Radio Silence

To say "it's been a while" since I've last blogged would be a serious understatement.  It's been over eight months.  And I needed a break - from everything.  We needed to just be.  We needed to be okay with not being okay.  And, honestly?  We're still not okay.  Not when it comes to the emotion of the loss and trauma we've experienced the last four, almost four and a half, years.  We waffle between grief and depression and anger and frustration when we talk about our babies and our loss or when we see others living our dreams of starting a family.  Don't even get me started about my feelings on people complaining about pregnancy/motherhood/children on social media.

We just needed time to grieve.  We needed time to recover (at least a little) emotionally, financially, spiritually.

Infertility has been the sole focus of our marriage from virtually day one.  I can't begin to describe for you the stress and pressure that puts on a marriage - just consider the loss, the trauma, both of you dealing with that emotion in completely different ways, and then add on to that the financial burden of being buried under $100K+ of debt.  It's a lot to handle.  The last eight months have been so good for Michael and me to just push pause, put the baby dream on the shelf temporarily and focus on us.  I'm not ashamed to say that we have been seeing a counselor on and off again since we lost our baby girls, but pretty consistently since we lost our boys.  Not only were we heartbroken, but our marriage sucked.  It just did.  There's just not a pretty way to say it.  Thanks to an amazing counselor, some hard work on our part and the grace and mercy of Jesus, Michael and I are in the best place relationally that we have been in five years.  Finally.  Praise the Lord.

But with all of that, the dream of being a mom - that one that we put on a shelf eight months ago - is calling to me again.  I'm feeling restless and anxious about taking our next step.  And that, in and of itself, is so scary!  We are considering getting back in the game of infertility and IVF, and that decision will lead us down one of two paths:

1. We transfer our last embryo (I try not to think about the financial stressor that will be) and we get pregnant WAHOO!!!!  At long last we have a baby!  
2. We transfer our last embryo and we lose that baby, too.  Which, honestly, is the most likely of the two scenarios.  Then what?  Our dream of a biological baby, my dream of carrying my child for nine months, is dead.  To voluntarily put ourselves back in a situation where this outcome is likely, is terrifying.  The thought of reliving that devastation and heartbreak is almost debilitating.  What kind of crazy people are we that we are going to walk, eyes wide open, leaving all the ignorance and naiveté of four years ago behind us, down this path???  I guess we're the kind of crazy people who have an embryo left and can't not transfer him/her.  We're the kind of crazy people who are going to pray our guts out that somehow, some way, this transfer will be different.  Lord Jesus, we beg you!

So here are our next steps, although none of this will be a speedy process, so don't expect news of a transfer any time soon.

• We've been working with a naturopath to try to naturally balance my hormones and make my body work at it's optimum level.  I want to have the coziest, most welcoming uterus in the history of uteruses (uteri?) when we finally transfer our last baby.
• There are several sets of tests (I'm affectionately referring to them as our "Hail Mary passes") that I still want to do before we transfer our last baby.  I'm learning about something called epigenetics (Google it) that I'm hoping will hold a key for our fertility.

And that's it, really.  Our options for a biological baby have withered down to two bullet points.  We're throwing the Hail Mary pass and praying that Jesus catches that ball!  If you want to know what to do, here's what we would love for you to know.  

1. Please don't ask us about our next steps or bring it up in passing or in small talk conversation.  Even though I blog a lot about it, we are more than our infertility!!  We have lots of other things going on in our lives than infertility and nine times out of ten we'd rather talk about all of those things than the trauma and heartbreak of the last four years!  If we want to talk about it, it's likely we will bring it up.  
2. Pray for us.  Petition God to bless us with the family we've always dreamt of.  Beg him to open my womb so that I, too, could know the joys of pregnancy.  So that I, too, could experience my baby moving inside me.  Pray for courage and strength as we walk down a road that we anticipate being incredibly difficult.  Pray for our marriage.  The enemy wants nothing more than to tear us apart.  The enemy is strong, but, praise the Lord, Jesus is stronger!  Pray that He would use our story, our wounds, our walk to His glory.  That even in the midst of the storm, His name would be made great.
3. Be grateful for your children and your family.  Stop complaining about them on social media! There are so many people who are in similar circumstances as me who would love nothing more than to have exactly what you have.  Be grateful.  Thank Jesus that He gave you those beautiful babies and the stresses and frustrations that come with them.

This season of rest and recovery and grieving has been so good for us.  We needed this time of radio silence more than we knew or realized.  Thank you for walking alongside us and loving us through it all.