Is This What Handing It to Christ Feels Like?

I wrote this on Holy Thursday - just now getting internet access to post.

I’m on an airplane again. This time it’s a fun trip. I’m meeting my sister and my niece for a Triduum/Easter getaway to the University of No.tre Dame, a nice little tradition. I have no doubt that this will be a very wonderful time of closeness to God with feelings of peace and hope about what’s to come. I will be sure to light a few candles at the grotto – one for me and my family, and one for all the other families dealing with infertility in some way.

I have a good girlfriend that experienced fertility problems for about 18 months. She’s 26 weeks this week with a healthy little boy! God is truly good and works miracles. I was the one who encouraged her to learn more about her body and start charting, and that led to some treatment that helped them conceive naturally! It has been so great to have someone close to share this journey with, go through it with her, in a sense. 

She’s on the other side of the journey, but I still know that she absolutely gets what I’m going through.

We hadn’t really chatted since my last surgery (I had filled her in on how it went and what the next step was, but that’s really it) until yesterday. I only had about twenty minutes to chat, so I tried my best to summarize how I’ve been feeling, about my upcoming surgery in particular. After getting off the phone, my husband, who heard the whole conversation because we were in the car together, said that I had told my friend things about how I was feeling that I hadn’t shared with him, which concerned him.

After thinking for a moment, I realized that giving my friend a summary forced me to, well, summarize the day-to-day feelings, emotions, and revelations I’ve had over the past month, and that sounds very different than what Kris Kringle and I chat about day-to-day. He was satisfied and understood this explanation, and really, my explanation was a revelation to me. If he hadn’t heard my conversation with my friend and brought up his concern, my words to my friend would have probably been forgotten, and I want to remember them. So, here’s what I said to her.

Emotions I’m not having: excitement, anxiety, hope, hopelessness. I am simply not allowing myself to believe that this surgery will happen and I’ll magically have regular cycles and get pregnant right away. Lord knows that is what I would love to happen and have prayed for, but I just don’t believe that will happen. I have had so many disappointments so far, that I’m almost getting used to it. It’s like I’m preparing myself to experience the least amount of disappointment possible. I’m thinking about adoption more frequently in the last two weeks than I have in the last several months. I have this feeling that there will be more to it than this surgery.

I think this is what giving it over to Christ feels like (I realized out loud to KK a few hours later). I’m not indifferent, but I definitely accept that the outcome of this surgery isn’t really in my control. It’s up to my brilliant medical team and God. So, I’m going to do what I can and leave the rest up to God. That way, I’ll already be sort of on the road toward acceptance if the outcome is less than favorable to our dreams of conception, and I’ll be more surprised than anything if this ends up being the last or one of the last stops on this chapter of infertility. Any sort of miracle (especially the miracle of conception) is welcomed and will be celebrated, and I do believe in miracles (just not my ability to influence or predict them).

Seriously, I think I’ll be ecstatic if I get a period on my own after surgery. I will be just as excited (maybe more?) as when I got my first period at nearly 16 (when I thought it would never ever come). Anything above that will blow my mind and be recorded in the Kringle Family History as an absolute miracle.

God, I know You know I want to conceive a child with my husband more than anything, but for now, I’m going to continue to focus on giving this burden and the uncertainty of my health to You. I really do trust that Your will is what is right for us. Thank You for the strange calm/indifference (for lack of a better word) I am experiencing. Please bring peace to my husband, for I know he is very worried about me and my health. Keep us close to each other and to You.