I Think I Understand Now

Yes, folks, this is going to be about the pregnancy issue. Again. But I'm mostly writing this stuff down for my own benefit, so I can go back and re-read it in the future, and remember what I've felt, understood, and learned. You don't have to read it if you don't want to.

I started off the morning by reading my patriarchial blessing, as well as the blessing Ben gave me last month when he graduated from UPT. Graduation was the beginning of a new chapter of our lives, after all. And it's a chapter wherein he'll be deployed a lot, so a blessing seemed like a good idea.

Anyway, I read both of those, seeking comfort and guidance. After I finished with them, I turned to my favorite passage of scripture, the one that always seems to be speaking to me. It's Doctrine and Covenants section 6, where the Lord is talking to Oliver Cowdry. I relate to those passages in so many ways, it's been kind of my go-to section of scriptures since I was in high school, for times when I'm struggling.

After I finished reading, I sat down and pondered things for a while. This two and a half years of infertility has been hard. I've spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, and wondering why everyone else around me seemed to be having babies while I couldn't get pregnant. It wasn't a fun time. Gradually, I was learning acceptance and patience, but it was difficult even so.

I realized today, though, that God doesn't just have a specific plan and mission for me. He has a plan for each one of His children. We're not just put on this Earth to have a good time and see how we cope with challenges. Each one of us has a purpose.

Taking that into consideration, I began to realize why I wasn't able to get pregnant. A child's birthdate determines a lot of their experiences in life. If they're born at one time, they'll meet certain people, make certain friends, and have certain experiences. If they're born at a different time, all of those other things will be different as well.

God gives all of us the start we need in order to complete our missions here on Earth. He's not going to send a child down at the wrong time, just because the mother is feeling impatient.

It seems totally selfish of me, now that I think about it. I was focused on me, on how the infertility thing was making me feel, on how I was being affected. I didn't really stop to consider that my children all have specific purposes in life, and that when they're born will be a big part of accomplishing those purposes.

Now that I see it that way, I understand why I haven't been able to get pregnant. It's not time yet. My babies will come when they're supposed to come, and not a minute earlier - no matter how much I may kick and scream and curse. (Not that I've ever literally kicked and screamed and cursed, but you get what I mean.)

It makes the whole situation a lot easier to handle when I look at it that way. God isn't giving kids to my friends because He likes them better. I'm not being punished for anything. God isn't witholding babies from me for any reason. He loves me, and I will be blessed with more children if and when it's right. I don't need to feel sorry for myself, or wonder what's wrong with me. I just need to be patient, and put my life (and the lives of my children) in God's hands.

I'm so grateful for my testimony of God, of Jesus Christ, and of the gospel. The gospel truly does make life so much sweeter, and so much happier. And I'm so grateful for the understanding that God has blessed me with. I just wish I hadn't been so stubborn about the whole situation - maybe I would have seen the answer sooner, and been able to spare myself some grief!

Live and learn, right? :)

Growing!

Good news, all! I'm growing as a person! Not so much physically, but emotionally.

As I'm sure you've all noticed, I've had a hard time being surrounded by pregnant friends since we started trying for baby #2, two and a half years ago. Sometimes it feels like everyone I know is pregnant - even though that's not actually the case. Still, it didn't help spending the last year in a young ward where there was definitely a higher-than-average pregnancy rate. Also, since most of my Facebook friends are around my same age, there are a lot of pregnancy/baby announcements and updates online. A lot.

It's been hard for me. That's no secret. There's not much worse than looking around and feeling like some kind of freak. I wonder sometimes what's so wrong with me, that I'm not Super-Fertility Woman (heck, I'm not even Regular-Fertility Woman). There are excited announcements popping up on almost a daily basis, but none from me. Even the people I know who have struggled getting pregnant have been successful in the time since we started trying again. It kind of sucks.

And sometimes people unintentionally say things that hurt, which makes it harder. A lot of people just don't understand what it's like, struggling with getting pregnant. I have a few friends who practically get pregnant just from their husbands smiling at them the right way. They're so fertile, they really can't empathize with me. They've never been in a situation anything like mine. That makes it hard for them to know what to say, and unfortunately they spend more time saying the wrong thing than being helpful, even when helpful is what they're going for. I try not to get too upset about it, because I know they mean well. But it still sometimes feels like a slap in the face, and it's worse when it comes from someone who's super-fertile and just doesn't understand.

Anyway, the lack of understanding coupled with the excess of pregnancies around me has made me very grumpy. I tell myself over and over again that I'm happy for my pregnant friends - and I am! I hope they all have perfect pregnancies and completely healthy babies. But I can't help feeling a little resentful, even as I recognize that the problem is not with them. It's with me.

It doesn't help that my friends are all so much prettier than I am, too. It's like adding insult to injury!

ANYWAY! The good news is, I'm growing. I've been praying so hard to let go of my envy and resentment. I hate feeling that way, and I know that I'm subconsciously driving a wedge between myself and my preggo friends. I don't want to do that! I really, really, really don't want to do that! I love my friends, and my own personal problems are not their fault.

I didn't think I was having much success letting go, however. As much as I tried not to feel jealous and mean-spirited, I couldn't help thinking angry thoughts sometimes. But I kept trying, and finally it seems to be paying off.

A friend of mine announced her pregnancy on Facebook today, and the only thing I felt was 100% happy for her and her husband. This is their first baby, and I love these friends, and I'm so happy for them. Even now, after it's had a chance to sink in, I feel completely happy for them. There's no bad feeling in me at all.

I'm not sure why things suddenly changed for me. Maybe it's because this is their first baby. Maybe it's because this particular friend has never said anything rude or thoughtless to me regarding my own situation, intentional or otherwise. Maybe it's because my body seems to finally be doing what it's supposed to do every month (this is my third month of charting my temperature, and the first that has actually looked like it's supposed to - which of course gives me hope that I'll get pregnant soon myself).

Maybe I'm actually growing up.

I certainly hope I am. I've been trying really hard for a long time now to reach this point. It's a much better feeling, being happy for people, than feeling resentful and self-pitying.

Let's hope it sticks.

Random Thoughts

I haven't written a blog entry in almost two months, so I figured that was reason enough to try and pound something out. I don't really know what to say, but that just means we'll all be surprised to find out where this leads!

I always get good ideas for blogs at night, when I'm falling asleep. Then, the next day, I can't for the life of me remember just what those good ideas were. It's more than a little frustrating.

Speaking of nighttime, and sleep, I dreamed last night that we hadn't moved to Little Rock yet, and that Ben was loading up two huge moving trucks with our stuff. He couldn't fit all of our stuff in, however, probably because he was just chucking everything in without trying to make it fit nicely, so it was this huge tangle of furniture and boxes. It was frustrating. And, in my dream, when I tried to get him to do it a different way he was like, "Who the heck are you? I'll do this however I want, you weirdo." So apparently we weren't married, either. I tried to remedy that by flirting with him and wearing cute, albeit moderately revealing clothes, but he wasn't interested. What do you suppose that means?

I really wanted to get Evie back into dance classes when we moved out here, but apparently they only take new students at the beginning of the semester or whatever. The schools in the area have already paid recital and costume fees for their recitals in June, so there's no way we could get a costume for Evie in time. That's probably the biggest reason for it. So we'll have to wait until we move to Abilene in October and hope it's not too late to enroll her then. I know she misses dancing, and I know she's bored with no one but me to play with, but I'm not really sure what to do about it at this point. Poor thing.

I watched The Incredibles with Evie last night. It was the first time I'd seen it in a long time. I'd forgotten what a fantastic movie it is. That part where they're on the plane, and the missiles are coming at them, and the mom is yelling, "Abort! Abort! There are children on board!" still gives me chills and makes me cry. As a mom, I can only imagine how terrifying a situation like that would be. Yeah, I'm a boob, I know. I cried a couple of weeks back watching My Friends Tigger and Pooh with Evie, too. I was listening to Kanga's voice and I thought, "That's how a mom should sound. Her voice is melodic, soothing, and totally maternal. I sound like a 12-year-old when I talk." That's when I found my eyes tearing up. That's when I realized that I was probably a little hormonal. Or crazy.

A lady at church gave a talk on Sunday (weird, I know!) and she said something that has really stuck with me - you know, over the past 4 days. Anyway, what she said was, "Blessings don't always come at convenient times." I'd never really thought about that. When you think about blessings, you think about things that make you happy, improve your life, etc. You think about things that you were excited to find out about. You don't generally think about things that made you go, "Oh. Okay." But it's really true! So many times stuff happens to us that we just don't want at the moment. Maybe it's an unplanned pregnancy, or finding a dog on the side of the road that needs a home, or getting a calling at church that you didn't really want. Those kinds of things are often inconvenient, and stressful. But most of the time, they turn out to be huge blessings as well.

I've been thinking lately about how it would kind of stink to get pregnant anytime in the next few months. That's not to say that I wouldn't be thrilled, it just would be more convenient if it happened at a different time. Ben, Evie and I want to go see our families for Christmas this year. We have a whole big vacation planned. Ben hasn't been allowed any leave time pretty much since he commissioned in the Air Force two years ago, so he's got a lot stored up. We want to use it to try and go to Idaho and see our families from Thanksgiving-New Year's. We're really looking forward to it! The thing is, if I get pregnant in the next few months, I'll be right at the end of my pregnancy at that time and wouldn't be able to go. That's not to say that it wouldn't be more than a fair trade, it absolutely would, it would just be kind of inconvenient.

But blessings don't always come at convenient times! As I think about it more, Evie's already going to be more than 4 years older than the next kid. Do I really want to increase that age gap? Heck no! The sooner we get pregnant, the better, as far as I'm concerned! I'm not even going to use the word "inconvenient" anymore, in relation to getting pregnant. If it happens, it will be a huge blessing, and will be 100% welcome and convenient. Yeah, it will be sad not to see our families, but it will be a fantastic reason for missing Christmas with them.

On the other hand, with my luck I still won't get pregnant and they'll deploy Ben so he can't have Christmas with us anyway. That's not really a blessing in my mind, so I can call it "inconvenient" all I want. On the other hand, Ben's being deployed would be a huge blessing to the people he'd be helping.

I'd still rather have him with me for Christmas.

It's kind of sad that I have very few super-close friends that aren't related or married to me. I know it comes with growing up in the military, but I think a big part of it is just me, as well. I was in Utah for 7 - 8 years, which is a good amount of time, but I still don't have any friends that I talk to more than once or twice a month. We send emails occasionally, but that's about it. It's kind of sad. We moved here to Little Rock two weeks ago, almost, and I haven't heard from any of my Oklahoma friends. It's lonely, starting over in a new place, and I don't feel like there are many people I can call. I'm sure if I did call, most of my friends would be completely thrilled to hear from me, but I think I worry about being an inconvenience (there's that word again!) to them. I worry that, now that I'm far away, they would feel like they were wasting their time, talking to me. It's an irrational worry, I know, but years and years of not hearing from long-distance friends has led me to subconsciously believe that once I'm gone, they don't really care much about me anymore. I am lucky, however, that I have a wonderful family - and wonderful in-laws! - that I can call if I really need to talk. I don't get to talk to them as much as I'd like to, either, but at least I don't worry that I'm imposing when I call them. Anyway, I wonder how much of all this insecurity is due to the way I grew up, and how much is just my nature?

The newest Fablehaven book is coming out next week, as is New Moon (which I still haven't seen), and The Princess and the Frog came out this week! March is a good month for entertainment, I guess. :) Also, apparently it's a good month for giving birth. I think literally half the people I know have March birthdays. What's up with that?

My thoughts seems to have finally run dry, and Evie's been in here 5 times to ask me for lunch (it's only 12:30 for crying out loud!), so I guess I'd better end there.

The End.