Tag: Forsythia

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.

 

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. 

 

A Balm to the Lonely Heart

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forsythiaThe following reflection was written by Forsythia.

Infertility is an isolating thing.

I have spent hours upon hours this week trying to flesh out that statement. I have written countless drafts of this narrative attempting to explain where this isolation comes from, what it looks and feels like, how to prevent it. It has eluded me again and again. It is extremely complicated, nuanced, personal, and hard to express.

But here goes nothing.

My isolation in infertility was caused by being left out and left behind; by thoughtless, insensitive, well-meaning but often asinine comments; by cultural and religious expectations I couldn’t fulfill; and plenty other external forces. I could describe each one in painfully perfect detail.

But there’s another side of the story, too. Inadequacy, shame, guilt, fear, and despair constantly came between me and community from a strong, internal source:

I found myself believing, truly believing, terrible lies: I was too fat and ugly to be pregnant. I was not a real woman unless I was a mom. My life mattered less than those who were parents. My infertility was a punishment. These things filled me with guilt and shame. I was deathly afraid that they might actually be true, as ridiculous as they sound. But, I was too embarrassed to share these fears and my inability to be open about them kept me locked inside myself.

I was constantly comparing my life to those around me, creating a false hierarchy that separated me from others. In addition to isolation, comparison caused me to feel shame and self-pity when I didn’t measure up and pride and self-righteousness when I determined myself superior. My heart was soaked through with bitterness, and I could not see the beauty of my own story for lusting after everyone else’s.

The relationship between joy and grief in my life was basically impossible to explain. I almost never experienced one without the other for years and years. When my siblings were becoming pregnant with their first, second, third; when I watched my parents love on their grandkids; when friends were enjoying their newborns and telling birth stories–I felt happiness, joy, excitement, interest. But if I were my authentic self, not just the socially-acceptable version with a smile and the right words, I would have to admit that these feelings were always tempered by pain and grief. I was embarrassed to feel this way. I constantly berated myself for not being able to be purely happy for those I loved. I told myself that I was selfishly making everything about me. Nevertheless, the feelings didn’t change. It was a part of my process through loss and, as a friend recently reminded me, “there are no shortcuts through grief.” This struggle was a huge part of my day-to-day life, and fear of judgment or rejection kept me from being honest about it.

These kinds of thoughts, feelings, experiences are corrosive if handled completely alone. Because isolation is so easy to slip into, and is cultivated by both outward and inward forces, I know no other remedy but the constant pursuit of friendship—even with just one person. This is a two way street: it is a meeting together of two hearts both willing to be absolutely honest, and committed to sticking around despite the messiness. It’s hard to be alone when someone is consistently pursuing the heart of you, demanding openness and authenticity even when you don’t feel like giving it to them.

Such friendship must be earned through lots of listening, sacrifice, patience, reciprocal vulnerability, and consistency. It’s hard work, but even one such relationship is a balm to the lonely heart—indeed, a spring of water to a person dying of thirst.

Safe to Dream

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forsythiaThe following reflection was written by Forsythia. 

April 2013: My husband and I had been through a plethora of tests and doctor-visits that hadn’t brought us any closer to answering the question that burned in our hearts: can we have children? 

At last, we were on the brink of something that was going to give us definitive information–it would, it must, how could it not? We were going in for a biopsy. On the one hand, we were eager for the procedure and the answers it would give. On the other, we knew that it could be bad news as much as good news.

As the date approached, I felt I must prepare for the worst. We had so many dreams about our children–what they would look like, who they would take after, what we would name them. These dreams felt dangerous to hold onto. I decided that I would do something symbolic and purposeful to help myself let them go–something I’d been thinking about for a while. The idea was “better to let go of my own volition than have these desires ripped from me in our doctor’s office.”

I planned it all out. I would walk a local prayer labyrinth, giving myself time to meditate and grieve as I walked slowly to the center. Once there, I would light candles to represent those dreams that were hanging by a thread: the names of our wished-for children; the vision of us as parents…And when I was ready, I would snuff them out, walking the labyrinth out with my heart prepared for “come what may.”

The story of what took place that night can be found on my blog Leavingteaching.wordpress.com. In vague language–I was not open about our infertility at the time it was written–the voice of my 2013 self shares about wild hope. It does my heart good to revisit that narrative, to be reminded of the unexpected gift I was given in a moment of great need.

My purpose for the labyrinth that night was reversed on me. I felt clearly in my spirit that I was not meant to snuff out my dreams–that it was not my job to determine which desires for my life would come to fruition or when or how they would happen. Instead of blowing out candles as I let dreams go, I found myself lighting candles as I dreamed. Each time I blew the flames out, it was to light more. I dreamed and dreamed on into the night, with exuberance and gratitude. I lit a candle for each of the children we wanted, and those we never imagined; for the places we would live and things we would do; for our marriage.

It became clear to me that cool April night that it was safe for me to dream. I had meant to let go of these things because they felt dangerous to my heart–what if they didn’t come true? But an understanding was given to me through this experience: that dreams are only dangerous if I rest the weight of my soul on them. The same is true of anything finite in this world–fame, money, power, even relationships, love. If I chose instead to entrust my heart and my life to the unchangeable, powerful God of the Universe who loves me like a daughter, then nothing was lethal to me–not the death of a dream, not even death itself.

Looking back–my 2016 self reflecting on my 2013 self–I see that God has been faithful to the revelation that he gifted me that night. That even in my darkest moments, even when I couldn’t believe in hope, my dreams, my very heart, was safe in his care.

A Loss of Autonomy

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forsythiaThe following reflection was written by Forsythia.

There are turning points in my infertility experience that will stick with me forever. Even for memories that I view differently now, their potency is as alive and near to me today as it was then. One of the most powerful of these moments is when I realized that the only choices available to us in order to grow our family required including strangers in a very intimate part of our lives. And not just temporarily—these strangers would be part of our journey for the long haul.

For six years, my husband and I had been letting go of the picture in our heads of how our children would come into being. One option after another presented itself and drifted away. Before we felt ready for it, we were spending countless hours picking apart adoption and its implications. In this process, we found ourselves drawn towards embryo adoption. Our first concept of what this would look like for us included anonymity. We were still grieving the loss of our dream for biological children, and the only way we could wrap our minds around bringing an adopted child into our lives was to think of them as ours–which is to say unattached from anyone else.

Our doctor told us that the most challenging part of embryo adoption would be finding embryos. We could go through an agency that would double the price of our procedure, or we could be wait-listed for an indeterminate length of time. Months before this appointment, we’d been told through a third party about a couple in our city looking to adopt out their embryos. What had once seemed like a random happenstance suddenly felt like a miracle. We immediately started pursuing more information about this opportunity.
Our mutual friend relayed that this couple was very interested in connecting, but asked that we meet with them as a next step. We were wrestling with so many fears associated with adoption—questions of attachment and interference and uncertainty—and we hoped, perhaps truly believed, that we could avoid many of these challenges if we entered into a closed adoption. I was so angry when I learned of their request. Having a child felt closer than ever before and this felt like an unnecessary, even selfish, roadblock between us and that possibility.
We took some time to carefully consider before responding to the donors’ request. During this period, I was standing in my kitchen with a good friend, processing the intense emotions I was feeling about whether or not to pursue this particular embryo adoption. As through a fog, I sensed an emotional block obstructing my path. I could not name it, but it was keeping me from moving forward. My friend asked one pointed question after another and I struggled to express what I was feeling. When I finally named the mysterious block, the words left my lips before my brain could even process them:
I want a child that is just ours! I don’t want anyone else to be involved, but those are our only options. 

As with most of my infertility losses, I was blindsided by this realization. It was a particularly hard one to admit because it was a complicated mix of justifiable and unjustifiable emotions. Saying it aloud helped me to see that my grief over this loss was the source of the anger I was directing towards our potential donors. The full weight of this loss settled over me, and I wept in the arms of a friend who let me feel it without judging or trying to fix me. The anger dissipated.

We saw a counselor and I attended an adoption support group for several months. We quickly came to see not just the validity, but the potential healthiness of the donors’ desire to be connected–for our child’s sake more than anyone’s.

It is difficult for me not to minimize the effect of this loss–one of freedom, of autonomy. My instinct is to downplay its trauma: Even this loss had its gain, though it took me a very long time to see it. But while I was waiting for things to make sense, this loss was a very real death. For me to have the desire of my heart–something so many around me were achieving naturally–I had to surrender independence. For whether we chose open or closed adoption, someone other than us would be part of the life of our child in a complicated, unique way.

We said yes, entering into an arrangement that required us to die to the things we had always known and imagined about this part of our lives, including a certain independence. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. We mourned our dying dreams and began to let them go as we stepped into the unknown, not certain where our feet would land.

The Loss of Connection, part 2

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forsythiaThe following reflection was written by Forsythia.

 

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares.”
–Henri Nouwen

As I evaluate the losses my husband and I have accrued through our infertility journey, the most obvious one to me is the death of our dream to have biological children. There are so many other losses attached to that, from seeing our features in a child’s face to what the process of conception looks like.

But as a new mother to an adopted son, there is another great loss that haunts me. It is powerfully devastating: a heart-aching loss I never anticipated. I am reminded of it especially in the daily text exchange between me and my best friend, Dogwood.

She is my go-to on any manner of baby-related subjects:

Did you ever have trouble with your newborns being gassy or straining to poop?

At what age/weight did you move up to the next level of car seat, and would you recommend the one you have?

Did you use essential oils on yourself like normal even while breastfeeding?

And also the person with whom I share every sweet revelation or difficult moment:

HE’S SO COZY I COULD SNUGGLE FOREVER 

How silly all my fears [about adoption] seem now

He was rotten all night

She’s always there with a word of wisdom, solidarity, encouragement. The way she loves my son is breathtaking. Her willing, joyful, tireless involvement in this new stage of my life is a priceless gift.

This is a gift that I did not, could not, give to her.

When she was becoming a mom for the first time, I was in the early stages of discovering our infertility–in that brutal period of adjustment where expectations are shattering, dreams dying, hope dissipating. My husband was years away from the emotional stage of processing that I was in and I felt utterly alone. I was in shock and struggling with grief, and every new pregnancy or birth I encountered threw a giant spotlight on my wretched emptiness.

So when Dogwood called to tell me she was pregnant with her first child, it was indescribably painful. A hot wave of dread crashed over me. Tears flooded my eyes. Through a constricting throat, I managed to congratulate her and tell her I was happy, lying because I was ashamed of how I felt and because I believed it’s what she wanted to hear. Somehow, I kept my composure until we hung up, and then I called the only friend I knew at the time who had experienced infant loss, the only friend I could think of who might understand the weight on my heart. On the phone with her, I sat in a dark bathroom, trying to keep my tears secret from my husband as I sobbed uncontrollably into the receiver.

Soon after, Dogwood made me confess what my true reaction to her news had been: even then she knew me so well that concealing my feelings from her was impossible. That was one of our first and biggest fights; it was what I had feared would happen, but strangely, not for the reason I had feared it. Instead of being upset because her pregnancy had brought me pain, she was upset because I was pulling away from her, trying to hide my true self from her. I believe that this conversation set the tone for our relationship over the years to come. It was when Dogwood told me “I’m all in.”

I wish I could say that her willingness to walk alongside me in my pain made me more open to her joy. Perhaps it did in some ways; nevertheless, it did not make me able to be emotionally present in her early days of motherhood—with her first nor, sadly, her second child.

These days, as I eagerly send her a question regarding the daily rituals of parenthood, or text her a picture of the son I can’t seem to stop photographing, it is ever in my mind that she never had the luxury of sending me such messages. There were no phone calls or texts venting new mom frustrations, and I knew she was careful about expressing excitement and love for her children to me.

Infertility comes with an astronomical price tag. In the thick of it, I was giving my friend everything that I felt able to give to her, and only now do I see how little that was comparatively. There are parts of Dogwood’s life that I completely missed; a season of her growth and experience as a person that I will never know. The grief of infertility took this from me, and I will never get it back.

I have no way of knowing to what degree this loss led to gain in our relationship: how much the honest working through of our pain, frustration, sadness, and joy has contributed to my longing to know her more and more. I cannot separate the two—I wish I could for her sake. But perhaps we’re not meant to.

I cannot now, nor ever will be able to express my gratitude towards Dogwood, and to all the others who allowed infertility to take from them so that they might have more of me.

The Loss of Connection, part 1

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IMG_1214

The following reflection was written by Dogwood.

Forsythia and I have a unique friendship: one of those once-in-a-lifetime connections. Our souls just recognize each other. She and her husband battled infertility from the start. She was never on birth control and was surprised many times at the beginning of their marriage when she was not pregnant. I remember the first time I witnessed a reaction to a negative pregnancy test. Forsythia had come over to hang out with my roommate and I at our tiny college duplex. She had stopped at the drugstore on the way to pick up a test. She told us when she arrived that it was just a precaution; her period could come any day and she didn’t think it would be positive, though she hoped it might be. We changed the CD, sipped iced tea, caught up on each other’s lives. Then, it was time to look at the test. We were all very excited at the possibility of a baby for our first married friends! We had a lot of hope that it would be positive, though there were questions of how they would provide and make room in their lives for a baby. I’m sure I held my breath as she walked out of the bathroom holding the little white stick. Sure enough, it was negative.

We all felt it–the loss of hope. Little did we know that my friend and her husband would never conceive a biological child. I could never have imagined what it would be like to walk alongside my best friend as she watched her dream of being a mother slip away. I was still a young woman and those thoughts were not in my realm of imagination at the time.

Watching Forsythia experience one loss after another was unbearable. I did my best to stick with her through the ups and downs of her and her husband’s uncertain journey towards parenthood. What this looked like was mostly listening and mourning with her. I shook my head at the awful things people would say to them about having children, and held my breath when mutual friends announced new pregnancies.

During this time, my husband and I received news from my doctor: “If you want to have biological children of your own, you need to do it now” (I was 24 at the time). They had discovered endometriosis in my uterus after an extensive myomectomy. We wanted children, but had planned to wait a few more years. I knew I wanted to be a mother and that I wanted to see my husband father our children, so our plans changed and we started trying to get pregnant as soon as I was recovered from my surgery. I got pregnant after trying for 2 months. Sharing this news with Forsythia was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. She and her husband were in the trenches of infertility: telling her that I was pregnant felt like sticking a finger into her open wound.

I was unprepared for motherhood; I was thrown into it by the circumstances of my health. I was excited and full of joy and could not share any of this with my best friend. Up to this point in our friendship, there wasn’t much we hadn’t shared. It felt strange and alienating to hide this really important part of my life from her. I had made many transitions in life with her by my side–graduating college, beginning a career, marriage–and now I was transitioning into motherhood without her. She could not come with me. I could not expect her to be happy for me.

My husband and I had moved back to our hometown shortly before getting pregnant. It was a lonely time for me for many reasons. I had my family, but I had no community–no one to walk with me into this very scary world of motherhood. I needed Forsythia. She was unavailable. I didn’t get to send her videos and pictures of my son doing absolutely nothing (that’s what most of those first pictures and videos are, after all). I couldn’t call her to vent about wishing my husband would hear the baby crying at night before me, or about the marital fights that this caused. I couldn’t ask her to come see us in the hospital after my son was born. I couldn’t call her from the hospital to tell her that I wanted to go home, or that I wanted my baby to latch properly so that my nipples would stop bleeding and my milk would stop clogging. I desperately needed her to hear how I was wronged by hospital staff and our doctor–how they stole the first hour of my son’s life from me. I needed her to cry with me and sit with me in the confusion and pain. She couldn’t. Her loss became my loss in an unexpected way.

Instead of sharing my life with her at this time, when we spoke it was mostly about what was going on in her life, and any part of my life that my son didn’t intrude upon. She did what she could; she asked about him when she was able to bear it. But I never dared go into much detail for fear of hurting her more.

Our friendship survived this dark period. I missed her and I know that I could have used her support during those first years of my kid’s lives, but I was able to forgive her for being absent at such an important time for me because I understood that she wasn’t able. I knew that if she could, she would. I trusted her heart.

Infertility does not happen in a vacuum. The pain, confusion, and loss of infertility will reach as a far as it is allowed. I willingly stepped into Forsythia’s pain. Of the losses I chose to endure, losing our friendship was not one of them, because I knew that the heartache was only a season. We are so apt to believe that what is now will always be. That is the lie we tell ourselves, a lie we must reject. As Forsythia and I faced loss together, I embraced hope: that she would be a mother; that we would walk that road together one day; that there was meaning behind the pain we endured. I gripped tightly to these beliefs for my friend, whose heart did not have the strength to believe them, but also for myself: what I was giving up was not in vain.