Mother in Waiting
It is a common journey — known by the many women who have traveled its path marked by mountaintops and craggy valleys. A place of waiting, often in deafening silence. With slippery slopes, harsh rocky terrain, and its distance longer than ever imagined. Riding high on a hill for the moment, then quickly being pulled down to the reality that there is another shadowy valley ahead. What is this painful and grueling place?
It’s the land of secondary infertility.
I found myself as an unfortunate wanderer of this tedious journey while trying for a second baby. It is my story of attaining the courage to stand in the valley and squint at the brilliant sun above the highest peak, looking towards the glimmer of next month's hope.
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“How’s your son? Isn't it about time to give him a sibling?” another clueless but friendly co-worker asks.
I bite my cheek hard and forge the most genuine smile I can summon, "Someday," I say.
Gracefully as possible I turn as my heels hasten toward my office. The oversized wooden door makes a heavy slam-click behind me as the tears boil over and burn my cheeks.
Tears have become part of my daily life, as they often fall at the drop of a hat. Coming without warning, and sometimes uncontrollable.
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It is another month, just the same, behind the locked bathroom door, alone. Leaning on the cool off-white counter I wait for the timer to go off. Tick, tick, tick. I scroll through my phone to keep my eyes from studying the test strip while I wait for the pink line(s) to appear.
Ding. My eyes turn down, tears burning and blurring. Another single line. The bathroom floor feels cold as my knees crash down, feeling like the floor is dropping out below me. I grieve for the baby that might have been. And I grieve for our son who is still an only child And I cry for myself too.
Month after month I scrape my knees falling back into the valley's shadowy rhythm of counting the days, noting symptoms, temperatures, testing, testing, testing all to turn up more negative test strips. It is the cycle of hopes and dreams, despair and desperation.
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It’s the first night of Bible study at church. I’m a newcomer and we go around introducing ourselves. As my eyes follow the circular path of women around me — One is gently rocking her infant boy. Two others have huge swollen bellies, and a few others mention their babies at home. The air is sick-sweet of that punch drunk baby love oblivion.
They joke about something in the water. “Better be careful, if you join the group, you’ll get pregnant...there is something in the water!” Their joke stings. If only it was that easy I sneeringly think. Yet again I engage the force of my iron floodgate eyelids.
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Friends add babies two, three, and even four, as my unspeakable despair grows. Facebook and Instagram are daily reminders — pregnancy announcements, photo posts of cute siblings — each feeling like a bandaid tearing off a fresh wound. Why did it come easy to them? What did I do to deserve this horrific path? my tired and bitter soul utters.
For most of this steep and rocky journey, I've remained silent because of my guilt. Who could understand my covetous heart? I already have an incredible son, leaving me so grateful and wholly heartbroken at the very same moment. There are other women who are struggling to conceive their first baby, and here I am selfishly wanting a second. Shouldn’t I be grateful for one? But logic doesn’t help when you are dealing with pain and hurt. All I know is that I want a sibling for my son. I grasped what it was like to be pregnant and to hold an infant while sniffing that intoxicating newborn smell — I want that, again.
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It is Saturday morning. My husband, son, and I are taking it slow before preparing to go out for my belated birthday brunch. I am a day past the two-week wait. Sitting on the couch my mind wanders to the drawer full of pregnancy tests (purchased in bulk), so I go upstairs to my bathroom, close the door, and push the lock.
Once again, I lean and scroll while I wait for the timer to ding. Time is up and...what is that? Is that the slightest shadow of a second line? I hold the test up to the morning sunlight and squint. No, there is no possible way, the critic in my head speaks.
Quickly I snap a picture and send it to my best friend, with the text below asking, Is there a second line or am I going crazy?
Yes, yes, yes! she responds. You are pregnant!
———
Whoa. Finally reaching the mountain top, and it is exhilarating. I conquered my Everest. It took a long time filled with many struggles to get here, but I managed to locate the top. The view is breathtaking, and the mountaintop peace came seeing that little black and white jellybean, hearing the heartbeat and my OB declaring, "everything looks great."
Before this journey, I was completely naive to the experience of secondary infertility. I learned and grew immensely, no matter how painful the journey was, it was worth it. The scrapes, bruises, and scars from my climb to the highland will always be rooted deep within my soul.
The month I finally got pregnant was the point where I decided I just couldn’t go through the anguish anymore and decided a family of three is great too. I thought it was over and was ready to put a period at the end of my childbearing years. But you see, without my knowledge, God put a comma. Our story is not over until God says it is over.
I know not everyone's journey ends the way mine did, but looking back, now I see it wasn’t about test strips or relaxing, or... It was that God had our family’s story already orchestrated. He knew better than me. God’s timing was not my timing.
With a delightful second child in my arms, past the painful waiting, I recognize the timing of his arrival couldn’t have been planned any better. But in all transparence, in the waiting, God’s timing felt like a long, desperate delay. Sometimes we have to learn lessons the hard way. The moral of the story is to trust in God’s timing, He does know better. God is never early or late, but always on time.