Saturday, August 27, 2005

The Best Response to Assvice I've Ever Seen

I'll post more about my RhoGAM adventure tomorrow, but I just wanted to share this with you guys out there.

There was a thread on the "TTC with IUI/IVF/or with Medical Assistance" board on Fertility Friend that I stumbled across just now, titled "IVF and Catholic" and wanted to share something that one woman, named "Charmed", posted, about unwanted and ignorant assvice:




"Couples experiencing infertility often receive well-meaning but extremely insensitive "advice." We can all list the most popular ones: "Just relax and you'll get pregnant," or "adopt and you'll get pregnant," or "things happen for a reason", of the most painful from those who think they've got the goods on God's plan, "Maybe God never meant for you to have children." The sheer audacity of making a statement like that never fails to amaze me.

These same people would never walk up to someone seeking treatment for cancer and say, "Maybe God never meant for you to live." However, because I am infertile, I'm supposed to get on with my life. It's hard to understand that people can not see infertility for what it is, a disease for which I have to seek treatment. What if Jonas Salk had said to the parents of polio victims, "Maybe God meant for thousands of our children to be cripples, live in an iron lung or die." What if He'd never tried to find a cure? Who could think for one minute that that was God's plan?

What do I think God meant when He gave me infertility?

I think He meant for my husband and I to grow closer, become stronger, love deeper. I think God meant for us to find the fortitude within ourselves to get up every time infertility knocks us down. I think God meant for our medical community to discover medicines, invent medical equipment, create procedures and protocols. I think God meant for us to find a cure for infertility.

No, God never meant for me not to have children. That's not my destiny; that's just a fork in the road I'm on. I've been placed on the road less traveled, and, like it or not, I'm a better person for it. Clearly, God meant for me to develop more compassion, deeper courage, and greater inner strength on this journey to resolution, and I haven't let Him down.

Frankly, if the truth be known, I think God has singled me out for a special treatment. I think God meant for me to build a thirst for a child so strong and so deep that when that baby is finally placed in my arms, it will be the longest, coolest, most refreshing drink I've ever known.

While I would never choose infertility, I can not deny that a fertile woman could never know the joy that awaits me. Yes, one way or another, I will have a baby of my own. And the next time someone wants to offer me unsolicited advice I'll say, "Don't tell me what God meant when He handed me infertility. I already know."





Wow. It's like every emotion that I've experienced in this journey from the pit of hell and despair has just been verbalized for the first time.

Thank you, Charmed. I needed this desperately.

6 comments:

Julie said...

Wow, that certainly was well put. Thank you for sharing.

Betty said...

That was terrific, thankyou! I also needed that. I think I might copy it and carry it with me for a while.

Shelli said...

wow.

she rocks.

and so do you.

that made me cry, as I feel it SO in my soul, and know it to be true for you, for Cat, for me, for all of us.

C said...

Thats funny, I have the same if not similar poem, if thats what it is, as the first entry in my blog.

It gets me through those darkest hours. I remind myself that if this is my cross to bear in life, and I am sure that we are all given one, that there is a reason and I will be a better person at the end because of it.

Anonymous said...

That was absolutely amazing. I hope it's o.k. that I post a link to this on my blog, b/c it really, really says what I've thought and feel. Thank you so much for sharing it with your readers.

Rebekah

cat said...

"the longest, coolest, most refreshing drink I've ever known."

This is perfect. "Charmed" indeed.