Wow, I recently came across a box that I had stored away some time ago that is full of things I had kept involving our journey through infertility treatments. It holds everything from empty prescription bottles, ovulation test kit boxes, pregnancy test boxes; to a calendar of so called “fertile” days, pamphlets and books and includes a very emotional letter addressed to the dream child all the other junk was supposed to help create. I don’t even remember what all is written in that letter and I haven’t had the heart to open it much less read it. The pain is still too fresh, a lifelong dream is dead and my heart is still breaking.
I am able to put on a good show of strength for others when necessary but ultimately it’s like a fire raging in my veins and it’s excruciatingly painful, especially through the holidays. Christmas is so much a child’s holiday and Thanksgiving is all about family and thankfulness. It is extremely impossible to avoid social situations that feel like hundreds of knives stabbing into my heart. I love the babies and children in our family tremendously and want so much to enjoy them but I find myself being torn to shreds when I see them or even hear stories about them. Then I feel selfish and mean for feeling that way and a cycle of guilt pounds my brain until I’m just too exhausted to even sleep properly.
Some days I can’t even cry when I need to. I will feel the tears behind my eyes begging for release but my eyes refuse to give them up. A nagging voice in my head mockingly reminds me that I should be happy… at least I held an angel once even if her time here was far too short. The thing is holding that angel gave me a feel for Heaven and my arms ach for that feeling again. How do you explain to your arms that Heaven must wait? How do you explain it to your heart?
What’s worse is that I know I’m not the only one hurting from this. Robb is strong and his pain rarely shows but I’ve seen it and we have discussed it many times. He is mourning too and I don’t feel like I’m able to support him through his grief as well as he deserves because he is always so busy being strong for me. We have both shed our tears but his emotions are so much more controlled than mine. It breaks my heart to see him in pain and I know it does him to see me this way. We are broken and healing takes such a long time.
There are those who think we should just be over it by now, after all it’s not like we REALLY lost a child or anything right? Maybe we “should” be over it but it’s just not that simple, to us we did lose a child, we lost several all at once. They may have been dreams but they were ours and they were part of who we are. I know that may sound crazy to some of you but feelings aren’t always logical and there can be no scheduled time limits on grief.
Robb and I both have a strong faith so I understand that God has a plan for us, that we are just being tested and ‘seasoned’ as some call it. Still sometimes my strength fails me and I stumble. It may not seem like such a heavy cross to others on the grand scheme of things but it certainly is an exhausting trial from my perspective. Thankfully God is faithful; he will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear. We will endure and our reward will be worth it all some day soon.
But for now I have to decide what to do with that box of shattered dreams. I thought about burying it in a little personal funeral ceremony (you know … like burying my dream babies), perhaps that would give me some closure; but part of me feels like that is just TOO morbid and insane. Maybe I should just toss it and be done with it.
Psalm 119:28 NIV
My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.
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