RAD: All About the Babies

June 16, 2010

RAD: All About the Babies

Here are some questions I am asked on a regular basis about us and babies:

1. How did you finally get pregnant after five years, treatments?

Well, it all started with a special hug . . .

Ok, not that version.

We did one round of Clomid chased by an adventurous moment in time with Intrauterine Insemination. Good times. Didn't work.

I cried for a month straight. Dehydration set in. Chup said, "No more treatments" in the same intonation as "No more monkeys jumpin' on the bed."

So we took the faith route. We prayed to our Heavenly Father about it. One day while taking our dog for a walk, I had an impression that we'd have babies. I say impression because it was a thought in my head that infused a solid sense of peace on my soul. It was a revelation divinely implanted. I felt absolute joy in the quietest part of me. I knew. I knew we'd have babies.

Then I forgot/lost hope.

Then I remembered.

Then I forgot/lost hope.

Then I had dozens of signs from the universe backing up the original answer to my prayers.

Then I came to conclusion where I decided to be happy even if I didn't have faith to believe we'd have babies.

Then we were pregnant.

By-the-way, should you be in the same boat, I believe Heavenly Father will answer your prayers if you ask. He will patiently guide you to parenthood. Listen to the thoughts He sends to your mind and heart. If they are messages that induce chills, host butterflies in either the throat or stomach, or fill your being with sheer happiness they are of God. If they are messages that seem impossible, miraculous or just a little bit scary they are of God. They also can be simple waves of quiet confidence in knowing you are headed in the right direction. Anyway you feel it, trust it. Believe me, trust it. Even/ especially when you forget/lose hope.

And there you go.

2. What advice do you have for those experiencing infertility?

A while back I wrote an email to a reader who was asking about how to endure the internal commotion of not getting pregnant when everyone else seems to do so effortlessly. This is what I believe about this particular trial:

I am so glad you wrote me. I know exactly how you feel. And I guess having been on the other side of things I can tell you that these emotions that you are feeling are sanctifying you for motherhood. This is how you are preparing for babies, how to be strong and withstand confusion, sadness and wild emotions (all of which you will feel with more intensity as a parent, I suppose). I can't tell you how grateful I am for the challenge of fertility, it made me a much better person than I would've been had my baby come to me without the five years of emotional adventure. And when I hear of other woman experiencing the same, I am a little heart broken, but mostly happy for them because it is an opportunity to grow an expand in both empathy and compassion.

The hardest part (as you know) is having to talk about it. I had the line "We will take babies as soon as the Lord wants to send them." If you put the Lord in your corner, no one can contend with that, right? But it was also nice to have a community of family and friends praying for us. It never hurts.

Also, it sounds like my husband was much like yours (and a lot of husbands are) they are not equipped with our mother's hearts, and don't feel the monthly loss so keenly. But I learned to appreciate my husband's stability and even lack-of-emotion (though not at first, I wanted him to be just as sad as I was) because it balanced me out.

But most of all, it really is about the Lord's timing. He knows when that baby needs to come to you. Clomid or not. The trick is to enjoy your life in the meantime. Indulge your husband and sleep in as much as you want and love yourself if/when your period starts.

Of course, this is all so easy for me to say now. But I am telling you the things I needed to hear when I was right where you are now. Mostly that us unexplained infertility sisters? We're the lucky ones.

3. Would you do another non-medicated birth? And if so, WHY???

Here is the deal about that whole deal.

Now that I look back on Ever's birth I see things a little more clearly.

The pain? Hmm. Yes it hurt. It was pounding and brutal. Then there was the part when I felt my body split in two . . .

But.

But it wasn't the physical pain that astounded me about that experience. For me, the pain? Meh. It was shortly lived and gone the second the baby left the (fleshy) building.

But.

The pain coupled with the metaphysical?

Holy.

It was the stretching of my spirit that really shook my core. The psychological impact that comes from going to a place where earth meets heaven and tiptoeing along that blurry line of life and death. It was the part where I felt the weight of something so huge, so much bigger and more fantastic than anything I could have ever imagined. It was closing my eyes and seeing a checkerboard sphere rolling around like I was viewing pure energy at a molecular level. It was completely psychedelic and strange and completely awe-some.

And when I think the physical feeling of my body splitting open I also think my spirit was doing the same. In that process, my spirit made more of me to be able to contain all of that experience. Like a hand inside a latex glove, I was filled with humanity, expanding, extending, magnifying. I was more. And I will never get over the residual memories--they still astound me.

Are you kidding me?

I can't wait to do it again.

You have to see Chup's photos here: