There are two things that have been swimming around in my head since I read them recently. One is this little poem, you could call it, from a fellow blogging buddy who blogs at http://www.barrenwoman.blogspot.com/.
Rachel writes:
Rachel writes:
Today...
I am ovulating.
And
All I can think is...
Big deal.
What does it matter...
Its not like
Anything could come of it.
Sigh.
Oh infertility,
I hate you...
Today.
I love this. Love the rawness that it conveys. The heartache always hanging around sometimes unnoticable to the rest of the world, but to those of us barren... so very profound.
I am ovulating.
And
All I can think is...
Big deal.
What does it matter...
Its not like
Anything could come of it.
Sigh.
Oh infertility,
I hate you...
Today.
I love this. Love the rawness that it conveys. The heartache always hanging around sometimes unnoticable to the rest of the world, but to those of us barren... so very profound.
No matter what the journey to motherhood has been for each one of us, or how we have seen that journey as a blessing many times over, and have even thanked our Lord time and time again for His plan for our lives...these words ring out as our banner song when all in the world is quiet and we are alone and left with only our thoughts.
And the other thing that has clung to my thoughts is a comment left on a dear friend's blog after the amazing and wonderful story of her baby's birth. A friend of hers wrote, "just beautiful. birthing babies is definitely God’s grace to women…such an incredible experience."
I read this and actually said outloud, Ouch.
It stung in a way that I am embarrassed to admit. Embarrassed because I don't want anyone in the world to think that I am not perfectly content with my babies that were not birthed from my body. It is not other children I ever desire, but the experience. And the wonderment of it all. God's grace to women...
I will leave it at that.
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*It is not other children I ever desire, but the experience. *
Ouch is the perfect response to that comment. I winced. There are two comments that hurt me most:
1) "Now that you have adopted, you will have one of your own." As if to say my adopted child is not good enough, and 2) I hate listening to them complain about how miserable they are.
Yes! I have always struggled with the Bible passages that refer to childbirth as some sort of saving grace for women.
No!! Does that mean I am ineligible for Heaven? By God's design? How on earth could that even be possible?
I don't want a different child. I would never trade my child for the childbirth experience. But I want growing our family to be... easier. Simpler. A matter of enjoying a romantic encounter with my husband, peeing on a stick, announcing our joy... I don't want another home study, more background checks, having to move because our house is too small.
Guess I should write another post!
All I can say is Amen and Amen.
That stings for me too! "God's grace to woman"....What if you gave birth to your baby and she died? My experience giving birth was heart breaking...(I am hoping that God will give me a do over one day, but if not we will continue to build our family through adoption!!)
I totally understand this. ((Hugs))
Thank you for sharing this! I follow your blog through Google Reader and don't usually get to post comments, but I needed to reply to this post. I'm a 35yr old, adoptive mom to 12 (10 legal foster-adopted children and 2 "unofficially" adopted older daughters). I've never been able to conceive in 14 years, yet God continues to bring us all of these children. It never takes away the desire for a pregnancy, I'm still praying for God to either answer our heart's cry for a baby or to grant us peace for never having a biological child. It's a hard subject, one for which I don't believe I will EVER have all the right answers this side of heaven! I'm so thankful, though, that I do know the ONE who does have all the answers and that He sees the bigger picture here.
Wow. Reading my own words through other people is powerful...and tough. I am so glad that I am not alone, yet I don't know what to do with the feelings.
Ouch is right.
And tonight I am going to a women's gathering with all kinds of fertile myrtles and their beautiful babies, and I don't know how my heart will take it.
Blessings!
Hannah
Ouch. I don't like that comment at all. I also don't like some other comments I have heard, such as, "God gave me this pregnancy to reward me." Or any comments along those lines. Because if you haven't been pregnant, or given birth to a child, I don't think it is God's punishment, and if you are granted those things, I don't think it is because you are in higher favor with God.
Oh, I'm sorry Laurie. I disagree that pregnancy/child birth is God's grace to women. Maybe she can say that in her experience, because of some profound thing she learned about God through HER experience, that child birth was God's grace to her. But no... it is not the same for all women.
In my case, Owen's death and birth were terribly tragic things that do not feel like God's grace to me, but in some ways that I don't understand all the way, they are God's grace to me because I learned who He was/is/ and will be forever.
In the same way, you can say that adoption is God's grace to you. He has given you a peak into what it is like to be a loved, cherished adopted child of God. Your children are no different than ones birthed from your womb and seeing/feeling/living with the love you have for them gives you special insight into how God views us as his children. God's grace to you.
But a blanket statement like that commenter said is wrong on so many levels.
love and many hugs,
ebe
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