This summer, between camping trips and Shakespeare in the Park, I went to the doctor and was told that I’m infertile.
Steve & I took the news pretty well. We were certainly sad, but not unnecessarily so. Maybe it’s because we’re both very go-with-the-flow people. There really isn’t much that phases us.
Or maybe it’s that we’ve always planned to adopt a few children anyway. Adoption, being such a perfect depiction of our adoption as children of God through Christ’s perfect sacrifice, has always been in our plans. Now we’re freed up to adopt even more children, which is certainly not a bad thing.
In starting this post, I just read back through my first journal entry after hearing the news. What I wrote then is still an accurate representation of my feelings, so I thought I’d quote a section:
And this Monday, June 30th, 2014, I was told by a fertility specialist that I will likely never have children. My ovaries have no eggs. I was not entirely shocked by this news, since the seminary’s nurse practitioner had hinted as much. I was also not devastated. I don’t know if it’s just my even-keel personality or if it has yet to truly hit me. I think it’s hit me. Don’t get me wrong, I shed a few tears leaving the doctor’s office, but none since… I am, apparently, not made for making babies. But I am made for greater things. For a greater world. ‘-my country, the place where I ought to have been born.’ C.S.L.”Since writing that down, my feelings haven’t changed much. I haven’t shed any more tears, or developed a hatred for a God who would let this happen, or sunken into depression.
That C.S. Lewis quote that I referenced in my journal is from one of my favorite books, Till We Have Faces. The full quote is:
“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing – to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from – my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.”This quote – probably my favorite from any book – always reminds me that my greatest longing and joy should be for the world to come. Not for motherhood or children, or anything else.
My joy, being rooted in the person of Christ, cannot be shaken by the side-effects of experiencing this world through my sinful, broken body.
Sorry that this post has been so long. I think I’ll end it by quoting another beloved book, Anne of Green Gables. Anne’s reflection at the end of the book about her future comes very close to how I feel right now about mine, especially in light of Romans 8:28:
“When I left Queen’s, my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder how the road beyond it goes – what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows – what new landscapes – what new beauties – what curves and hills and valleys further on.”Steve & I would appreciate your prayers as we start the adoption process, and you can look for updates in future posts.
