highs:
1. great test results and moving forward with iui. sa-weet.
2. fk – he’s been fabu.
3. cable. tv. (with DVR…. ohmygoodnessgracious – does tv get any better? i think not!)
4. septemberfest
lows:
1. being sick. and just when i thought i was over it… iiiiiiiiit’s baaaack
I think that sums it up…
Well, today, after almost a year of abstaining, the K fam has TV again.
And let me tell you – not even 8 hours into it, the K fam is already watching horrifically bad TV.
Oh, E!, how I missed you!
Why, oh WHY do I love the show Kendra? As we watched it, Frank’s IQ plummeted and he begged me to change the channel. He promised to rub my feet for the rest of my life if I could just, for the love of all that is good on this earth change the channel.
We watched Sound of Music for good measure and to atone for our Kendra watching sins.
But now we are watching The Soup on E! Like a moth to the flame…
and it is so good! I might just sleep downstairs tonight, bathing in the soft electric glow of our TV. Mmmmm.
Frank and I had a follow up meeting with our Doctor regarding the test results.
Not only did we move from the “poor” category (with one foot solidly in the “pregnancy not possible” category), our second opinion improved us to the “good” category. This means we are candidates for IUI (insemination)!
PRAISE GOD!
This is huge. If you recall, we were in a place where we weren’t even sure if IUI was an option for us any more. IUI is a FRACTION of the cost of doing a cycle of IVF. PLUS most of it is covered by our insurance.
God is Good.
Emma is part of my people. A long-gone matriarch who kept the family moving forward through the good and the bad.
She was born in Belgium and named Emma. She was my great grandmother. My mom thought Emma was a little too old fashioned, so she named me Emily. Emma’s maiden name is my middle name. We called her Booma. It means something in Flemish – probably a dirty word. Before asking a Belgian what it means, know that you could be saying something very offensive. And you might get slapped.
You have been warned.
I remember going into Booma’s room at my grandma’s (her daughter) house and spending hours of time with Booma, watching her crochet and stealing Starbursts and M&Ms from her kleenex box. Unfortunately she also kept some of her medications loose in the box. That meant that stealing the M&Ms could be a minefield if I didn’t look. I bit into one of her bitter pills once. Not a happy memory. I still regard M&Ms with a level of cautious optimism.
Booma was a legend in her own time: she left Belgium to escape socialism, to become Catholic and to leave behind the heartache of her fiance who was killed in World War I.
She met my great grandfather through an ad in the newspaper. I’d like to think that she would have used eHarmony if she were alive today. But she probably wouldn’t have been matched up with my great grandfather.
They were an odd couple.
Booma was short, maybe 5’2″. Her daughter, my Nani, was 5’8″. My mom is 5’10”. I am 6’1″.
Booma was funny. She was the one who told us that if we poured salt on the tail feathers of birds, we could catch them. She played tricks on my mom, aunt and uncles. She was wise and woefully undereducated. She worked in a button factory for many years.
Her biological legacy is alive and well with me today: I managed to inherit elements of her fantastic reproductive system. While Booma was one of 8 children, she only had my Nani. Booma had fibroids, like me. She had Nani via C-Section -one of the first in Chicago. Her fibroids also resulted in a hysterectomy.
She always wanted a large family and even though she didn’t have any more children after Nani, when she died at the age of 96,
she had
one daughter and a son in law
who had four children, who all married
and had 13 great grandchildren (9 of whom she met)
I have fond memories of Booma.
Once, when I was 5 and staying with Nani and Papa (Booma lived with them), I had to puke. I puked a lot as a child.
And yet I still love food so much.
Anyway, I had to puke.
I learned, at a young age, that my little thumb nail fit right into the locks of the doors in my grandparents’ house. And with just a little bit of finagling, I could get the door open.
So, like I was saying, I had to puke.
I didn’t give myself a lot of time between realizing I have to puke and then doing so.
I ran to the bathroom, but the door was locked – because SOMEONE was using it.
That someone was Booma.
No matter, I knew how to pick the lock.
And I had to puke.
Bursting through the door, my poor, dear Booma sat on the toilet, staring at me.
I don’t remember saying anything.
I puked.
On the floor.
Right in front of her.
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.
She swore in Flemish.
I cried.
She repeated over and over, “But I locked the door!”
Good try, Booma. That day she learned a lesson my parents learned many times over: if Emily has to puke, she’s going to puke. Right. Here. (And it will probably decimate everything in a 10 foot radius)
I still laugh when I think of the look on her face.
Booma – she is my people.
I love and appreciate when people say that they are thinking of us – it’s nice to know that people are remembering us and are hoping that it works out well for us. Kind thoughts are always appreciated and are not taken lightly.
What really knocks our socks off is when people pray for us. Prayer is such an active process of going to our Heavenly Father and bringing those people and circumstances that are on our hearts to Him. If you want to know what you can do for us, pray. And scratch Frank’s back – he LOVES it.
Whenever I see an ambulance go by, I generally pray for the people in the ambulance. Their day has just gone south if they are headed somewhere in an ambulance. I imagine that these ambulances fly to the hospital, leaving a comet’s tail of prayer in their wake.
A few years ago, when my dad had a stroke, the ambulance made it to my parents’ house in less than 3 minutes. Our neighbors didn’t know what was going on, but their family stood on their lawn and prayed for my dad. It makes my soul happy to know that my dad’s ambulance also had a comet tail of prayer on his way to the hospital. Along with the amazing emergency medical team and the doctors and nurses, I credit the people who stopped to pray for my dad with helping save his life.
During this whole fertility adventure, Frank and I have been so grateful for all of the prayers that have gone heavenward on our behalf. That is stinkin’ awesome!
A few days ago I emailed one of my friends who is an amazing prayer warrior. When she says that she is going to pray, it’s not lip service. She goes to the mat praying. Awe.some.
So I told her about our sitch and she said she’d pray. A few days later she emailed me and said, “This might sound weird, but God told me that you should keep praying (and listening). He is going to give you direction on your treatment and your children.”
What an encouragement! I was energized by this because so often, it’s not always easy for me to hear from God so clearly (that’s a whole ‘nother topic for a whole ‘nother day). The next morning I went for a run and I was praying and God said to me, “Be still and know that I am God.”
While that doesn’t sound like the answer that I was hoping for, it was what I needed. It calmed my heart and soul.
So I went on my merry way.
Then I got an email from my doctor. The second round of tests looked better than the first. We are candidates for insemination.
My goodness.
So I love when people think of us. It’s great and I don’t take that lightly. Some people don’t believe in prayer and so thinking of us is the best thing they have in their arsenal. And it means that we matter to them, which fosters community and love. I’m cool with that.
But when people pray, man, that is awesome. God hears our prayers and that is sweet.
I am posting this question and my response as a blog entry for two reasons 1) I’ve asked this question myself and 2) I am sure that anyone reading my blog has probably asked a very similar question. I just happen to have one dear friend who was brave enough to just come out and ask it and I love that she did.
The Question: “I’d be interested to know how God can see that having children is best for a teenager, still a child, but not for the many good valued, hard working men and woman on this planet who suffer with infertility? I admit, I will be your worst critic, but I am curious how that can be explained?”
This is really several questions rolled into one and I don’t really have an answer. I can address the question with my own experiences and what God has shown me through those experiences. And I can address the question with the knowledge I have about God through the Bible. But really, the only person who can provide a definitive answer on this question is God. That being said…
The first question seems to be why does God seemingly reward bad behavior, ie. teenage pregnancy?
This is an especially difficult part of the question for me. And the first thing I have to do is check my own heart.
When I was little and I got in trouble for something, I would often resort to, “Yeah, but she…” Wrong. Answer.
It wasn’t about what my sister or brother or neighbor did – it was about me. What I did. What I needed to learn. It’s not my job to be God, it’s God’s job to be God.
Even still, in arguments with my husband I find myself saying, “Well, fine, but last week, you did xyz.” And surprisingly (sarcasm), the arguments only escalate needlessly.
Still, dealing with a major issue, especially with our fertility issues, it has caused me to pause and wonder: How does a loving and gracious God allow a teenager to get pregnant easily while other, more mature and stable couples struggle?
I know that we live in a fallen world where people make bad decisions. Nowhere in the Bible did God say that we would live a life free of consequences on earth. As a Christian who loves Jesus, I know that my sins are forgiven in heaven, but often I have to deal with the consequences on earth. If I screw up, I have to own it and work through it.
People with children know that sometimes the best thing for your kids is to let them experience the consequences of their actions. Life provides the most memorable and deeply rooted lessons.
Based on my own experiences and what I’ve learned about God, this is what I think with regards to the pregnant teenager: anyone who has sexual intercourse runs the risk of getting pregnant. That is life. Sex is a very adult experience that has serious adult consequences. And outside of marriage, it can lead to unwanted/unplanned pregnancies and the spread of some pretty nasty diseases. I don’t believe teenagers are being rewarded with babies for their indiscretions, they are simply living with the consequences of it. How teenagers choose to handle their unplanned pregnancy will change their life and it will form a big piece of who they are. That is a mighty big consequence for a 15 year old and not something that I would have wanted to deal with at that tender age. But that’s what happens when participating in adult activities before you are ready to deal with the very adult consequences.
Second issue: so why do bad things happen to reasonably good people?
Alright, fine, maybe I can live with the answer to the first question. Maybe I can focus on working on me. Maybe I can live with the fact that sometimes people make bad decisions.
But what about people who try really, really hard to be good and don’t get what they want anyway?
For me, addressing this part of the question, continues to take a lot of soul searching.
Frank and I have a fantastic life together. We are mostly responsible (the occasional 18 month old tub of margarine not included). We think we could be pretty capable parents (but totally reserve the right to play pranks on any future children). We don’t smoke, we drink occasionally, and we’ve never even tried drugs. I mean, it looks pretty good and stable on paper – so why are we having such a hard time having kids? How is it that we haven’t earned biological children?
This, for me, comes down to my relationship with God and who He is and who I am.
I wish God was Santa Clause because then I could sit on His lap (does God have a lap?) and ask Him for a better metabolism. And smaller feet.
But he is not Santa Claus – and thank goodness (more cookies for me!)! I know that God is good, all of the time. Even when I am not good, He is steadfastly good. I know this from reading the Bible and I know this from my own life experiences.
It’s just hard to believe sometimes, especially when I am not getting what I want or my heart is breaking, it is hard to believe that. But then I see the evidence in my life of His goodness. I went through a lot of heartache with several guys before I met Frank. I know that if I stayed with any of those guys, I would not be as happy as I am today! But man, at the time, those break ups HURT. Ick.
I experienced a lot of the same with jobs, promotions, houses, family, etc, etc, etc. Things that initially seemed to be horrible, later turned out just fine.
I know, for myself, that no one deserves children. Children are a blessing. I cannot earn them, no one can. You can’t earn blessings. If you could, they’d be called paychecks.
And I am sure any parent reading this blog can testify that children are NOT paychecks – they are paycheck spenders!
If children were earned on a merit system, the world would look a lot different. A lot more people would have biological children that want them – and the fostercare system would probably be empty.
We know SO many couples struggling with infertility and many of those couples have been (and are!) a tremendous blessing to Frank and me. So many of these couples have shared their stories,wisdom, heartache, hopes and their sorrows with us and helped us figure out our own path. Without them, I would feel so alone in this and I don’t. So even in a time that could be full of only sadness, we have community, love and hope.
I guess the last thing I want to say about this (and this is really such a Reader’s Digest version of my feelings on the topic) is that I didn’t get to this point of view over night. God has been teaching me and helping me understand and providing before I even know what I need. And God listens to prayer. He may not do what I want Him to do, but the evidence in my life says that He always gives me His best.
I’m pretty ok with that.
We’re at the part of our regularly scheduled program where I start looking for loopholes.
Well, maybe not actively looking for loopholes, but today I thought one fell into my lap. At church, Pastor Darren Whitehead talked about Matthew 7:7 – “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you.”
My ears perked up. If asking was all it took then, man, I’ve been asking for a while. Maybe I just need to remind God of what I want. Maybe he just hasn’t heard what I was saying. Maybe if I just reminded him of this verse, He’d say, “Oh, ok, that’s right, you got me, here you go!”
As with everything in life, context is just as important as content.
Matthew goes on to say, “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ”
Parents do not seek to torment their children (well, bad jokes and green beans aside). Matthew is right – parents do not substitute horrible things for healthy things simply to do harm to their children. A rock instead of bread? A snake instead of fish? What loving parent does that to their child?
Because God is my Father, then surely when I have asked him for a child, He is not substituting it with an empty womb just for jollies. As a matter of fact, the last line of that scripture says that God our Father is even MORE generous than our earthly fathers.
So I come to a familiar place in my walk with God. I am faced with two opposing ideas: either God is who He says He is and I am wrong, or God is NOT who He says He is and I am right. In this particular case, the two options I was weighing were Option 1: God must not be a very good Heavenly Father OR Option 2: my brain cannot fathom the generosity of God.
Considering that so many things in my life bear witness to the great goodness of God and there is a 2,000+ year old book testifying to the grace and goodness of God, I have to say that Option 1 is not possible. While I’d love to recount for you the many times I didn’t get what I wanted, each of those times is perfectly balanced with God providing something that I hadn’t considered – and it was infinitely better than what I thought I wanted. And sometimes I didn’t get what I wanted just because it wasn’t good for me. Like chocolate cake for breakfast. Mmm.
Pastor Darren told a story about taking his 3 year old daughter to an apple orchard. She immediately ran to the apples in the grass and picked them up and tried to eat them. But the apples on the ground were rotten and wormy, and Pastor Darren took those apples away from her. He lifted her up and showed her the fresh, ripe apples in the tree that were infinitely better than the rotting ones on the ground.
So often I forget to lift my eyes and see the better fruit that God has for me. I am so focused on wanting an apple, I don’t consider anything else and run to the first rotting apples I see. And that helped me see that Option 2 is the accurate view.
But the problem with Option 2 is that I want children so badly that it can be so hard to realize that God has a bigger vision for my life, a better view and a greater story to tell. “What can be bigger, better, or even greater than having kids?” demands my temper tantrum throwing little self.
That just tells you how short-sighted and selfish I can be.
And the loophole closes.
So I showed Frank my previous post. He giggled.
As he read it, he giggled and repeated his own lines from the conversations.
And giggled harder.
He’s still laughing.
On our nightly ritual:
On driving:
Scene: Frank is driving. He is about to make a left turn, but hasn’t put his signal on yet or moved over. In reality, he is going to make the turn just fine. This is where I come in.
On sad one-liners:
Scene: driving past a “no outlet” sign.
Scene: driving past a “Slow Children Playing” sign
Scene: someone breaks suddenly in front of us.
On being panicked, looking for Frank’s log book
– hours later, Frank finds the log book.
On being sick.
Scene: The morning after Christmas. I roll over to see Frank still sleeping, but I get the distinct sense that something is amiss. What could it be? I wander into the bathroom and see what I can only describe as a small disaster. A bucket of – water? – next to the toilet. And the shower curtain – is it? could it be? – might be stained. I walk back into the bedroom and nudge Frank.
Note on scene: this was the direct result of 3 lbs of prime rib and 1 lb of his mother’s peacans. He can’t blame it on alcohol because, well, there just wasn’t any stomach space left for drinking at that point.
I think I am at the numb stage of this mess. I am not crying about it whenever I think of it, but it almost doesn’t feel real. A year ago, having children was a very real possibility, just on the horizon. We were working to position ourselves financially, geographically, emotionally and mentally for the prospect of having children.
The possibilities were endless.
When we started trying, I started thinking about the possible due dates. I would calculate the new due date, just in case that month worked. A baby in September of 2009 was the first due date I calculated.
That is next month.
And I don’t say that as a “Next month is going to be a mess emotionally, so stay away” kind of warning (although, I might be a mess next month – I make no promises). I say it as a way of marking time.
Then, now, and the space in between.
I was hopeful that when we went to Vegas, that when we came home, we’d be expecting a baby. May 14th would have been the due date. When I started to get hopeful, I thought about how wonderful it would be for a new baby and Frank to share the same birthday month. Especially if we had a little boy.
When we started this journey, this hope for a baby was wide and vast and full.
And as the days and weeks and months ticked by, possibility was replaced by reality.
What is.
It is SO tempting for me to think about what could have been.
But what is the use of that?
There is only what was, what is and what will be.
And there is still hope, hope placed in a future and born out of the past and present. Not hope placed in the woulda, coulda, shouldas. Real hope. Paul in the Bible says, perseverance in difficult times builds character and character gives us hope.
We talked tonight about the evidence of God in our lives. I look at my life and I see God’s hand moving in my life – sometimes vibrantly, sometimes quietly.
Being a mom isn’t about being able to bear biological children. It’s about the act of mothering, nurturing, growing, building and loving.
And being a follower of Jesus is about loving as He loved.
When I left Bible Study tonight, there was a song playing on The Mix and the lyrics of the song were:
Give me your eyes!
Lord give me your eyes!
Everything I keep missing.
Give me your arms!
For the broken hearted!
Give me your arms
Lord, give me your eyes.
(Brendan Heath, Give Me Your Eyes)
That song met me right where I was at, right at that moment. It’s about me (you, everyone) being after God’s heart. Loving as He loves. Being heartbroken for the things that break His heart. Celebrating the things He celebrates. Greiving what He greives.
I have a long way to go.
emmy kay and co. 