The Battle of Emotions

A few weeks ago, I reached into the bottom drawer of my bed stand and pulled out something near and dear to my heart – my fetal Doppler. This was one of all-time favorite purchases, a little treasure I’d bought when I was pregnant with Gavin.

At our 18 week appointment, we saw we were having a baby boy. Somehow it felt more real after that. We were having a son and he was going to make it! I felt a flood of relief wash over me. I’d been holding my breath for four months and could finally let it out!

Still, the worry would always be there. I’ve heard too many scary stories to know that scary things do happen and when you’re someone like me, you know they can happen to YOU and not just someone you know or a friend of a friend.

What better way to put my mind at ease than a fetal Doppler? I spent the fifty bucks and was so glad I did. Every day I would listen and feel so happy and peaceful knowing there was still a little life inside of me. It was very comforting.

But the Doppler wasn’t for me this time but for one of my friends. I pulled it out and started working my magic, trying to find a heartbeat on her pregnant belly. The little bugger couldn’t be found but we did hear him moving around in there with the Doppler and could feel his movements too. It was so fun to hear and feel him. I lent her the Doppler so she could keep an ear on him and enjoy the fun of it.

I’m so excited for her. This is her first child. She showed me his ultrasound videos and I loved it. I love thinking about names with her. I love asking her how the pregnancy is going and keeping tabs on her. And I’m so very excited to hold him when he comes.

This is huge for me - to be happy about her pregnancy, to enjoy it with her, to be excited to meet that little boy. I’ve come a long way from where I was.

Truth be told, I was never much of a baby lover. Everyone always seemed so enamored with them but I rarely found them that exhilarating. I could never get on board with all the oohing and ahing. It felt awkward, phony, and unnatural because the adoration was never really there for me. Not to say that I hated babies or thought they were ugly. I was mainly indifferent.

I loved my independence too. It’s pretty easy to feel good about your child-free life when kids are throwing tantrums in the store and you don’t have to take them home with you. You get to enjoy the peace and quiet of your well-kept home and do whatever the heck you feel like doing instead of putting the toddler in a time out or trying to soothe a fussy baby. Reading a book sounds better than that. Better yet, how about a nap!

I had a friend once ask me if I was mad at God about being infertile. I said no. I figured I’m a pretty good candidate for infertility as opposed to the woman who drools at every baby and wants ten kids.

Still, that’s a surprising response for me since I’m a champ at comparing myself to others and feeling a little jilted at times. That makes me look bad, I know. In my defense, I’m often counting my blessings when I see what others go through, so it goes both ways. I’ve become much more aware of what lies beneath the surface, that others are often suffering through things we know nothing about. At the root of it, I’m just interested in the human experience as a whole and love to hear the stories of others, just to see all the different ways life can be lived, both the good and the bad.

So, every once in a while, I can’t help but notice when someone’s story sounds a whole lot better than mine! Don’t lie and say you’ve never felt that way. Maybe you’ve even been jealous of me!

Ugh, jealousy. What a horrible emotion. On the one hand, you know it’s not a righteous feeling. Does jealousy ever lead to anything good? I suppose it can fuel success if it leads you to pursue what others have and you don’t. But it can carry a whole lot of other baggage with it, like bitterness, anger, and ingratitude. Seems like many of the villains in story books and movies are driven by jealousy. Snow White got tricked with a poison apple because the queen coveted her beauty. We can all relate. Everyone has felt second-best, unlovable, untalented, devalued, or whatever else. It’s real, it’s raw, and it stinks.

Still, we know that acting out those feelings is usually a bad idea, especially if poison apples are involved.

On the other hand, there are times when you’re jealous for something that IS righteous, or just something that is normal. We’re not talking about being the best at something, being the most beautiful or talented, seeking praise from the masses, or whatever other prideful motive. Maybe you just want to have companionship and be married. Maybe you just want to have children. Maybe you just want to be healthy enough to run, talk, eat, breath, whatever! There may be some selfish motives in that, but all in all, these are righteous, normal, and healthy desires.

Sometimes it feels like the only way to remove the jealousy is to stop having the desire in the first place. In fact, quite a few philosophies and religions preach this very thing, that happiness is the absence of desire. Without the turmoil of unmet desires, you feel gratitude and peace for what is.

This is a pretty good philosophy and makes a lot of sense to me. Seems like the happiest people I know have few expectations out of life and are able to find peace in the moment. I’m very jealous of these people. (Ironic, I know, considering our discussion.) They have a peace beyond anything I ever hope to experience, except perhaps in my later years when age forces me to slow down. It may be the reason I enjoy the outdoors so much. Out in nature, my expectations go away and I find peace. I don't need to see a perfect tree or a perfect rock or a perfect stream because there is no such thing. Nature is chaotic yet beautiful, perfect as is.

There's a part of me that would love to live my life out in nature, to experience that kind of peace and contentment, without all the expectations, needs, and demands.

But having few expectations is something completely unnatural for my highly driven self. I want to make the most of every moment, to find fulfillment in all that I do, and experience all life has to offer. For me, being a mom is a huge part of that life experience and not something I can put in a box and put on a shelf because it’s causing me pain.

And it was so very painful at times, the jealousy all-consuming.

The thing about infertility is that you can’t escape the reminders. Everywhere you go, there are pregnant women and little children. This is especially true at my church because Mormons love to have babies, love to talk about parenting, motherhood, and the family. My favorite are the conversations about family size, where women talk about how many kids they plan on having, how close in age they want everyone to be, and when they’re planning on trying for the next one.

It makes me think of people in a wheelchair. Everywhere they go, they see people walking. It’s effortless and normal for everyone else, but for them it is a struggle and a yearning in their heart. In a world where making babies is easy and commonplace, I feel like the cripple.

Normally, I can go through my day to day without feeling too much pain. I keep busy, fill my life with other things, and find fulfillment in other ways. Then there are times when a comment, photo, video or announcement can cut right through and pierce my heart and soul. It’s a constant up and down with infertility, a wrestling of the emotions.

When things got more difficult for me, I started to envision this very real battle of emotions inside of me. I imagined these warriors in white and black, representing the good and bad emotions that were battling for dominance: hope vs fear, peace vs anger, gratitude vs bitterness, happiness vs heartache, faith vs doubt. It’s an ongoing battle that is really quite exhausting, both spiritually and emotionally. 

Most of the time, I felt like the battle was pretty even, cut right down the middle. There's the ups and downs but I could keep it all in check, for the most part.

But the ultimate trial came with my third miscarriage, when darkness won it all. I was living in Hawaii at the time and good friends with another woman my age. She was far ahead of me in the family department with three kids of her own. The both of us had lost pregnancies in 2012 and then both got pregnant again at the same time in February 2013, with me doing my third in vitro. I thought it’d be neat for us to have our babies together and help heal the losses.

But her pregnancy was headed south. The gestational sac was much larger than it should be, which usually leads to the loss of the pregnancy. I vividly remember my friend confiding her fear and anxiety to me. There were tears and hugs from the both of us. It was strange to be on the other side of it, comforting another woman for pregnancy problems. But I knew all too well the feeling of a pregnancy on the rocks, the tension in your body, the anxiety in your heart. It’s like watching your child do some rock climbing with no ropes. You’re waiting for the worst to happen but hoping and praying it doesn’t. It’s impossible to relax or think of much else.

Sometime later, my friend called me and we talked for a long time. She shared that everything was working out okay. The sac was normal and the baby was fine. It was truly a miracle and a huge relief!

 

But my pregnancy was not going as well. I was actually just about to leave for my ultrasound to see how things were going. My friend asked me how I felt. Was I nervous? Was I worried? No, I was actually feeling quite hopeful. Losing this pregnancy felt like too much of a nightmare for it to be real. I couldn’t fathom something so tragic and God could not possibly be so cruel. It just didn’t make sense. So it had to work out. It was going to be okay.

But it was not at all okay.

I knew it as soon as I looked at the ultrasound. Things were falling apart. I sat there in a daze, feeling a numbness come over me. I miscarried while driving, stuck on the freeway, in excruciating pain.

That’s when darkness won. Anger, bitterness, heartache - that’s all I was able to feel. I had no more light to fight with. They were too stunned, too drained. They laid on the ground in submission and gave up.

I had some very difficult questions for God. Why did my friend deserve a miracle and I didn’t? This would be her fourth child. Was I not worthy of just one of my own? How could I rid myself of this horrible jealousy when everything seemed so unfair?

What could I possibly learn from this incredible pain? How could my Heavenly Father want his daughter to hurt so horribly? Why would you choose to bruise a heart that is already broken? Was I not already sufficiently humble? Sufficiently hurt?

Would I ever have a child?

The emotions were horrible and overwhelming. The grief of a lost baby is terrible enough. Pile on a little extra angst and devastation for all the time and expense of in vitro. Now add fear, doubt, and hopelessness that you may never have a child. Sprinkle some confusion and frustration as to why this has to be so hard and why there aren’t any answers. Now slather on some severe jealousy because everyone you know is getting pregnant and having children. Add a good helping of helplessness on top because there isn’t much you can do about any of it. Serve on a plate of bitterness.

Yeah, the darkness definitely won.

Thankfully, the ebb and flow continues and my warriors found some life again. Gavin was a huge help in that and turned everything around in so many ways.

He gave me the gift of pregnancy, birthing, and motherhood, all beautiful and wonderful experiences that I could now share with other women, share in the joy of it. The inescapable smile that comes from the kick of your baby. The warmth in your soul when you see the baby wiggling around on an ultrasound. The excitement you feel when the birthing is near, when the baby is almost out. And the magic of holding a brand new baby, of seeing his face for the first time - the preciousness, the tenderness, the overwhelming love. All the clichés are true. It really feels like heaven.

Now I get it. I understand the oohs and ahs and I join in whole-heartedly. In fact, I have a very special place in my heart for babies now. Having a tiny adorable baby of my own made me feel so protective of them. That kind of purity and tenderness I have never found anywhere else and my desire is for all babies to be loved and cherished as I love mine. If ever I hear of any tragedy befalling a baby, my heart hurts terribly. I sometimes purposely avoid sad-looking baby stories because I hate crying over them.

But I feel enriched by the tenderness that’s grown within me. I feel blessed to experience that kind of love. And I’m thankful to join with so many women in enjoying all of fun of motherhood and to have that camaraderie with them, and with my friend who is pregnant for the first time and discovering the joys of a heartbeat and a kick. It’s all a magical experience that I hope to have again.

But I still don’t want ten kids.

Three or four sound good to me.

Look at me, talking about family size.

I do still get jealous. I still get affected here and there. But I feel better equipped to handle the trials of the future, whatever they may be. Gavin has added his warriors to mine and that’s a huge bulk to my army.

As for the pain and my questions for God, I don’t have too many answers and I may never get them. But I’ve certainly had a few revelations, things that I’ve learned because of my trials, and I’ll delve into that on my next post.

My friend from Hawaii did get her miracle baby boy. And I got mine too. We are still very good friends.