A Child’s Palm

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The following reflection was written by Forsythia. 

She walks to a table in the center of the cafe, son at her heels. They sit, facing one another, his knees tucked under him. He leans on his elbows across the polished surface, eyes following every movement as she carefully unwraps the pastry from its cellophane protection. He bounces on his knees once or twice as the moment approaches, excitement welling up in his joints. She tears away a chunk and, trailing crumbs, places it in his little palm, stretched out in anticipation and openness and certainty. He knows that she will put there something that is delicious, something that is good, because he knows that he is loved, that he is safe. He trusts her.

But that is not always so. There is only so much this little mind can comprehend. And often what is good will look bad; what is safe will seem restrictive; what is loving will be perceived as hatred.

This is not an unfamiliar metaphor to the Christian. In Jesus’ famous words, found in Luke 11 and Matthew 7:

“What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

I am reminded of this verse as I watch this little boy with his mother. I see the outstretched hand, the way it returns again and again to the center of the table full of expectation and without hesitation, and I cannot help but be transported back in time to dark nights in bed, face wet with tears, chest constricted by sobs. Here was I holding my palms out until they burned with the effort, begging God in prayer to fill me with something good: to place in the aching emptiness of my womb a throbbing, vibrant life.

You could not tell me in those moments that God gives good gifts to his children. That he is a faithful, constant, loving parent. You could not tell me such things as I watched the world spinning in unbroken motion, life marching on in expected sequence for those around me while I was cast out of orbit to float untethered in uninhabited space. No, my heart would reject the notion of a loving God as though it were poison—my heart did reject it, for years.

I rejected it not because it was a lie, but because it was the wrong remedy for the wounds life was inflicting on me.

There are many such things that, though they are true, are utterly unhelpful in the darkest moments of infertility. If you have never experienced miscarriage or infertility, in order to love well the someone in your life who has or is, you must understand this.

Other truths that were hurtful to me in the middle of my grief were “God has a plan for you” (Jeremiah 29:11) and “All things work together for good” (Romans 8:28). These things were said to me in order to bring comfort, but they served to harden my heart.

Not all methods of healing are appropriate for every wound, and only certain kinds of medication can help certain ailments. These truths—good, rich, helpful truths—were the wrong medication for me at the time. They were meaty, rich, decadent foods that my starving body could not digest. I needed simpler nourishment, nutrition that my weakened self could absorb.

So easily, we overlook that the Word of God is not all optimism and rejoicing and victory—that hope for the Christian begins with a suffering servant who, in his moment of deepest despair, cried out to God a question that was answered with silence (Matthew 27:46). Often, this is what infertility feels like: beating our breasts, crying out to God, and hearing nothing in return. That level of brokenness cannot be mended by words, however true they may be. And in fact, these words may be added pressure that further splinters the bone.

This was my reality and, I think, reality for many who experience infertility or child loss. So, what is one to do?

To the person trying to love an infertile friend: listen exhaustively, speak rarely. Empathetic phrases like “that’s sucks” and “I’m so sorry” go a long way. This person you love will need you to believe truth and pray bold prayers for them because they will probably not be able to do it for themselves. It may not feel like it, but even in silence, you are essential. Listening leads to vulnerability and trust, and out of that deep knowing, the right words will come.

To the person going through infertility or miscarriage: relationship is messy. People will say stupid things—they will be well meaning and extremely hurtful. I am so sorry for that. But you need to find community. Isolation kills. Have grace for those that are trying to love you well. Over-communicate, even though vulnerability is so very hard. Be honest when things hurt you. Tell people what you need. Don’t do this alone.

I believe that God is a good father. I believe that he holds all things in his hands, and knows all things. I believe that he sees the path of my life in its entirety and is a wise, faithful, and trustworthy steward of that story. I believe these things, and yet I do not always believe them. Thank God for community in which to bear each others’ burdens, and for grace, which is daily needed in the messy business of loving one another.

 

The Other Side

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sunflower-02The following reflection was written by Sunflower.

Yesterday, I had my weekly OB appointment. The last few visits have felt like an out-of-body experience but yesterday topped them all. As I sat there waiting to be called back, I sat next to a 19-year-old girl who shared with me her struggle with endometriosis. They are talking about doing a complete hysterectomy on her at her young age, a decision that will impact her life forever. I can’t even imagine.

Then my name got called and I walked back and did the routine checks. The nurse looked at me and said “You are picture-perfect!” Oh my–words I had never really heard before, not even with my first pregnancy. As I turned to leave, I glanced behind me and before my eyes sat a young girl crying with her husband. She caught my eyes and I saw her glance at my stomach and quickly look away. My heart dropped…I knew all to well what she was facing.

As I left, I tried hard to hide my belly and walk as quickly as I could because I knew in that moment I was a girl she hated. And I totally understand and receive those emotions from her. She has every right.

I remember the day we found out about our molar pregnancy. All I wanted to do was get out of that office–the office that now held all my fears, all my anger, all my sadness… and yet there I had to sit across from a very pregnant lady who was getting the news that she was “picture perfect…” while I got the news that my baby was no longer alive. I hated her in that moment. I did not care what her story was, or the journey she was on. All I knew is that she had what I desperately wanted and I did not understand why her and not me.

Now years later, I sit on the side that I spent so much time hating. I hated the birth announcements, the pregnancy news, the baby showers and baby sections in stores. I avoided pregnant bellies like they were the plague, and I left any conversation that had to do with babies. Now here I sit…on the other side.

Because of my experiences, I have been robbed me of my innocence. As I sit on the other side, I am forever grateful that the Lord has granted me with this gift—yes, gift. As for the young woman crying, I pray for her, sympathize with her, and do everything I can to stay clear of her so that I do not cause more pain. I find myself doing this always. When I am out shopping, I notice the women who look away…and I embrace that. I don’t take offense. I notice and pray for them.

I don’t know why, friends—why I sit on the other side now. I don’t know, but I am humbled beyond words. I can promise you though that I remember feeling, and honestly really believing, that a normal pregnancy was never going to happen to me…no not me…But God is a big God, with Big plans and I believe He really does grant us our hearts’ desires. So friend, if you are on the other side listening to me thinking “that will never be me…”, that was my story too. But it wasn’t the end of my story. Your story is still being told, too.

This Great Mystery

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forsythiaThe following reflection was written by Forsythia. 

 

I am an adoptive parent.

I wish I could say that adoption was something I’ve always been passionate about; that I’ve always wanted to adopt and that my heart is full of concern for children without parents.

It is important to me that adoption not be seen as “the answer to infertility,” because there are many ways that this perspective is unhealthy to the family and unfair to the adopted. I do not believe that adoption is only for infertile families. I want to be the noble, sacrificial self that people assume of adoptive parents.

And yet…and yet.

I did not come to the option of adoption by compassion or self-sacrifice or passion or choice. I came to it because of my life circumstances.

It was a long journey from attempting natural conception to infertility testing to adoption; a long road littered with grief and loss and confusion and shame. It is an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

And yet…and yet.

Our messy and unconventional story opened our minds first and then our hearts to a child that isn’t biologically ours.

My life experiences leading up to our infertility gave me no context for anything other than a traditional family and biological children. I could not imagine loving or bonding with a child with whom I didn’t share a biological connection. I was too afraid of the risks of adoption to move beyond them. I had spent years—my whole life, really—constructing a dream that did not include adoption; all my expectations and hopes had taken a different route. When infertility set fire to this life map, I found myself utterly directionless.

Infertility was the cause of my confusion and disorientation. It was the cause of my loss and the death of certain beautiful dreams.

And yet…and yet.

It was also the compass that redirected me. It was the sign pointing me in a new direction: because I knew the places I could not travel, I also knew the places where my feet could move forward. Adoption was new territory that I had not considered, would not have considered, without infertility’s presence in my life.

It feels very risky to say this out loud, but I know it to be true in my life: I am thankful for our infertility.

Over the six years that I screamed and kicked and wailed at infertility, wishing it a horrifying end as if it were an embodied thing, I never once considered that I might say those words…that I might actually associate gratitude with infertility. But I say it now with whole and pure conviction.

I thought I was being denied a child that was the product of our marital love; my adopted son is absolutely a product of our love. I thought I would feel disconnected from a person who did not share my features, my DNA, my blood; my adopted son is as close to my body as my own breath. He is the child that I dreamed of. And yet, I didn’t dream him up. He is a gift that I did not truly ask for or expect.

I am grateful that God saw my whole story and was faithful to see it done. Did he make us infertile so that we would consider adoption? Do both pain and joy come from his hand? Or does he simply work joy out of the pain that the world gives us? I don’t understand these mysteries. I love this little boy with my entire being. He is a gift I did not imagine or deserve. The process of adoption, living in an open adoption, being his mother…these things are doing something in me that is full of beauty and power, that is making me a more open minded, honest, tender, compassionate woman.

I don’t understand these mysteries. But I see my story becoming so much bigger, so much more exquisite, than the one I had in mind. I am grateful for the agents that helped to shape it. Yes, including Infertility.

Friend

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weeping-willow-2-1919.jpg!LargeThe following poem was written by Willow. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorrow is the friend
you never wanted.
She patiently knocks
on your door,
silent as the sunset.
You let her in,
because, really,
what choice do you have?
Sorrow stays for dinner,
and you finally look into her eyes
and see her.
Somehow she seems safer
than you imagined.
You had braced yourself
and battened down the hatches
and now she sits across from you,
not demanding anything .
Just there.

November Focus: Gratitude

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Infertility is not a path willingly chosen. It is wrought with pain, loneliness, grief, and loss. And yet, it is possible to have joy even in the midst of the struggle. Infertility can bring into a life things one might consider blessing: connection, perspective, growth, redirection.

Over the month of November, our stories will explore and cultivate a sense of gratitude for the infertile experience. We hope that no matter how painful, confusing, heartbreaking, and dark your journey towards parenthood may be, these stories  will bring a breath of hope and possibility into your life.

The In-Between

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wtua8kmThe following reflection was written by Cherry Blossom. 

Once you finally have a child after years of struggling with infertility, you find yourself in a very strange place. It’s hard to describe because it’s a place that doesn’t really have a definition. And despite being on the other side of the struggle of infertility, it’s still a difficult and uncertain place to be.

Before you get pregnant and you’re stuck in the painful mire of frustration and anger and sadness that is infertility, you can connect to a community of people that are going through the same thing. You can lean on them, vent to them, gain advice and encouragement. Despite how badly I didn’t want to be dealing with an unexplainable inability to have a child, I found comfort and strength in the community of people who were struggling with me. It was a sort of an underground group as infertility is somehow still a social faux pas today, and that only served to knit the community closer together and it was my place to grieve openly and share the struggle of trying to find joy in the sorrow. Then it happened. I got what they all wanted, and suddenly that was no longer a community where I belonged.

I was lucky enough to have a successful round of IVF and my daughter was born about three and a half years after my infertility struggle began. It was so easy to think that once she was born all the little and big things I mourned for along the way would just disappear. I mean, I would finally be a mom and I would feel whole again and I would be just like every other woman with a baby, right? On the outside, that’s exactly how it looked. That’s what made the place I found myself in even stranger and much more uncertain and painful.

I struggled a lot with anxiety the first few months of being a mother and I did my best to hide it. How dare I complain about this truly amazing gift? No, I was not tired. No, I had it all under control. Yeah, right. I wasn’t completely alone as I had friends that were there for me in their own way. They were still struggling with infertility, so it was difficult for them. I longed for and badly needed a community.

I tried out some mom groups. I sat there with my baby and listened to them talk about being stay-at-home moms and discussing their plans for other children. I felt like a fraud. I didn’t belong with these women. I had such a different relationship with how I became a mother that I felt like I couldn’t join in with their carefree chatter or even confide in them on how hard parenting was. I felt like it wasn’t allowed to be hard for me. I had put so much more pain, tears, and money into getting my little one. How could I ever find my place with these moms? And it surely wouldn’t have been fair of me to go back to the group of women I found such comfort in during my infertility journey as they were still grieving.

So there I was. Stuck in between.

Family was also quick to forget the agonizing journey I went through to have a child. It’s not something they want to discuss or relive because the baby is here and everybody should be happy. That fact only served to reinforce my belief that I had to put on a brave face and just be happy and completely in love with motherhood and my baby. I felt like all the grief and loss meant nothing because I finally had what I always wanted. I wanted that to be true.

My daughter does mean everything to me. She has completely changed me and shown me a type of joy I didn’t even know existed. I am so incredibly thankful for her every day. The waves of anxiety and sadness for the loss still hit me, though. I observe this beautiful little creation I have been wonderfully blessed to watch over, while still bearing the scars of past and future struggles. Holding joy and sadness at once is an odd feeling.

I still struggle with connecting completely in community because there isn’t a clear and easily defined one to fit in. Maybe that’s okay. It isn’t easy feeling like I am stuck in between communities, but I am lucky to be reminded by the women that have entered my life during these difficult days and even before them, that I am not alone. While the pain isn’t as ever present right now, the bolder of anxiety is starting to creep up again as my husband and I approach discussions of trying to grow our family. The place I am in gets even stranger and scarier when I think about working through infertility in the shadow of my active little toddler.

Infertility hits on so many different levels. The anxiety that follows it can throw you into the past or the future. We cannot change things in these places. When I am able to look up and take a step back and see the women who are in my life, and who care for me and listen to me, I am able to realize what I have here and now. I still worry and wonder if I will be able to grieve any future loss with my old community of struggling women that once gave me strength and comfort. I don’t know that I’ll ever fit there again in the traditional sense. I also don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I belong to the normal mom club, whatever that means.

Through all of this I have found that community is never perfect. It doesn’t need to be. It’s in that imperfection that real connection is found. I realized that feeling caught in between was often made better by me simply reaching out and asking for help and letting my friends respond. The chapter I am in is scary and uncertain but also joyful, silly, and even graciously mundane. Such is life with a toddler and such is life living with infertility issues.

 

Forever Changed

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poppy-flower-images-and-wallpapers-34 (1)The following reflection was written by Poppy.

Infertility has forever changed me . It has changed who I am as a woman, wife, sister, friend, and now, a mother. I hate to admit this, but I let it become my whole identity at times. I feel that I will always identify with a woman going through infertility because I was her for such a long time.

I want to be open from the beginning: I’m currently pregnant and will deliver this precious baby very soon. Even this far along, I still have a hard time letting it sink in that my husband and I are going to be parents. That is because of the struggle it took to get here. Infertility has forced me to leave naivety about pregnancy, delivery, and motherhood by the wayside and know that anything can happen at any time. The farther along I am in my pregnancy, the more I find myself worrying about the health of our baby, knowing what a miracle it is to have a healthy child. In many ways, infertility has left a dark place in the back of my mind. A dark place of worry that our dream of parenthood will still not come true. I have battled this every day since my nurse called to tell me I was pregnant. The things that my friends and I have gone through will haunt me for the rest of my life. I don’t want to have this knowledge of all the terrible things that can happen! But not knowing would mean that I hadn’t discussed my infertility with others; wouldn’t have heard others’ stories or been part of the network of incredibly strong ladies that surrounds and supports me; would mean that my husband and I had made this difficult journey alone.

We had nothing but “failure” over 9 years and 1 month of trying to conceive. Only negative home pregnancy tests, no fertilization with IVF, “bad eggs,” and BETAs of 0 following IUIs. Adding to the stress and heartache of it all were a handful of doctors with conflicting messages—either I was “fine,” or my body was not working properly and we should not attempt assisted reproductive technology (ART) again. We did not know who to listen to or believe. It was heartbreaking and at times, unbearable. Over all those years, my hope of becoming a mother via pregnancy constantly waxed and waned. For a while–maybe the first 5 years of our journey–my plans revolved around becoming pregnant any minute. Vacations, vehicle purchases, long-term plans, even the clothes I bought! When I finally let this way of thinking go, it was difficult, but felt ultimately freeing to not plan around something we couldn’t anticipate or predict.

Trying for that long does something to your psyche. Particularly the feelings of uncertainty and inadequacy have never left me, even after being pregnant for almost 9 months. I never expect those feelings to leave, no matter how many of our dreams come true.

The more noticeable my pregnancy has become over the past few months, the more self-conscious I am. I’ve been very judicious with Facebook posts regarding this pregnancy because I know I have Facebook friends that are still trying. When I’m in public, I wonder about what other women are thinking when they look at me. Do I make them feel angry? Jealous? Despairing? In no way do I want to evoke in others the feelings that I used to get when I saw an expectant mother in public. I hate that infertility has done this to me. I would love to enjoy this time to the fullest, but it’s difficult when I know there are so many women out there who would love to be where I am.

Despite the joy of my pregnancy, I still have a hard time being happy for my “fertile” friends when I see a pregnancy announcement. It’s such a terrible thing to begrudge someone else’s path in life, and I realize that. I try my very best to think of them what I hope people think about me: ”I don’t know what she’s been through for this child.” Just because I consider them fertile doesn’t mean they haven’t had their own struggles related to getting pregnant or otherwise. Happiness and excitement should be my first reactions, and I beat myself up over my envy and frustration that this happens so easily for some.

If you struggle with infertility, it can change you and the way you see the world—whether you tried for almost a decade, or for a year before achieving a successful pregnancy, infertility is heartbreaking. It takes something natural and makes it clinical. It takes a private exchange between lovers and puts it under scrutiny. It dismantles dreams and replaces them with the uncertain and unknowable. It breaks down identity and expectation, all while being physically, emotionally, and financially taxing. In a way, your perception of the world is re-wired, and I have found that not even pregnancy can put things back where they were.

If you are struggling with infertility, it will very likely impact you the rest of your life. No matter where your journey takes you, a piece of you will always identify with your struggling brothers and sisters. Even as I sit here feeling my precious baby move around in my belly, it’s easy for me to go back to those dark times when I thought this would never happen, or let that darkness bring worry into the vision for our future. Please know that it is perfectly normal for the traumatic moments, heartbreak, and despair of infertility to stick with you. For better or worse, these things are part of your story.

One Who Understands

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pic_windswept_hawthorn1The following reflection was written by Hawthorne. 

We couldn’t have children. That’s what the doctor said. Technically, we couldn’t have children without major medical intervention. We had done that for years already, and I was so, so tired. We had done everything–fertility drugs, multiple I.U.I.’s, two rounds of IVF. My emotions were worn raw and my relationship to them, and to my body, so tenuous. I hadn’t been able to trust my emotions in years: The hormones coursing through my body from the injections I took in an attempt to regulate my body’s broken reproductive signals made me doubt everything I felt and thought. I was done. Three years of trying was enough for me. My heart couldn’t take it anymore.

We quit trying to have kids in November of 2016. It was one of the hardest moments of my life, and for a long time I could do nothing each day but wake up and remember that I was not alone and God was with me. I had no hope in a future that held joy, and everything, even breathing, took effort. Then, slowly, my husband and I started to heal. We had sweet time together. We had great conversations about why we had wanted kids in the first place. We decided to adopt. My heart for adoption grew even bigger as we learned more about the process, although there was definitely fear in that as well. We went through the process and were put on the waitlist for a baby.

And then I got pregnant.

Out of the blue, without intention, without warning. And I couldn’t believe it. My initial reaction was disbelief, followed by anger and grief. I couldn’t talk to hardly anyone about how I felt because my emotions didn’t make sense to anyone I knew–including my husband, although he tried to understand. I didn’t know how to explain to him that I had moved on. My heart had closed to this desire, and to get pregnant after all that just made me feel like the whole infertility experience was a total, meaningless waste. It reminded me again of all the pain of constant disappointment, the constant fighting to not feel rejected by God, and the grief of my early miscarriage.

I think somewhere in my mind I had become a new person after infertility. A person who couldn’t have babies…a person who had been shaped and built by grief. A person who could understood people’s pain and could empathize with others. Honestly, pregnancy made me feel like God had hit the restart button on my life. It felt like he was saying “Oops, my bad, that’s not how it was supposed to go for you! Hang on a sec!” It felt like all the truth and beauty I had found after healing from infertility was a lie. It felt like God had just played with my emotions for four years. It felt like my pregnancy meant my infertility was a giant mistake, honestly, as opposed to some harrowing and horrible journey I had gone on that had ended somewhere good. In my mind, it negated the whole experience.

It took me a long long time to be able to verbalize any of this. No one I knew could help me figure out what I was feeling, and honestly, most people in my life were just super confused about my attitude toward being pregnant. They were overjoyed for us, and so was my husband, but for me it took almost my entire pregnancy before I could believe and feel pregnant. Even then, I dreaded anything stereotypical, from baby showers, to people touching my belly, to getting attention from people. It all made me feel so, so sad and I didn’t know how to communicate to anyone how I was feeling. I felt guilty about the whole thing. Honestly, it was perhaps the loneliest part of my journey toward becoming a parent.

My son was born recently, and parenthood has been so sweet. I am so in love with this tiny person. His birth and being his mom has validated how sweet and real and normal a desire it is to be a parent and has validated how real a loss infertility is for people.

I wish that I could put my experiences in a neat package and give them a purpose. I wish I could say why God made us go through all of that pain if it was going to end the way it did. It was, honestly, meaningless in many ways. But pain often is. Not all darkness leads to discovery and not all tragedy is part of some beautiful story. I wish it were, but I think to do so would be a disservice not only to myself but to everyone who has gone through infertility.

God is not necessarily teaching you something, building you into a better person, or going to give you something “better,” although that may end up being a result of your experiences. He is not preparing you to be a better parent or teaching you a lesson for some past sin. If you do get pregnant, it is not because you did something to earn it or because he has decided after all to “bless” you. This may rub people the wrong way, but listen to what I do believe:

God is with us through it all. He is not toying with us; he is grieving with us. He is our constant companion in a broken, sin-riddled, and painful world. He is showing up and holding our hearts when everything is just too hard. No matter how our stories end, He has promised to be there with us and to hold us as we heal. He is not the grand manipulator teaching us lessons as he jerks our puppet strings. He is our friend, our suffering Savior, and he is the only one who can truly understand our hearts.

 

October Focus: Infertility’s Legacy

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Although from the outside, having a child, adopting, choosing to adopt or choosing not to have children might seem logical ends to infertility, there are many ways in which infertility has long-lasting, sometimes life-long, implications for a person. This can be seen in the challenges of the adoption life, the on-going grief of infertility losses, or the continual uncertainty and strain (physical, emotional, financial) of assisted reproduction. Often, people who find themselves in this new arena—not technically in the infertile community, but not strictly belonging anywhere else—experience deep confusion and loneliness.

 Over the month of October, our stories will explore some of the many ways in which infertility can very much be a part of a person’s life even when they have entered parenthood or have made the choice to follow a different life path. We hope to give a picture of what this looks like in the personal life, to resonate with those going through it, and to give a sense of direction for those wanting to cultivate understanding and sensitivity towards a loved one in this emotional place.

E for Epiphany

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forsythia

The following reflection was written by Forsythia. 

This story contains spoilers for the film and/or graphic novel V for Vendetta.

I am a Christian. At the heart of my chosen doctrine is the foundational belief in a sovereign God who is crazy in love with me, to the point of great personal sacrifice—his beloved son Jesus. This belief undergirds all other aspects of being a Christian, and so when it is in question, all things are in question.

How can a good, a loving God withhold from me something as natural and beautiful as motherhood? It wasn’t long into trying to get pregnant that this question sprouted in my mind. Years later, its roots were firmly about my worldview. This question—an unresolved doubt about my God and his character—became spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually paralyzing. I found myself either struggling to believe what the Bible said about God’s goodness, or what it said about his power. For how could suffering exist of both of these things were true? It was causing me to abandon the thing that most gave my life purpose, hope, and meaning, at a time when I needed those things the most.

About 5 years into infertility, I was just starting to read the Bible again, and found myself stuck on a chapter in Galatians that spoke about the gift of suffering. I happened to be wrestling with this idea in a lull at work, texting with my best friend as I tried to reason it out, to understand, to make sense of my suffering.

“Is it possible that what feels like torture could actually be love?” I processed with her.  

And then in the room next door, a professor started up a film his class had begun earlier: V for Vendetta. I am so familiar with the film that I could picture its exact images as I listened to the dialogue, sound effects, score. It’s one of my favorites, but I hadn’t thought of it in a while.

There’s a part in the film when the principal character is in prison being tortured for information. She endures this for days, though she has nothing to offer them, until finally, she is told she will be executed. But what happens next is that her cell is left open and unguarded. She ventures out of the prison to discover it was not a prison after all. It was a charade, designed by a man named V.

“You tortured me? Why!” She screams. “Leave me alone! I hate you!”

V explains that it was the only way to free her from the fear that enslaved her—to subject her to what she most feared so that she could face and overcome it. “I wish there was another way,” he says.

Disbelief, rage, grief, betrayal, relief, and pain converge and she begins to hyperventilate. V takes her to the roof. There, she stands in the rain, breathing in the fresh air and feeling it all as though for the first time. She realizes that V has actually accomplished what he set out to do. The absence of fear has made her world big and vibrant, full of possibility and beauty. Fear was being used to take her life from her. Overcoming it allowed her to reclaim it.

It’s difficult to express how much this moment in my life—exposure to this scene as I was grappling with the question of suffering—impacted my relationship with God, and how much it shifted my attitude towards my circumstances and renewed hope in my heart. Not only did it open my mind to a new way of seeing my story, but it represented my pain, disbelief, confusion and heartache in a cathartic way. The scene in that film gave real emotional teeth to a concept that I was just barely able to consider intellectually at the time: that it could be possible for the hardest thing in my life to be the only way for me to reach a place in life that I was meant to reach.

This new perspective was life-altering. It helped me to see beauty and possibility in my story where before I had only seen punishment, anguish, pain, and meaninglessness. And it showed me anew the possibility of the God of the Bible that I had so fallen in love with: personal, loving, powerful.

I can’t claim to fully understand the mystery of suffering and God’s place in that reality. It’s not a new question, and one that has no easy answer (perhaps not even an answer the human mind will ever be able to comprehend). But I do know for my husband and I that if we had not been made to die to our dream of biological children, we would not have opened our hearts to adoption. My adopted son is not just a child. He is a specific, unique human being. I cannot comprehend a world without him in it. Yet, he was not what I yearned after for so many years–not the face I pictured, not the reality I prayed for. I couldn’t see the future , didn’t know to wish for this special little one who would become my little one. But I believe in a divine Someone who sees past, present and future at once. He witnessed our every grief and loss, and he also knew the unspeakable joy that this exact child would bring into our hurting hearts.

Was the suffering of infertility the only way we could have received this incomprehensibly precious gift? It’s hard to hear. It’s hard to explain. It’s hard to comprehend. But I believe the answer is yes.