom.
Life doesn't go as planned and everyone knows it but a lot of people don't want to admit it.
I was married at 19 (literally 5 days after my birthday) and we had talked prior to engagement and marriage and we both wanted a big family. We both came from families with 6 kids and it just seemed right. We wanted it and we never felt right about preventing pregnancy.
I had a couple of "mini miscarriages". A mini miscarriage (as I heard it called from several sources but I don't see any reason why they aren't miscarriages) is when you are a little late starting your period and then you have a really painful, heavy, gross looking period. I wasn't aware of the pregnancies and maybe the difference between knowing and not makes it more miniscule than an 'actual' miscarriage. The worst one happened when I was on vacation with my parents in California. I was 2 weeks late but my body is messed up and that isn't abnormal for me. I was all over the place with timing. We were at a theme park and riding roller coasters. I "started my period" and it was REALLY BAD. I was hurting even more than usual and I had been prescribed narcotics to deal with my "usual" pain in the past, so yeah, OUCH. It was super heavy and there were weird things appearing and happening. My aunt, who was there with us, talked to me about it and confirmed my suspicions of a miscarriage. It was sad. We wanted children. Even if I wasn't aware of the pregnancy before it ended, it was still sad.
We had 2 awesome years together and then my first daughter was born to add to the awesomeness. I say awesome a lot. Since it took a little time to get her here, I knew that we would need help. We started looking into fertility options when she was 9 months old.
Fertility treatment is a beast. Anyone who has gone through it knows it. I eventually was taking 5 Clomid pills a day for 5 days in a row. This, I found out later, was ruining my insides and making it impossible to carry a baby, even though the doc said I needed it to get pregnant. I was young and naive and didn't ask for a second opinion. It got to the point, after years of treatments and surgeries and all sorts of crap, that I just decided to give up. But, not entirely.
One day, my beautiful daughter was playing (I can't remember details, that is how CRAZY I was at the time) and I just remember screaming at her to be quiet. I remember thinking that there is no way that the horrible sound that just came out of my mouth was actually me. I called the doctor. I quit the meds and we were going to take some time off.
"Just relax...you are stressed that is why it isn't happening." I have learned that people tell you what comforts them. Maybe not what is best to hear. But I am okay with that. I know they care.
Infertility is horrible. It is painful. Every month is hell and when your period comes (and in my case, that was painful and hellish, too) it just breaks your heart. There are so many questions without answers. Some questions aren't meant to have answers or the answers will come when I die and Heavenly Father can explain.
Why? I want it. It is a righteous desire. Yes...I said, "why me?".
Why can't I have children? Doctors had no answers and I didn't know God's answers.
Why can people who don't want kids get pregnant and I can't? What did I do wrong? Am I not living righteously? Am I not worthy to be a parent again?
Then I felt like I had a split personality because I kept telling myself these things:
I already have a child. Some people struggle with never having any. I am lucky. I am grateful. If I act sad then I am appearing ungrateful to God. I can't appear ungrateful.
I felt like I wasn't appreciating what I had, but I was still feeling heartache. This is a really weird way to feel. Like you aren't allowed to be sad if you are given one blessing but not others. I eventually was telling myself that I was just fine. Nothing was wrong. I was okay with never having any more children. My daughter really is so awesome and we were having so much fun together!
Then, one day, my family got together to watch Baby Mama which is supposed to be funny. I sat and cried. I cried so hard. It wasn't funny. It was sad and I was just sitting there feeling my heart get ripped out. It very well could have been pms time for me. But, either way, it was really hard to watch.
I realized that I was grieving over not having more children. It was grief. True grief. People may disagree and tell you that you can't or shouldn't grieve over something you never had...but you can.
There were times when people would say things, sometimes
in church, about how because they were righteous they got the
blessings they wanted. They never meant harm. They were baring their
souls and that is okay...but sometimes it hurt. Sometimes I hurt for
other people who were in there because I knew how they felt....that they were doing what was right, so why wasn't it happening for them? I also had felt the question "does that mean that I am not righteous because I am not getting what I so desperately want?"
People were nervous to tell me they were pregnant. I was never upset over people's happy news. That is kind of a funny thing. My sister was nervous. I think my mom was nervous for me, which is understandable...I'm a mom and I get it. It was hard because my sister's exciting news was overshadowed by people treading lightly. I still feel awful about that. I was so happy for others. If there was sadness, it really wasn't very obvious to me.
I was called to be the Relief Society President in a ward where, no lie, there were 6 babies in just one month. Most of our visits were new people and new babies! I loved it. I think I may have joked with my friend and first counselor about the crazy number of babies being born, but I never was upset or angry with God. I felt like immersing myself in service of these beautiful women helped me to deal with my crap. Like I said in my first post, everyone has stuff they have to deal with. I understood this and I finally was understanding (with God's help) that God has a plan for me. He knows what is best for me and even though I didn't understand why, I needed to FINALLY accept that and move on and do my best to do what is right and live a good life.
I found out a couple of weeks later that I was pregnant. It was a shock and a blessing and we were so happy. I have wondered if realizing that God has a plan for me and to trust Him is what it took. I don't know.
I was careful with what I said when I found out. I was so happy and grateful. I knew people would be happy for me and some people would ache for themselves. I've been there, felt that.
Life throws more curve balls than any of us want to admit. I think the way we catch them is what matters. I let a couple of them knock me flat and at the same time, I caught many with ease (A baseball metaphor? What the?).
I know having the gospel in my life and having the focus of loving and caring for others, instead of having an impairing selfishness, helped me through this trial. It helped me stop thinking about my own crap and I started to focus on everyone else's and how I could help them through it.
Hopefully, writing this, will help remind me that every time I go through my trials, I should serve others. Even if I'm miserable, helping other people be NOT miserable was the key. For me.
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