Many of you who read my blog know that Hubster and I would really like to have children, and thus far in our marriage, have not been able to. Dealing with infertility is a tough thing, and the journey we've been on has forever changed me and views on life. That's a pretty cool reality, when I stop and think about it. I have no doubt that having a child or children is life-changing (I see that play out in my friends' lives), but the process of getting there can be life-changing as well.
For several months now, I have felt a tug on my heart to start working on a writing project dealing with the specifics of my Spiritual Journey through this process. There are a hundred details to physical part: the doctor's visits, the diet changes, the exercise, the "greening," the supplements and pills, and on and on and on the list goes. I know sharing that information is helpful, mostly because I have found reading other women's stories to be helpful. But I have also wanted more than that--I have wanted to read someone's writing that would deal in depth with what a Spiritual struggle this process is for a woman.
But what I have found relatively little of are resources written by a woman struggling to conceive. Not a woman who struggled with fertility (in the past tense) and now has a baby (or two or three), but a woman who is dealing with the reality of empty arms and doctor's visits and the endless repetition of the question, "so when are you guys going to have a baby?"
Toni Morrison is quoted as saying, "If there's a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." I have always liked this quote, and it came to mind in my consideration of a desire to read the thoughts of a woman struggling to conceive in regards to her Spiritual walk. So, since I have not found this (which isn't to say it isn't out there), I am going to start writing it.
I will be working on creating blog posts in this series over the next few months. I am not a Bible scholar, nor a pastor, but I am a woman who loves the Lord and finds great comfort in His Word.
The title I've chosen, Struggling to Conceive, does not just refer to the physical conception that pregnancy requires (I apologize, my English Teacher is showing). Conceive also means "to form or devise in the mind," and I have found that these fertility struggles are not just the struggle to conceive a baby, but the struggle to conceive of how this fits into my life, practically and Spiritually. How do I form thoughts about it in my mind and make sense of it? How can I fit this struggle into my life and get comfortable with what it is and what it means?
I don't have all the answers, but I do have some thoughts I want to share.
Please join me in this expedition. Please reach out if you are in the midst of this struggle. Please know--always--that you are not alone.
Fertility woes are incredible in their ability to make women feel so isolated. I use that word, woe, intentionally, because a woe is a "great sorrow or distress." What distress struggling to conceive can be.
Come join me here, where we can share the burden of this woe together and be encouraged to continue forward in joy and hope, for our God is might to save, and it is through leaning on Him that we fight the anguish and bitterness this struggle threatens to yoke around our necks.
"Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing."
1 Thessalonians 5:11 (ESV)
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