Marinating in wait

I thought I was a pretty patient person. It took me 9 years to gradate from college ... with my bachelor's degree. The extraordinarily long Saturday afternoon checkout lines at Costco don't get under my skin. I once spent six hours taking public transit to get to and from a Sunday morning church service (and church is nearby and the sermon was short!) When I'm teaching somebody something, I actually enjoy the awkward silence that comes as I watch the wheels of understanding crank in their head. For many things in life, my patience allows me to enjoy the new found spare-time that surfaces in those drawn out experiences ... not so with infertility.

When you have lost four babies and many months out of the year represent: one of your pregnancies, one of your losses, or one of your estimated due dates ... you don't want to experience another minute of being without the child, the children, that you and your husband so desperately want. It is very painful to experience those sad milestones with only grief in your heart.

For those of you that don't know: infertility = waiting, and it's so hard.

I get desperate and angry ... and really, I'm obsessive. I don't do patience well in infertility. I want to will a baby into my life. Maybe I can accidentally forget one of the cycle-prep birth control pills that I'm taking so that I can just get pregnant now. I get fuming and stubborn with Berilac when he refuses to comply with my suggestion of changing our fertility plans 180 degrees just because I read an article one day that advertised the latest and greatest way to have a baby. I spend time calculating things like 'if my cycle unfolds like this, and I get pregnant on this day, then I'll be due on this day' (Yes, I have it mapped out to the day).

All of this fussing around is getting me nowhere. I'm making no progress. There's nothing I can do to make the forty-some-odd days fly by faster, until my next egg retrieval.

Romans 8:24-28 says:

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

This struggle is full of waiting. Romans 8:25 says it best: But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

So here I am waiting. What else can I do? I can't change that. So how can I approach it differently? Am I really going to choose to struggle and suffer more. (And boy, I'd like to - I'm extra good at moping.) But I really believe that God has something better for me in this time. Instead of thinking: "I can't stand sitting around doing nothing while I wait for this next cycle to come - I'm going to strangle somebody," I'm trying to replace that thought with: "Each day that I wait, I am one day closer to meeting the child or children that will one day be in my life." So although I feel like I'm acres away from making progress on the IVF front, regardless, I'm getting closer and closer to our blessing(s!)

While I wait, I'm trying to reconcile this with God. Not exactly a "why me?" scenario, but more of a "what are You doing??" Sometimes I'm angry at God, sometimes I feel like I pray with no response, and sometimes I have no idea how to even start a prayer. I can't even bring myself to put the words together, Romans 8:26b says: We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. How many times have I found myself curled up into a ball, sobbing ... like the silent sob - the one where your hubby can't hear you when he's laying right next to you, but your body can't not convulse ... that's serious crying. So I'm going to be real while I wait.

And I'm going to be hopeful and I'm going to cling to His promise from Romans 8:28: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. While I'm marinating in all of this, I'm not going to try to lie to myself. This might not end for us in a child of our own. When this passage is talking about God working together for the good for those who love Him, He's not saying that those who love Him will get their very own biological child. And that's a hard pill to swallow. So I'll work it down my throat, while I'm waiting.

Marinating in wait: patiently, honestly, and without fooling myself.