Impatience and Gratitude

For a woman who is struggling with infertility or loss, it often can be very difficult to hear pregnant women complain about their pregnancies. Even if it's not truly complaining but simply discussing the aches and pains of pregnancy, it can sound like a lack of gratitude. However, the physical and emotional tolls of pregnancy are real. How does one balance acknowledging the struggles of pregnancy with gratitude for the child the pregnancy brings?

Our baby is much desired and much loved, coming after a very difficult time of loss after loss. I am deeply thankful for this child and for the ability to carry a pregnancy to term. And yet these past several weeks have still been filled with exhaustion, discomfort, and pain. The joy of our child and pregnancy certainly allow me to view this suffering in a more positive light, however, it doesn't mute it. The sleepless nights, the back and hip pain, the headaches, the searing heartburn, etc, etc, etc. are all still there. And yet acknowledging those physical burdens makes me feel guilty. I've never once thought that our baby isn't worth the pain, but even admitting that there is pain somehow seems wrong.

My "official" due date is tomorrow, though I think that my real due date passed last weekend. This end time has been much more difficult than I expected. My daughter was 8 days "late" and I was really calm and patient until she arrived. I'm much more uncomfortable this time, but also emotionally much more anxious. I never worried during my first pregnancy, never considered that a pregnancy would - or even could, really - end with anything other than a healthy, living child. This time is different. It's not that I've expected that something would go wrong, but every moment I've been aware that something very well could go wrong. And so, as I reach the very end of this pregnancy, the urgency seemed heightened. I've made it this far - nine months! - and I'm just so, so very anxious to finally reach the finish line. Each day that goes by seems like an eternity. 

And yet, both the baby and I are healthy. While I'm certainly tired and uncomfortable and in a bit of pain, I'm overall feeling well for nine months pregnant. It seems so greedy to ask or pray for the baby to come now instead of waiting patiently. I've already gotten nine months of a healthy pregnancy, something so many women pray and plead for. Why can't I suffer a little more? Why can't I enjoy the time I have left? Why must I want more? 

The Child Lives: Wisdom from Mother Angelica (and some beautiful free printables)

When searching the internet for Catholic prayers and advice following a miscarriage, it's no mistake that one of the first things most people come across is this beautiful piece:

My Lord, the baby is dead! 

Why, my Lord—dare I ask why? It will not hear the whisper of the wind or see the beauty of its parents’ face—it will not see the beauty of Your creation or the flame of a sunrise. Why, my Lord? 

“Why, My child—do you ask ‘why’? Well, I will tell you why. You see, the child lives. Instead of the wind he hears the sound of angels singing before My throne. Instead of the beauty that passes he sees everlasting Beauty—he sees My face. He was created and lived a short time so the image of his parents imprinted on his face may stand before Me as their personal intercessor. He knows secrets of heaven unknown to men on earth. He laughs with a special joy that only the innocent possess. My ways are not the ways of man. I create for My Kingdom and each creature fills a place in that Kingdom that could not be filled by another. He was created for My joy and his parents’ merits. He has never seen pain or sin. He has never felt hunger or pain. I breathed a soul into a seed, made it grow and called it forth.” 

I am humbled before you, my Lord, for questioning Your wisdom, goodness, and love. I speak as a fool—forgive me. I acknowledge Your sovereign rights over life and death. I thank You for the life that began for so short a time to enjoy so long an Eternity. 

-- Mother M. Angelica

What beauty and truth that short piece contains! What consolation! What wisdom!

My generous and talented friend, Kendra Tierney (blogger at Catholic All Year) made a few printables from this lovely prayer and offered them to me to share with my readers. They would make a lovely image of remembrance in your home or a gift for a friend after a loss. I received a beautiful framed print of Jeremiah 1:5 ("Before I formed you in the womb...) from a friend following my second loss and it is a very cherished piece to me.

These printables are free for you to save and print. To download the high resolution image to your computer, click on it to bring it up in a new window, then right click on it to save it to your computer. You can then print them yourself or upload them to a print shop or website to have them printed in more professional quality. As with all the beautiful printables that Kendra offers, they are only for personal use or to give as gifts. If you use them on your own blog, please link back to this blog post or Kendra's blog, Catholic All Year. Kendra also offers customized printables of the prayer, quote, poem, etc. of your choice for only $10 so if you have another prayer, quote (or perhaps maybe the names of the child(ren) you lost) you'd like to hang in remembrance of your child, she's your gal. Click here to purchase your own commissioned printable.

Thank you so much, Kendra, for your generosity in sharing these beautiful images.

On Loss and Marriage

A couple weekends ago, my husband and I headed up to the mountains for our fifth anniversary. It was our first getaway as a couple since our honeymoon. It was perfect. We stayed at a darling bed and breakfast, ate way too much good food, and did not much else. Throughout the weekend, I constantly came back to the thought that this was really, really good for us. It's important for all married couples to have times of relaxation and enjoyment together, but it struck me as especially needed for a couple who has undergone difficult emotional trauma.

Couples who have gone through the loss of a child (pregnancy loss included) have a much higher divorce rate for a reason. After our second loss, I found myself utterly surprised by how altered our marriage had become. I found myself avoiding my husband because he had become a reminder of the pain of our losses. I couldn't even look at him without the sharp reminder of the babies we lost. There was a part of me to felt that it would be easier if we were no longer together, if I no longer had him around as a constant reminder. If we went our separate ways, it would would be so much easier to pretend our losses never existed, and without that constant reminder, then maybe the pain would be a little less.

These were all fleeting thoughts, of course, nothing I ever dwelt on. And they were most certainly lies. The pain of separating from my husband, the only person who knew and loved the children we lost as intimately as I did, would have only brought more pain to our losses. (Not to mention the pain it would bring to our living child, to our families, and to every other aspect of our lives.) No matter how much I tried, no matter what lengths I would have gone through, it would have been futile to try to ignore the pain of our losses anyway; it's much healthier to confront and heal that pain and we could only truly do that together.

When I think of the short lives of four miscarried children, I want them to have meaning. I want them to, despite the pain of loss, bring good into the world and that starts right here with their family. What good would come from their short lives and deaths if they put a wedge between their parents?

Looking back at the most difficult points of our marriage after loss, it's so very clear how Satan uses our times of pain and weakness. Christian marriages are reflection of the beauty and goodness of God. The procreative aspect of those marriages is a very visible sign to the world of power of love. When something goes wrong with the life-giving element of marriage (be it infertility or loss), doubts creep in as to the validity of the marriage, or if not the validity at least the value.

And then there is the guilt. One member of the couple usually feels all the weight and blame of loss and fertility issues. Even when there is no no firm diagnosis, the woman usually pulls the guilt upon herself. It's hard to bridge that gap, to feel like infertility/loss is happening go both of you together instead of one of you pushing it upon the other. It's easy to believe that you are at fault, preventing your partner from having the children they deserve, wondering if he isn't better off with someone else who can give him living children. Humans are bodies and souls and as much as we'd like to separate our spiritual life, the brokenness of the body can often lead to brokenness in the soul.

Four losses in less than a year and a half. Surgery. Another pregnancy. I wish I could say that this pregnancy has helped to heal our wounds, and I'm still hopeful that after the birth of our child the healing will come, but so far it's only seemed to deepen them. Or at least call attention to them in a way that is no longer possible to ignore. The wounds are still there, but our approach is different. We're no longer pulling away from each other, but turning toward one another in our sorrow. We grieve differently, my husband more stoic and silent, my tears and pain more visible and vocal, but instead of letting those differences pull us apart, we're learning to care for each other's individual needs. I feel guilty that my body failed to nurture our children, David feels helpless as he watches me continue to go through trauma he would do anything to relieve. Together we're working on finding other fruits and creative outlets for our marriage, so that it's value doesn't hinge solely on our fertility.

As we sat up in our room the mountains, we talked about our favorite moments and the blessings of our first five years of marriage. The conversation was more somber than we would have ever expected it to be. Between mentioning milestones and cherished memories, there were long pauses where we silently thought about the sorrows and struggles which, at least numerically, outnumber the hallmark moments. But reflecting on those difficult times gave us the ability to rejoice in the strength and durability of our marriage, the flexibility we'd found and the lessons we've learned. We understood the importance of leaving room in for God (and for heartache and tragedy and time to rebuild) in our future goals, of setting priorities instead of milestones, and thinking eternally,

NFP Has No Place in Paradise

It's Natural Family Planning Awareness Week and I didn't really think I'd have much to add to the conversation. The Catholic blogging world is already saturated with posts about NFP this week and I've read many, many wonderful posts on every angle of the topic in the past. My experiences are unique (aren't ours all?) but not necessarily anything completely new or different. But to do my part, I wrote this post on Facebook yesterday to share my perspective and as I was writing it, for the first in my life it occurred to me exactly why NFP is so difficult - because it was never part of God's original plan.

You see, in the perfect world God intended - the world without sin or suffering - NFP doesn't have a place. The situations that make postponing a pregnancy necessary - physical and mental health issues, financial concerns, marital problems, lack of support system, etc. - they wouldn't exist. And fertility problems that require couples use NFP to become pregnant, they wouldn't exist either. There simply would be no need for Natural Family Planning. It's not the default for human beings as God designed us. But it's there because we live in a flawed world; not the natural order of things but a gift given to us by God to help us cope with our imperfect situations in an imperfect existence.

Many people need NFP for one reason or another, and I am incredibly grateful that it exists for those situations. For most of our marriage, we've used NFP. When we got pregnant with Lucia in 2011, my husband and I had hoped we'd never use NFP again. We looked forward to the idea of our family planned completely on God's timing, of never looking at a chart again, of being genuinely surprised (but not too surprised) by a new pregnancy. But then we went through a period of unemployment. Followed by miscarriage after miscarriage. And then my current bout of prenatal depression and anxiety (yes, it's back). And it seems that for the rest of our childbearing years we'll always have one reason or another to use NFP to either avoid pregnancy or help us decrease chances of future miscarriage. That's a tough pill to swallow.

Yes, the day to day practice of NFP can be difficult. But the emotional strain is even harder because it reminds us of the brokenness of our world (and my body). My chart is a symbol of how far we are from Eden. For all that people talk about how wonderful NFP is for marriage and communication and knowing your body and (fill in the blank), the truth is that if all were as it should be, we simply wouldn't need it.

NFP strikes me as similar to a cancer treatment, let's say chemotherapy. Of course, it's not poisonous or painful like chemotherapy (NFP is green! And completely natural! No physical side effects!), but bear with me. The only reason chemotherapy exists is to combat cancer. Those who have cancer (and their loved ones) are grateful it gives them the opportunity to fight the cancer, but they'd rather they didn't need it in the first place. My family has had several extra years (and hopefully many more) with my 84 year old grandfather because of two rounds of chemotherapy. But the chemo itself took its toll on him and is a reminder of the brokenness of his body, the unnaturalness of the cancer that necessitated it in the first place. I wish there was no chemo because I wish there was no cancer. Actually, I suppose that's how we feel about most medication. I'm grateful to God for well-trained doctors and medical researchers who allow us to combat the illnesses of the mind and body, but I'm still sad and bitter that we even have illnesses we have to treat.

So too with NFP. It's not a good in and of itself, but the best response we have to the evil in our world. I wish we didn't need it. I wish we lived in a perfect world where the circumstances were always perfect for more children to be welcomed and everyone had normal, healthy, functioning fertility. Since there is a need for NFP, I'm grateful it's there. But even if I appreciate it, I don't have to like it. It’s ok if it doesn’t feel natural and beautiful and effortless, because it’s simply not how it was meant to be. 

Fool me once...

We all know how the saying goes: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I feel like there is a similar unspoken saying for miscarriage: "Miscarry once, what a shame! Miscarry twice, what bad luck! Miscarry three or more times, it's all your fault!"

In my own experience and from what I've heard from other women, it seems that at some magic number, others stop caring about your losses. The sympathy ends and is instead replaced by blame.

Well, you've miscarried X times before, you knew this might happen again.

Don't expect sympathy from me. If you didn't want to go through a miscarriage again, you shouldn't have gotten pregnant.

Maybe God's trying to tell you something. 

I think, in part, some of this is due to misconceptions about miscarriage. A recent study found that a large majority of Americans believe myths about miscarriage, myths that often put the blame on the women who go through this instead of understanding the medical truths behind loss. Though there weren't any questions asked about this, I suspect that most Americans would also overestimate the risks of  miscarriage in subsequent pregnancies. The truth is that even for women who have had four or more consecutive miscarriages, they have a 50-70% chance (depending on the study) of carrying the next pregnancy to term without medical intervention. For someone who has had medical treatment, the chances of having the next pregnancy result in a healthy, full term pregnancy is even higher. Unless you know you have one of a few specific conditions, doctors would advise you to keep trying.

But even if you know you have a high chance of miscarrying again and purposely conceive, a miscarriage is still not your fault. It's still the loss of a child and a tragedy. And a woman deserves just as much support and compassion at losing her fourth or her ninth or her fifteenth child as she does for her first. The value of human life does not decrease as the likelihood for loss increases.

Each of my six children is a unique human being. Unique genes, unique soul. Each one has his or her own preferences, personality, and appearance. I mourn the four we lost not as lost potentials, but as unique individuals. Though I bonded most with our second baby, the first child we lost, each child leaves her own hole in my heart that cannot be filled by anyone else. This baby we are currently expecting is a wonderful blessing but not a replacement for the children we've lost.

We're coming up on two due dates - one next week and one next month - and even being pregnant with another child, I still keenly feel the loss of those two babies that would have been born around this time. It still hurts to look down at my stomach and see a small 20 week bump instead of a 39 week monstrosity or a still-very-large-and-daunting 35 week one. I still cry often because I miss those little ones. The world didn't grieve them with me. In fact, many people think it would have been better off if they had never even been conceived. What did their short lives do but break my heart? And yet, I'm so grateful that my husband and I had the courage to conceive them. I am so glad that they exist. With each one of my six children, I cooperated with God in His plan of creation and I have to believe that all of their souls, not just those of my living children, are needed, necessary.

(Un)deserving

Things have been going well for us recently. I'm 15 weeks pregnant and all seems healthy and normal. We're moving back near family. David was offered a job that is perfect for his background and future career development AND will give the the ability to stay at home with my children. I feel greatly blessed and, honestly, completely unworthy.

We've been married almost five years and much of our marriage has been spent struggling with one thing or another - several out-of-state moves, unemployment and financial worries, multiple miscarriages, etc. But I've never felt that we deserved for things to be better. Life is hard. There are no guarantees. And things always could have been worse. I had a wonderful husband and beautiful daughter and even when times were hard and we needed help, we always had a place to live and food to eat. Now that things are looking up, I feel very undeserving. Why should we be given so many blessings when there are so many others still waiting for a baby or a job or a spouse? Even though we've gone through medical treatments to fix my health issues so we could have a viable pregnancy and David has worked hard (and spent many years in school) so that he could get a good job, these things still feel like such unmerited blessings.

I recently read a post on "being the fertile friend". I definitely wouldn't consider myself the "fertile friend", but I'm not infertile either. And the pit in the stomach feeling when I think of all my friends that have been waiting for babies longer than me - I can totally relate to that. Even though I've had my share of fertility struggles, there is always someone who is suffering more, who has had more miscarriages, who has no children. I never think, "I deserve this baby after what I've gone through." I always think, "There are other women so much more deserving." Because there are.

Many pregnancy after loss websites and resources list pregnancy affirmations to help women cope with anxiety during a pregnancy after loss. I've found a few affirmations that have been very helpful to me (this is my favorite) but there are several I've come across that leave a bad taste in my mouth. They are along the lines of "I deserve a healthy baby and pregnancy," or "I deserve the best life has to offer".

In our society, we often invest heavily in the ideas of "fairness" or "entitlement" or "output matching input"  but it's obvious that nothing in this world follows those ideals. A college graduate may deserve a good career, but there are many who struggle at dead-end jobs below a living wage. Someone who has always made healthful life choices may deserve good health, but we all know a person like that struggling with cancer or another debilitating illness. Stable, loving couples struggle with infertility while abusive parents have more children they don't want and won't care for.

As a Christian, I don't believe that anything is owed to me, especially not a child. A baby is always a gift, a completely undeserved gift. And Christianity is not based on rewards for good behavior or results equal to effort. Thank goodness for that because nothing I do could ever be worthy of Christ's sacrifice for my sins. Christianity is not a promise of comfort or ease. It's not safe or easy. It's full of crosses and suffering, disappointments and pain. But also total undeserved grace, blessings, and gifts.

I can't explain why right now my family is being showered in blessings when others are crushed under the weight of ever-increasing suffering, other than to say that we live in a world in which sin twists God's original design and nothing makes sense because nothing is as it should be. I'm mindful even in the midst of the goodness that currently surrounds us that all in this world is temporary, blessings just as much as sufferings. And I pray often for those who are waiting for their blessings because I know that it was the prayers of others that carried us through our toughest times.

At the heart of all of the blessings and sufferings of this world, there is a light, a hope of the world to come. All else changes, all else is fleeting, but the light is constant. In good times, it's sometimes harder to keep my eyes on that light. The worldly goodness around us makes the light of Christ less noticeable, like the beam of a flashlight at midday. In the darkness of suffering and pain, that light stands in stark contrast - a beacon in the starless night. And so, there is a piece of me that is scared. Scared that the goodness of this world will detract me from my desire for God. Scared that I'll take these blessings for granted. Scared that I'll be lulled into complacency. Scared that someday I'll look at my life and feel deserving of the goodness in it, entitled to more. Oh, that is a scary thing indeed.

Comfort for the Grieving Mother from Another Place and Time

I am deeply saddened by the sorrow which has just come to you; it is indeed a real trial for you...May Our Lord grant you resignation to His holy Will!  Your dear little child is with God; he is looking down on you and loving you; and one day, you will possess him again.  This is a great consolation that I have experienced myself, and which I still feel. 

When I had to close the eyes of my dear children and bury them, I felt deep sorrow, but I was always resigned to it.  I did not regret the pains and the sorrows which I had endured for them.  Many persons said to me: "It would have been better for you if you had never had them."  I could not bear that kind of talk.  I do not think that the sorrows and the troubles endured could possibly be compared with the eternal happiness of my children with God.  Besides, they are not lost to me forever; life is short and filled with crosses, and we shall find them again in Heaven.

France, 1870.  From a letter written by Bl. Zelie Martin, mother of St. Therese of Lisieux, to comfort her sister-in-law after she experienced the loss of a child at birth.  Bl. Zelie Martin, and her husband Bl. Louis Martin, lost three children in the first year of life and another at age five.   

I've been working on slowly moving some of my miscarriage posts from my old blog, Messy Wife, Blessed Wife, and this is one of my favorites. This quote was found in (affiliate link) The Mother of the Little Flower: Zelie Martin (1831-1877), a book I can't recommend enough for any mother. With the upcoming canonization of Bl. Zelie Martin, I'm hoping that more resources about the life of this amazing mother will become available. As well as being a natural advocate for mothers who have lost children, she ran her own business, was unable to breastfeed her babies, and had a few very difficult children (St. Therese among them) so she seems like the perfect patron for working mothers, breastfeeding issues, and parents of strong-willed children. Bl. Zelie Martin, pray for us!

What is Good, What is Difficult

Hallie Lord wrote this piece a few days ago saying it's ok to when you have mixed feelings about pregnancy. What bravery it can take to admit within Catholic, pro-life circles that each new baby is not immediately met with joy and nothing but joy. This adds another valuable piece to the discussion on pregnancy started recently by this article discussing the importance of acknowledging the struggles of pregnancy.

Perhaps the question that most deeply reaches the root of these issues is Why are we afraid to admit that things that are the most good are often also the most difficult? It seems almost obvious that anything truly good would require sacrifice; Satan certainly does not want us to do what is good and therefore will confound our efforts in every way. Things that are bad, well, those seems to be so easy. For a reason. Don't underestimate the enemy. He is cunning. This world has been corrupted so that sin easily flourishes and those who do the will of God have an uphill battle.

I worry that some Christians hope to share the faith by portraying it as a pathway to obtaining your hearts' desires. If only you follow, Christ, they say, you will be happy! All the time! Life will be easy. Prayer and true faith will wipe away all your burdens. We have to be careful to acknowledge that while Christ is the source of joy, we are not promised earthly happiness or a lack of suffering. We have only to look at the lives of the Saints for confirmation of this. There are Saints who suffered painful diseases, the murder of spouses, the death of young children, rape, abusive marriages, and torturous deaths. If those men, women, and children, the exalted examples of faithfulness, experienced such suffering then surely Christian faith is not some magic charm that repels all bad that might befall us. I cannot imagine the Saints in their midst of their suffering would be described as "happy" in the earthly sense, but joy - oh they exuded the joy of Christ even then!

Many people ask what we need to do to attract young people to the faith. The answer is not to make faith fit effortlessly into their lives by making it easy. I drive by a church with a sign that proudly proclaims, "Like to sleep in on the weekends? We make church convenient for you!" People aren't looking for a faith that is convenient so they can go on living their lives exactly the same. They are looking for a faith that radically changes their lives and challenges them. Young people are searching for something and an easy religion that asks nothing of them doesn't fulfill that longing. They are not looking for a "safe faith". Christ said, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." A tall order, but how can we do great things of great things are not asked of us?

"Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”-C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe 

It is not love to only share part of the Gospel, the sanitized, safe little story of a God who loves us and wants us to be happy. We must authentically share the faith and in order to do so, we much acknowledge that with the joy of Christ also comes our individual crosses, some of them quite heavy. How much more powerful is it to share the stories of Christians who have suffered greatly, even died for their faith, but loved God so much through it all, than a story of a perfect little life in which Christianity was easy. I'm apt to believe that the early Christians flocked to the faith because they saw how powerful it was - people were ripped to shreds by lions in the arena for their Christian faith, and with a smile on their faces and songs on their lips! If they were looking for something safe and easy, Christianity would have been the last thing they would have chosen. They weren't looking for easy, but for Truth! How ineffective in comparison is a faith practiced by those who are blessed all their lives. That god seems nothing more than a genie, a wish-granter. How easy it must be to love a sweet, kind god who makes your life perfect! There's an appeal there, of course, but since all of us will experiencing some suffering in our lives, it's easy to lose a faith based on a god who grants earthly happiness to his faithful. That is a faith built on straw, with no basis in the scriptures. Instead, we must teach a faith built on rock.

In our faith, the faith built on Peter, Christ's rock, human life is greatly valued. A new pregnancy and a new child are always good. But not always easy. There is no reason for guilt in acknowledging that. In fact, by doing so, we are elevating human life even more - how valuable is a new life that we are willing to endure great hardship to bear it! Therein lies a truth that our Catholic ancestors knew quite well and embraced much better than we do today, that Christian life is demanding and that those very demands are what set us apart and demonstrate to those around us the greatness of our God.

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