beautiful things

November 1, 2010November 1, 2010 / emmykay / Leave a comment

This morning at church they played a song by Gungor called “Beautiful Things”. The lyrics were really simple, but really poignant:

All this pain / I wonder if I’ll even find my way / I wonder if my life could really change at all / All this earth / Could all that is lost ever be found / Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things / You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things / You make beautiful things out of us

Even though we are pregnant now, I still think a lot about our struggles with fertility. I think about how tested I felt and how alone, even in the midst of knowing quite a few people going through the same things. I think about how often I wondered why we were going through this challenge.

A lot of the time, I think about how I could’ve done it better.

Maybe I could’ve been more positive and more optimistic. Maybe I could’ve made it easier for the people around me by not talking about it or by talking about it more or by talking about it more positively. Maybe I could’ve put on an attitude that was happier and more joyful, even when I was hurting.

And I kind of wonder what would’ve been accomplished.

It’s been occurring to me more and more the importance of reaching outward in difficult times and of being honest about where I am at, even if that location is not exactly lovely. Glossing over feelings and putting up a front of being happy and in control is great if my goal is to make people feel like I have my crap together. But it doesn’t do anything to draw people in, to connect with others or build community. Of course, I believe there is a time and a place for being emotionally honest (ahem, losing it at work is not an option).

And then I think of Frank.

Frank loves to help people do projects around their homes. He’s really good at helping, too. He is much more coordinated than I am, so he is definitely more of an asset than a liability in pretty much any home improvement project. He is smart, but he is not someone who thinks he has all the answers – which means he’s willing to problem solve and take direction.

Whenever he’s been asked to help with something and he’s not flying, he willingly and joyfully obliges.

And the thing about when he helps people is that it builds community. He gets to know the other guys he’s working with and they usually feel like they are closer friends for having done the work. I would argue that it is more effective for guys to build relationships working alongside each other than it is to go on a double date with their wives/girlfriends.

It’s just how guys are.

But imagine if no one asked him to help? If everyone could just do it on their own?

I have a friend Rose, who you’ve read about here on my blog. She and I have struggled with starting a family for some time. She’s probably one of the sweetest girls I know. And I doubt we’d be as good of friends as we are if we had not struggled through this fertility stuff together. If she had said, “yeah, everything is WONDERFUL for me” and I’d lied and said the same thing, we’d probably never know each other as well as we do.

We share in the struggles together. We cheer each other onward. We rejoice and we grieve together.

I would also suggest that sometimes it’s the small things that bring us together. Yes, the holidays are a great time for families to come together, but I also think that casual Tuesday night dinners and birthday dinners and celebrations of day-to-day things also brings us all closer.

So I don’t think I did the fertility stuff perfectly. I didn’t keep myself together in a perfect little package of happiness. But I don’t regret the struggle.

The song at church today reminded me that God uses all of this life we live to make beautiful things. Out of the dust of our sadness and pain, God has grown friendships, strengthened our marriage and rooted us more deeply in our faith. Our God is a faithful God, no matter the circumstance.

discipline

May 29, 2010 / emmykay / 1 Comment

I’m not a very disciplined person in a lot of respects. I try very hard, but because it is not ingrained in my character, I often FORGET to be disciplined.

And last week was a week of discipline.

Something I’ve had drilled into me in my professional life is to nip things in the bud. The minute something goes down a wrong path, and before it becomes a habit, you have to nip it in the bud. Because I don’t like conflict, this was a hard one for me to learn both as a manager and as coworker. But I have found that people respect you more for speaking up early rather than letting something carry on. Not saying anything is often viewed as permission-granting.

I’m not perfect at this skill, but I work on it. And because it runs counter to how I would prefer to live, it takes a certain amount of emotional energy.

The other thing I’ve had to get better at is disciplining my thoughts. This has been on-going since I was little. When I first started working on this, I was struggling with anxiety in school. I would get the syllabus on the first day of school, and see that on the last day of the class there would be a… gasp… FINAL EXAM and I would start wondering how I was going to pass that test. Seriously? I hadn’t even been through the course yet.

As I’ve gotten older, and hormones have gotten crazier, I’ve had to work on disciplining where I let my thoughts go. For example, my dear husband has a horrid schedule for the next 3 weeks. I’m not going to get into the details for safety issues, but it is TERRIBLE. Plus, he is supposed to get awarded a base closer to home, but the guy who posts the final awards WENT HOME EARLY on Friday, even though the company stated that it would post the results on Friday at 4 p.m. CST.

My natural bent is to go down the, “We will never have another holiday together. We will never have another lazy Saturday together. We will never …” And I definitely start down that road, but then I make myself remember that in a few years I will have mostly forgotten this time that we are going through and that it WILL get better. Sometimes it takes a huge amount of emotional effort to turn this attitude around.

But it is always worth the effort.

bah.

December 17, 2009 / emmykay / 4 Comments

I don’t know what else there is to say about the BFN today. I was hoping that some elegant words would come to mind, but most of the words that have come to mind have been less than elegant.

Mostly the words are born out of frustration and anger. Oh, and a ton of sadness.

This month was more difficult than most. It marked a full year of trying. Yes, I totally understand that most people try for a year before they think something is wrong and get checked out. We were just fortunate (or unfortunate?) enough that it was evident that we had a problem on our hands four months in to trying.

For the past eight months I have been on and off of Clomid. I have been stuck and poked and prodded countless numbers of times. I am pretty sure I could give myself an ultrasound if the technician were to accidentally pass out.

This is not how I imagined how this process would go.

I know that I am blessed beyond comprehension in so many ways. I remind myself of that daily when I get sad or upset about this situation.

But this situation just sucks.

BFN

December 16, 2009 / emmykay / 4 Comments

I’ve learned a lot of fertility lingo in the past year.

TTC = trying to conceive

Luteal Phase = time between ovulation and the next menstrual cycle

Trigger Shot = an injection of hormones to trigger ovulation

BFN = Big Freaking Negative pregnancy test

Today was another BFN.

I don’t even know how many BFNs we’ve had in 2009 because I had some weird cycles – 12? 13?

It’s getting old.

2.2 miles of therapy

August 4, 2009 / emmykay / Leave a comment

I think running is therapy for me.

It’s me, proving to myself, that I can run. I can make it each quarter mile further.

Each step is me not caving.

Each step reminds me of the verses in the Bible that say to rejoice in suffering and trials.

Each step reminds me that because I took one step, the next time it will be easier and faster and lighter.

People have said that you run against no one but yourself.

And that’s true.

But you also run for no one but yourself and because God gave us the ability to choose to run.

I run for me and to be closer to God. Even if I say nothing and He says nothing, it’s sort of like an aligning of me with His Spirit.

I run as fast as I can mentally and physically and emotionally.

Tonight I started crying while I was running, but I kept going. I ran through the tears and found a good pace and felt better.

I was crying because the thought occurred to me that the saddest and hardest part of what we are going through is the thought that if we don’t have children, who will tell future generations how much Frank and I loved eachother? Who will tell future generations the great things that God has done in our lives?

And you know, I don’t have anything else to say about that. It’s just sad. And yeah, maybe we will have kids. And maybe we won’t. I think I’m just sad.

The cool thing about running is that sometimes it gets really hard. Sometimes I think, “I just can’t go on, I’ll never make the next mile.” And then, I push and I make it. That gives me a lot of hope.

So maybe right now it’s hard and I’m just sad, but I will persevere. And God’s Word says that perseverance builds character and character gives us hope.

In sadness I can have hope. And that is awesome.