For those of you new to my blog, I sometimes write about matters related purely to my books and creative writing. At other times, I write about personal matters. Today is on the personal side.
Many of you may remember my blog posts regarding Albert and my infertility journey. Can you believe that many of those posts are already a year old? It’s already been a year since all our procedures ended, and today, as a form of reflection as well as memorialization of our last baby, who passed around this time last year, I wanted to share some of the positives and negatives that developed in our journey post IVF.
Let’s start with the positives.
I’ve healed physically. As you may recall, by the end of all our IVF procedures, I had reached a level of unhealthiness that I’d never experienced in all my life. It truly felt like living, black muck was inhabiting my body, something large and parasitic that had a heartbeat separate from my own, something that shouldn’t have been there but I couldn’t get out because it had fused with my blood and guts. I’d gained 10 pounds in a single year due to all the hormones and eating poorly. (IVF sucks up time and energy like no other, so we ate out continually. I also turned to food when stressed because eating yummy things was one of the few things I had bandwidth and physical ability to do in order to feel happy.) Even going to the paradise that is Hawaii last year had proven to be extremely taxing for my wrecked body.
I embarked on an intense fitness journey as soon as I was able to, actually around a year ago now too. And praise the Lord, I lost not only the 10 pounds I’d gained, but 10 more pounds after that for a total of 20 pounds in less than a year. I’m around the weight I was when we got married now! (We’re seven years strong into our marriage. Man, time flies!)
My fitness journey was not only physically healing, but it also sharpened my mental toughness like no other. Just the ability to do physical things again and to an extent I’d never explored or considered possible was a huge morale booster. As I kept ticking off one fitness goal after another, I learned the value of a can-do attitude in all areas of my life. I became more sure of my ability to conquer challenges, physical and mental. I’m proud of myself for reaching the fitness goals I wasn’t able to reach even when I was perfectly healthy. I have irrefutable, physical proof that I can bloom in adversity.
I also gained more spiritual clarity post IVF. I came to understand heaven in a way I hadn’t been able to before. Before IVF, heaven had been a fuzzier concept for me. I knew that I was going to heaven after I died because Jesus saved me, but at the same time, heaven always seemed so abstract too. It was hard to picture a place so different than earth, and perhaps because it was hard to picture, it was hard to visualize myself living in heaven for all eternity. Heaven felt more like head knowledge than intimate knowledge, like something you never experienced personally but could still write a research paper on.
Also, over the years, I’d grown a paranoia of my life entering dire and difficult circumstances again. (I think one of the tell-tale signs of trauma is the constant fear that terrible times will loop back into your life someday.) I feared that years even worse than my adolescence and young adulthood would arise, and they’d come with a vengeance for all the years of peace I’d now enjoyed. I feared that Albert would die (and my imagination would go into full creative writing mode and conjure up some very gruesome and tragic ways in which he’d die), and I’d be left a widow, who would struggle all my remaining days just to survive, then decay into an old woman, abandoned by friends and family and shoved into an abusive nursing home, where I’d rot a living death, old, sad, and utterly helpless.
Life so often seems like a series of parabolas containing highs that then descend into lows before climbing up again. But for some reason, I’d become obsessed with the question of “what if?”. What if the last decades of my life were a continuing decline or even a spiral downward that ended on the lowest note possible? The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) haunted me in particular. I just couldn’t get over the fact that though Lazarus ultimately went to heaven, he had suffered long and hard on earth. In some ways, he only knew suffering in life. Even dogs came and licked his sores. But he didn’t heal. He didn’t become wealthy and live a long and happy life like, say, Joseph from Genesis. He just died. On the street. Hungry and ailing and alone. And that was it.
What if that was me?
After all, I’ve never been immune to bad circumstances. In fact, I’ve had so many bad and downright crazy situations come up and bite me when I least expected it. They were like rapid dogs coming in from all sides and just wouldn’t let me go no matter how hard I tried to fight them off. I’ve never been an exception. I’ve always been part of the rule. And the rule of life for those born without a silver spoon so often is that you must suffer. What if my life ended like Lazarus’s? What if I descended into hell on earth again, but this time, there was no Albert waiting for me, no more of my life to live? What if I lived and died in the lowest of lows?
I think it’s tempting to say that I’m overthinking or worried for nothing, that nothing bad is going to happen and I just need to have faith or think positively or not think at all. But the thing is, you really can’t tell me with a one-hundred percent guarantee that I’m wrong. You don’t know what life is going to throw at me next, and you can’t promise me that I won’t suffer anymore in the future. If there’s anything I’ve learned from all my suffering in the past, it’s that it can always get worse. You should never expect that you will be an exception to the rule. Life is harsh. People like Lazarus have always existed and still do, even to this day. And Lazarus suffered and died. Period.
But after losing all our children and finding my own peace in knowing that they are resting in peace … that they are, indeed, in heaven … heaven got … well … super real. I have actual children waiting for me in heaven. And for some reason, perhaps it’s a mother’s love transcending the boundaries between heaven and earth, maybe it’s just the Holy Spirit, maybe it’s because Scripture plain says so, but I know my real and actual children now reside in heaven, and when that clicked, heaven became actual and real in a way that it just hadn’t been for me before. Heaven can’t stay abstract when you know without a doubt that there are people up there you’ll finally be able to reunite with. Heaven becomes a greater longing and hope that dispels even the darkness of suffering and death.
I know I will see my children again someday. And it is this hope and anticipation to finally, finally hold them in my arms, to have them with me in a way I couldn’t here on earth, that conquer any fears of what my life will look like at the tailend. I could die a horrible death, have dragged out years of suffering, but honestly, I’m not terrified at the prospect anymore.
Yeah, life can really suck, and I am not going to be at all happy if the last decades of my life are long and hard. But even those years will eventually end, and at the end of life, no matter how low that parabola might reach, because I have heaven to look forward to, I’ll always be destined to end eternity on a high note, just as Lazarus did. Because the point of the parable isn’t so much that Lazarus merely suffered and died as it is that he did, indeed, suffer very much, but in the end, he went to rest peacefully forevermore in heaven. So even if life sucks, my story will always end with hope.
I will be with my children again. I’ll be with my Savior in the flesh. The fact that there is, indeed, something wonderful after death has become so much easier to understand. After all, what can be more wonderful than finally meeting my children and even God, who created them? I finally understand on a deeper level that I really have no need to fear the sting of death.
My relationship with Albert has also grown and strengthened post IVF. During IVF, I’m not going to lie, we had some rough, rough patches, and parts of me had a lot of lingering bitterness because he failed to support me in the ways that I not only wanted but also needed during the emotional and physical rollercoaster that is IVF. But now that we have that space that only time can create, that distance between us and the things that hurt, we’ve been able to talk more about it, and in talking and reflecting, I’ve come to understand that yes, Albert had failed me in many ways. Not just during IVF, but throughout our marriage. Sometimes, he made mistakes. Sometimes, he was just being ignorant. Sometimes, he just plain failed to do the right thing.
But I realized that none of it was from lack of trying. Albert really was trying his best, even in dark times of failure. When he couldn’t be there for me, before, during, or even after IVF, it wasn’t from lack of love. It was because he’s an imperfect, flawed, and limited human being, just like me or anyone else. Despite our best intentions and maximum effort, we can still fall short. And yes, that does have negative consequences on the ones we love, and I do have to deal with that. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me. It doesn’t mean he’s evil or that we should get a divorce. It just means that life is hard, but we still have God, who looks after us despite all failures, and we have each other. And as time continues to flow on, I think I’m starting to understand my husband more and more for who he truly is. Not just the best parts of him, but the parts of him that do fail and do make mistakes. But I still choose to love him, because I understand and accept him for who he is. I think that’s a big part of true love.
Having been in an abusive relationship before, though, it was terrifying to think like this. How many times had I excused behavior that was unacceptable just because I loved this abusive man? How much suffering and how many regrets could I have avoided if I had simply been “smart enough” to walk away sooner? But after IVF and everything else both Albert and I had to go through, we ultimately drew closer to each other. I know better than ever that I can trust Albert, even though he can fail. My trust and love for him is less and less contingent upon whether or not he’s failing me. He is not my abuser. I shouldn’t judge Albert’s love for me based only on how well he can avoid failure and the unintended suffering I must often go through as a result of his failures. I think forgiveness is a big part of true love too.
Even with all the growth in our lives post IVF, though, it’s still hard at times. There’s one part of my body that still feels just slightly off after IVF, and after getting tested yet again, I’ve come to accept that nothing’s particularly wrong with me but I’ll probably have these weird changes for the rest of my life because I went through IVF.
More than anything physical, though, there are the ups and downs emotionally. There are still days I stand in front of the mini memorial I made for my children in the guest room and tear up thinking about them. Especially as autumn comes with its gold-tinted air, I can’t help but think of all the loss and hurt that we endured around this time last year. I can’t help but think of our last baby in particular, the one I almost cast aside but ended up loving so much and who went up to heaven early September of 2024.
I really wish my children were here with me.
I tried to assuage my grief by telling myself that not having kids does, indeed, allow for more time and opportunity. I don’t think I would have had time to publish my book if I’d had a kid, for example. (And thank you all again for supporting me and buying and reading my book! Your support has been such a bright light that’s helped dispel even more of the lingering remnants of darker times.) But even though I’m so proud of my book and am relieved and thrilled that it’s finally out in the world, and even though we have more time and money than if we’d had kids, the truth is that none of it can stand as a replacement for the children who could have been.
Infertility is for life. Even once the procedures and attempts to conceive are all over, even when you have time and energy that new parents can only dream of, it doesn’t mean that it’s truly over. One of the suckiest parts of infertility, maybe even more than going through all the active hard times, is being forever stuck in the passive hard times. Let me repeat: you’re stuck being an infertile couple for the rest of your lives. That journey never ends.
Even with the happiness and freedom that come with more time and opportunities, there’s the sadness of seeing your friends slowly drift into another stage of life that you can never enter. Their time runs on a totally different schedule than yours, dictated by the stages of their children’s lives and needs. They get to love and grow in a way that’s only possible with having children. You feel like you’re fading into a black-and-white version of yourself as your friends brighten and bolden in their own colors along with those of the precious, little lives they’ve created. It’s a lonely feeling, not just for me, but for Albert too.
A lot of the times these days, we feel a little lost. If we don’t have the organic blueprint for the future that comes with having kids, what do we do? How do we fill the void that we thought would be taken up by our children? It’s been a struggle to slowly wean myself out of the habit of taking mental note of anything that might be a good influence on my future children or something that might help them develop into a successful adult or influences I want to shield them from. It’s been hard to accept that there’s no need to think like that anymore and to find other thoughts and interests to fill that empty space, which widens with every passing day.
There’s the awkwardness that is sure to arise every time a pregnancy is announced or something to do with kids comes up. Your friends don’t know how to act in front of you. You appreciate their concern but hate the awkwardness. It feels like no one will ever truly understand this special kind of loneliness in which you’re genuinely happy for the friends who have what you cannot but you all still feel sad, each in their own way, because of loss, because of the inability to share that same stage of life. It’s a strange type of being left behind because no one wants you to be left behind, but we’re all powerless to the situation regardless. It’s a sadness that’s shared but cannot be helped.
Yeah, it can really suck. But you know what? It is what it is.
It just is what it is.
And as much as it’s strange even for me to believe that I can actually be this chill about the whole situation and sum it up so simply, I really am chill about it. Sure, it sucks, and I still need to heal and process and deal. But I really have accepted my circumstances and simply repeat the mantra of “it is what it is,” especially when I feel my emotions stirring up to unhealthy levels.
Another blessing that came out of physical training and fortitude was the relishing of hard work. I’ve always been a hard worker and taken pride in it, but there’s just something about pushing yourself physically that unlocks a whole other world of mental fortitude that just isn’t possible without pushing your body to an extreme limit. And in that newfound mental fortitude and that readiness to accept whatever grueling external or internal work that’s at hand, I somehow was able to reaffirm that I don’t deserve anything from God. I don’t want to be entitled. I don’t want to seek pity. I don’t want to look for someone else to deal with my problems for me. I’m not afraid to grow stronger, to keep moving past the bad times, to deal with the cards I’ve been handed. I want to have more faith in God and try my hardest in life.
Sometimes, you try your best and it doesn’t work out, and that’s it. There’s no need to overthink things. It just is what it is. To use the age-old proverb of all those toughened-and-probably-kinda-ghetto survivors out there: sh*t happens, man. And that’s just part of life. That’s just part of being an adult. Suffering sucks and should be acknowledged and supported and healed. But I refuse to wallow in sadness. I’m ready to be an adult. I am an adult, and I am determined to be one, not just look like one. I am a mother, and I am better than this. I want to be someone worthy of my children whether they’re dead or alive. I have suffered much in life, so I am capable of handling it. And handle it I shall.
So, how am I doing a year later? It depends on what day you ask me, to be honest. But by and large, I’m definitely doing well. Both Albert and I are doing well despite the continual, guaranteed ups and downs. There have been a lot of triumphs despite all the losses. Life moves on. Sure, I still have things to process and figure out, but that’s part of life too. It’s all just part of being an adult. And perhaps, the ability to accept this fact cooly and calmly in and of itself is a triumph as well.
