Another Miracle
My relationship with God has changed over the years, as is true for most people, I expect.
Life's twists and turns and experiences have given me more nuance, more skepticism, more desire for simplicity and goodness without worrying about the how's and why's.
Basically where I've ended up is that I believe in God as Creator. Nothing makes me feel better than being in Creation and I truly believe that all life and the Earth and everything we can see and observe is just too amazing to not have have a Divine aspect. And that's pretty much all I need, in addition to the Golden Rule.
I'm distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of a God that intervenes in individual lives. Working with highly vulnerable people does that to you, I think. Why should I expect that if I pray, God will intervene in my life, whereas I KNOW that my little 12,13,14 years olds, who are desperately praying in all the ways they know how for better situations, are stuck dealing with garbage no human should ever have to cope with?
But despite that strongly held stance, I have no other explanation for what has happened this spring, and summer, and fall. God intervened in my life. I don't know how else to say it or explain it.
You may remember that at the end of April I wrote a blog post about how we were looking for a woman to carry a sibling for Rudi.
I honestly thought nothing would come of that post. I truly believed that a few people would see it, and that would be it. I was mentally preparing to get ready to try to get pregnant again myself, since we had embryos and I wanted a sibling for Rudi. Or at least, attempt to have one. I should note: the thought of getting ready to try get pregnant again made both Jake and I very nervous. Would I collapse into darkness again when it didn't work? Would I be able to stop trying for the sake of my mental health? There was a tiny sliver of hope, like maybe 5%, that thought maybe it would work and I'd get to experience pregnancy and birth, but mostly I thought I would do it because I'd regret it if I didn't at least try. I knew this plan was playing with fire. The emotional cost of getting up on the table for all the tests/monitoring let alone the transfer is astronomical. Did I have the reserves? Thankfully, we didn't have to stand on the precipice to find out.
Much to my shock, we got a bunch of emails from women who were interested in learning more about being a surrogate. I couldn't believe it! Then came the realization that I had NO IDEA what to say next to the people who got in touch. I started to realize all the things we trusted and knew about Tara that we now had to find out about a complete stranger. It was overwhelming, to say the least. Entrusting a family friend with your embryo is one thing, but putting our potential baby into a stranger and then asking them to grow it and give it back was just insane to contemplate.
However, over the course of lots of emails and finding lots of commonalities, one of the women who got in touch quickly became a friend willing and excited about the possibility of joining us on the journey to try for another baby. There is no word to describe this other than 'miracle'. It is truly a miracle that someone I didn't even know existed 6 months ago has now been to lawyers and doctors and more appointments than I can count just to get ready to try to have our baby for us. She is kind, generous, organized, and eager to help. Her husband, who was a little surprised by her desire to be a surrogate, has been amazingly supportive and good-natured about all the tests and appointments he gets dragged to. They are gifts to us from God, and we are so thankful.
So here we are: Trying again. There are still no guarantees, of course. A baby is not inevitable - with infertility, there are no promises, ever. But we certainly have more hope trying to grow our baby in a proven uterus than in mine, which has proven its utter uselessness time and time again.
It feels very different this time: we were so broken by infertility when Tara was our surrogate that I was a total zombie going through the motions. I'm much healthier and 'present' now, but that presents its own challenges. It's easier to get ahead of myself, to make plans and celebrate before there is anything to plan and celebrate. It also puts us back into a bit of uncertainty about our future as a family; we will be a family of 3 or 4? But whenever I'm feeling unsure or sad or stressed about it, I squeeze Rudi extra hard and repeat to myself: what we have now is amazing and more than I thought we'd have. We will be ok no matter what.
And thank you to all of you who shared it. You found us another chance! You found us hope! And with all the crappiness in the world between humans and on the internet sometimes, that is another miracle.
Life's twists and turns and experiences have given me more nuance, more skepticism, more desire for simplicity and goodness without worrying about the how's and why's.
Basically where I've ended up is that I believe in God as Creator. Nothing makes me feel better than being in Creation and I truly believe that all life and the Earth and everything we can see and observe is just too amazing to not have have a Divine aspect. And that's pretty much all I need, in addition to the Golden Rule.
I'm distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of a God that intervenes in individual lives. Working with highly vulnerable people does that to you, I think. Why should I expect that if I pray, God will intervene in my life, whereas I KNOW that my little 12,13,14 years olds, who are desperately praying in all the ways they know how for better situations, are stuck dealing with garbage no human should ever have to cope with?
But despite that strongly held stance, I have no other explanation for what has happened this spring, and summer, and fall. God intervened in my life. I don't know how else to say it or explain it.
You may remember that at the end of April I wrote a blog post about how we were looking for a woman to carry a sibling for Rudi.
I honestly thought nothing would come of that post. I truly believed that a few people would see it, and that would be it. I was mentally preparing to get ready to try to get pregnant again myself, since we had embryos and I wanted a sibling for Rudi. Or at least, attempt to have one. I should note: the thought of getting ready to try get pregnant again made both Jake and I very nervous. Would I collapse into darkness again when it didn't work? Would I be able to stop trying for the sake of my mental health? There was a tiny sliver of hope, like maybe 5%, that thought maybe it would work and I'd get to experience pregnancy and birth, but mostly I thought I would do it because I'd regret it if I didn't at least try. I knew this plan was playing with fire. The emotional cost of getting up on the table for all the tests/monitoring let alone the transfer is astronomical. Did I have the reserves? Thankfully, we didn't have to stand on the precipice to find out.
Much to my shock, we got a bunch of emails from women who were interested in learning more about being a surrogate. I couldn't believe it! Then came the realization that I had NO IDEA what to say next to the people who got in touch. I started to realize all the things we trusted and knew about Tara that we now had to find out about a complete stranger. It was overwhelming, to say the least. Entrusting a family friend with your embryo is one thing, but putting our potential baby into a stranger and then asking them to grow it and give it back was just insane to contemplate.
However, over the course of lots of emails and finding lots of commonalities, one of the women who got in touch quickly became a friend willing and excited about the possibility of joining us on the journey to try for another baby. There is no word to describe this other than 'miracle'. It is truly a miracle that someone I didn't even know existed 6 months ago has now been to lawyers and doctors and more appointments than I can count just to get ready to try to have our baby for us. She is kind, generous, organized, and eager to help. Her husband, who was a little surprised by her desire to be a surrogate, has been amazingly supportive and good-natured about all the tests and appointments he gets dragged to. They are gifts to us from God, and we are so thankful.
So here we are: Trying again. There are still no guarantees, of course. A baby is not inevitable - with infertility, there are no promises, ever. But we certainly have more hope trying to grow our baby in a proven uterus than in mine, which has proven its utter uselessness time and time again.
It feels very different this time: we were so broken by infertility when Tara was our surrogate that I was a total zombie going through the motions. I'm much healthier and 'present' now, but that presents its own challenges. It's easier to get ahead of myself, to make plans and celebrate before there is anything to plan and celebrate. It also puts us back into a bit of uncertainty about our future as a family; we will be a family of 3 or 4? But whenever I'm feeling unsure or sad or stressed about it, I squeeze Rudi extra hard and repeat to myself: what we have now is amazing and more than I thought we'd have. We will be ok no matter what.
And thank you to all of you who shared it. You found us another chance! You found us hope! And with all the crappiness in the world between humans and on the internet sometimes, that is another miracle.
This is amazing news! Trusting that all will go well.
ReplyDelete