Thoughts on Infertility from the Other Side

This blog has become what I always thought it would be (with a lot less blogging than I imagined). You see, I never set out to be an infertility blogger. I didn't really set out to be an anything blogger. I just started blogging. While a lot of infertility bloggers struggle with the space they've created once they bring home a child, I'm not. Or at least not in the same ways. This space is mine and it's the space I've created to write about my life. In this current season, blogging is HARD because finding time to do anything is hard, let along string together two well thought out sentences that someone might actually want to read. But blogging about my son, his milestones, our adventures...it feels natural. This is the life I always thought I would lead (well except that I was six years younger and twenty pounds lighter in my dreams, but hey).

While blogging about my son and our life together (or more accurately his monthly updates...let's be real) feels normal and good in this space, I haven't forgotten my roots. Infertility is in me, down deep. I'm blissfully happy, overwhelmed at the grace given to me in the form of this beautiful boy, but I am still infertile. Thoughts on infertility don't consume me, but I do still think about infertility. Pretty regularly actually. My thoughts are probably two fold...part from being a mother on the other side of the waiting and yearning for a child, and the other from having chosen adoption to get there.

What are my thoughts on infertility now that I'm a mom? Well for starters that season of my life SUCKED. I may still be infertile, but I'd rather be infertile with a child than infertile without every. single. day. While I may absolutely go through another season of longing and waiting to add to my family, I can't imagine that anything will be as miserable as those first four years.

Secondly, nothing about my body has changed...it's still just as broken as ever, but my outlook on this broken body and the crappy circumstances of infertility is so much more optimistic now that I have Garrison. But I remember those days, the ones where I honestly wasn't sure if I'd ever hold a child and call him son or daughter. That was the darkest season of my life.

While that season is definitely over, I am still infertile. My body is still broken, still not functioning the way that a woman's body should. I will have to make my peace with that or allow it to haunt me, but either way, adopting Garrison or any other child will not change my body. And, unlike the recent upsurge of those surprisingly pregnant after giving birth from a successful IUI or IVF treatment in the community, adoption will not reset or convince my body that it does in fact know what to do. I am still just as infertile today as this time last year when we started the adoption process, and the year before that as we prepared for IVF. Garrison didn't change my broken body. I imagine that in some ways pregnancy and birth after infertility are healing. At least, I always thought it would be. My body's triumph over this stupid condition...adoption does not provide that same sense of victory. I don't hate my body, that's really not the issue. Sure, I wish it was less pudgy, slimmer, with curves in the right places rather that where they currently reside, but I don't look at my body and think FAILURE should be tattooed across my forehead. However, adoption isn't changing the way I see my body...and it's probably never going to. My breasts will likely sag (even more than they do now), but I will never look at them with joy or pride for the nourishment that they provided. I'll likely have a stretch mark or two, but they won't be the sign of a warrior, proud of the life she carried inside. Rather they'll just be the lingering reminder of one too many pints of Ben and Jerry's. I am still infertile both in definition and in spirit, despite the adorable blue-eyed boy perched on my hip.

Despite the almost daily reminders of my infertility, it is not the all consuming presence it once was. And interestingly enough, Garrison is not a reminder of my infertility, which many have voiced as a question to me. I don't look at Garrison and think of my infertility or even his adoption into our family...I just see my son. The daily reminders of infertility are the same things they always were--pregnancy announcements, the fertility friend app on my phone ("Did you know that charting your cervical fluid can help you pinpoint your most fertile days?" Umm, yeah, NO.), the box of used needles from my IVF cycle in my linen closet, the packets of Pregnitude that fall out of the medicine box, pregnant women. They all still remind me of my condition just like they always did. Pregnany belly bumps still hurt like crazy. It's not exactly a knife in the stomach any longer, but it's still a good firm kick. The largest part of my free thoughts go to Garrison and planning and dreaming about the future, but there are still (and maybe always will be) triggers. So yes, I absolutely feel infertile and yes, I still think about infertility pretty regularly; however, I no longer feel completely consumed or trapped by my infertility. I have found my path to my family and it has freed me to dream about growing a large family again.

What are my thoughts on infertility after adoption? I don't think anyone, infertile or otherwise, really knows how they will feel about adoption until they've lived it. It's part of the fear. "How will I feel looking into the eyes of a child that it not biologically related to me?" You can't really say until you do it. "How will I bond with this child who did not grow inside of me?" There are 1,000 different experiences and no one can say how the bonding and attachment season will go until you're neck deep in it. I really struggled with the idea that adoption was a calling and I wasn't sure if I was called...maybe adoption wouldn't "work" for me because I just simply wanted to adopt. Interestingly, adoption is changing me, changing who I am and what I dream about. Adopting made adoption my calling. The presence of infertility in my life no longer seems like the end of my story. It's a big freaking part, but more importantly it's the avenue, the walls of the river, if you will, that funneled me to my family. I still can't say that I would chose infertility, but I can say that I'd chose my son every day, and if infertility is the only way I'd find him, I'd walk that road again just to hold him in my arms.

What are my thoughts on biological children/pregnancy after adopting and becoming a mom? Before adopting, I was 100% confident in me need to experience a pregnancy at some point. I knew that after our first adoption I would return for IVF, donor eggs, or donor embryos because experiencing a pregnancy and giving birth was extremely high on my priority list. Now? It's really not. Would I like to experience all of that? Abso-freakin-lutely. Am I willing to spend the next five years chasing that dream? No, I'm really not. There are other ways to build my family, ways that currently excite me so much more than pursuing round after round of treatment. And this is in no way a slight against those seeking treatment. I get it. I was full steam ahead with ART once upon a time too. What I do wish, so deep down in my soul, is that those who are still waiting and wondering if they will ever hold their child would find the way to that child. Whether that's through medication, lifestyle change, prayer, acupuncture, adoption, fertility treatments, surrogacy...whatever the path is, I hope everyone finds it. My path didn't look anything like I thought it would, and my path continues to change even now. My son is changing what I want for my future, what I want for our family, where I want my money to go, and how I want to spend my days as we build our family.

The desire to give birth to a biological child is still there, but it has very little to do with wanting a child to share my DNA...actually it has nothing to do with that at all. It also has very little to do with wanting to carry a child. As I mentioned, I would like that experience. Very, very much. However, ultimately my desire to get pregnant and give birth comes from a desire for God to heal me. Sara Hagerty writes in Every Bitter Thing is Sweet, "I struggled, instead, with knowing that God could heal me, but he didn't." That's really the whole deal right there. I wrote about Sara's book earlier this year and said that I wasn't sure who I'd be if my fertile years run out and he never chooses to heal me. Will I still love God? Will I be bitter to the depths of my core? It seems much less severe today after becoming a mom, but like Sara, I still wrestle with that question. I want to be pregnant and give birth not because I'm desperate to look into a pair of green eyes with a head full of hair, but rather I yearn to see my God do the impossible in a tangible way.

For me, adoption has been the greatest blessing. Garrison is healing parts of my heart that have been broken for so, so long. I wasn't sure if I'd really ever by happy again, and this little boy is making morning sunrises and the changing seasons and so many other things glorious and new again. He's also changing my heart, allowing me to begin at the very smallest level to look from my own pain, which often causes us to look inward, and begin to look out and see the pain around me. Adopting Garrison is opening my eyes to the plight of the orphan in new ways. Now I cry over orphans and children in foster care...literal tears. It's no longer just a sad story for me, it's a desire to help in a real and tangible way. I long to scoop up the oppressed, marginalized, ignored, and forgotten, along with those who were deeply loved but whose birth family could not provide and bring them home. If I had to guess today, I doubt our family will look like the average family...and our kids certainly won't look like us. I imagine all of the kids will be blended in color, ethnicity, origin...and likely even how they join the family. Donor embryos and adoption (likely international) are the most probable ways for us to continue our family, and I seriously could not be more excited about the opportunities and possibilities before us.