Or...lack thereof.
Today is a happy day. My incredibly stressful job is over. I SURVIVED. I thought more than once that I couldn't handle it. I fantasized about quitting. But in the end, I did it. I didn't do a perfect job, but the school year ended with most of the kids liking me and knowing more French than they did back in September. I count that as a win.
So, happiness in one area of my life aside... I haven't been feeling very hopeful lately. I have tried praying so many times. I would love to be told what to do or where to turn. I would love even more to have a gut feeling that everything will be ok and that it will happen someday.
Mostly, when I pray about having children and ask for help and guidance- I feel no inspiration. There have been times (few and far between) when I felt comforted that it will work out. Mostly, though, I feel nothing. Not bad, not good, just nothing. That makes me wonder if the good feelings I've had maybe 2-3 times while praying for over 2 years were just something my mind made up. I don't know.
Maybe feeling nothing means we're already on the right track? Maybe I'm not spiritual enough to receive revelation? Maybe the timing isn't right? Maybe there's some grand plan, and that's part of the trial? I don't know.
Our first plan was to have biological children the old-fashioned way. You don't use birth control, you wait a few months, and then within a year you become parents. We wanted to have at least 3 children, spaced around 2 years apart.
Now I guess the plan is to use medical intervention (possibly massive, invasive medical intervention) to have biological children. This plan could include at least $20,000 out of pocket per attempt to have a child. It could involve medication, surgery, physical and mental pain. And it still might never work.
With this plan, I don't care about the spacing. I don't care about anything except for it working.
Now that it's been 2.5 years of trying and it looks like there might be problems with BOTH of us (we still don't know for sure, but it looks that way right now...) I feel like I need to consider back-up plans.
Option #1 would be adoption. Parts of it sound great and I've seen it work out great for other people. A few things about it really terrify me. One, being promised a child and getting emotionally invested and then the biological parents backing out. Two, the child being messed up and struggling with the loss of their bio parents giving them away. Three, it usually costs MORE than IVF. If we do end up needing to pursue this option, I think it would be years from now after other options are exhausted.
Option #2 is embryo adoption. This sounds weird, I know. It is weird. I wish there were more stories of people in our faith who have done this. The benefits are experiencing pregnancy and the child not "belonging" to anyone else. The con is...it's weird? I don't know.
All other options sometimes pursued by couples experiencing infertility are absolute no's for me.
1. Just not having children. I couldn't do it. I already feel like life is fairly meaningless at this point without children.
2. Sperm/egg donation and surrogacy. Too weird for us to ever consider. Just not for us and frowned upon by our church.
Although I'm not feeling hopeful, I really hope that our dream of having biological children is not dead. Maybe it will be take a lot of waiting and hardship to get there, but I hope with all of my heart that it does.
Today is a happy day. My incredibly stressful job is over. I SURVIVED. I thought more than once that I couldn't handle it. I fantasized about quitting. But in the end, I did it. I didn't do a perfect job, but the school year ended with most of the kids liking me and knowing more French than they did back in September. I count that as a win.
So, happiness in one area of my life aside... I haven't been feeling very hopeful lately. I have tried praying so many times. I would love to be told what to do or where to turn. I would love even more to have a gut feeling that everything will be ok and that it will happen someday.
Mostly, when I pray about having children and ask for help and guidance- I feel no inspiration. There have been times (few and far between) when I felt comforted that it will work out. Mostly, though, I feel nothing. Not bad, not good, just nothing. That makes me wonder if the good feelings I've had maybe 2-3 times while praying for over 2 years were just something my mind made up. I don't know.
Maybe feeling nothing means we're already on the right track? Maybe I'm not spiritual enough to receive revelation? Maybe the timing isn't right? Maybe there's some grand plan, and that's part of the trial? I don't know.
Our first plan was to have biological children the old-fashioned way. You don't use birth control, you wait a few months, and then within a year you become parents. We wanted to have at least 3 children, spaced around 2 years apart.
Now I guess the plan is to use medical intervention (possibly massive, invasive medical intervention) to have biological children. This plan could include at least $20,000 out of pocket per attempt to have a child. It could involve medication, surgery, physical and mental pain. And it still might never work.
With this plan, I don't care about the spacing. I don't care about anything except for it working.
Now that it's been 2.5 years of trying and it looks like there might be problems with BOTH of us (we still don't know for sure, but it looks that way right now...) I feel like I need to consider back-up plans.
Option #1 would be adoption. Parts of it sound great and I've seen it work out great for other people. A few things about it really terrify me. One, being promised a child and getting emotionally invested and then the biological parents backing out. Two, the child being messed up and struggling with the loss of their bio parents giving them away. Three, it usually costs MORE than IVF. If we do end up needing to pursue this option, I think it would be years from now after other options are exhausted.
Option #2 is embryo adoption. This sounds weird, I know. It is weird. I wish there were more stories of people in our faith who have done this. The benefits are experiencing pregnancy and the child not "belonging" to anyone else. The con is...it's weird? I don't know.
All other options sometimes pursued by couples experiencing infertility are absolute no's for me.
1. Just not having children. I couldn't do it. I already feel like life is fairly meaningless at this point without children.
2. Sperm/egg donation and surrogacy. Too weird for us to ever consider. Just not for us and frowned upon by our church.
Although I'm not feeling hopeful, I really hope that our dream of having biological children is not dead. Maybe it will be take a lot of waiting and hardship to get there, but I hope with all of my heart that it does.
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