Things I didn’t want to know

I  was blessed to have a relationship with my Great-grandmother until I was 17, a woman I’ve always admired as the most loving, quiet (as in not-anxious), generous and genuinely good woman I ever met.  Yes, in a way I idealize her, and I always will.

But last night, my Great-Grandmother came crashing down to earth as a real-live, flawed human being.  She didn’t come back to life, she didn’t visit me as a ghostly apparition.  She just became so much more….imperfect….

And I’m sad about it.  I didn’t want her to be that way.  I wanted her to always stay on that pedestal.

Here’s the story:  I have a cousin who is adopted, and the fact that she is adopted never, never in any way meant to me that she was any less a part of our family.  But last night, my grandmother told me that Great-grandma, although she loved my cousin, never really considered my cousin as her own great-grandchild.   She did not take the same pride in her that she did in her genetic great-grandchildren.  She never considered my cousin to be a real member of the family.

That hit me like a ton of bricks, because it addressed so many of my own fears and hesitations about adoption.  Not that I wouldn’t love my adopted child with all my heart.  I have no doubts about that.  But I do fear that my parents and the rest of my extended family would love any adopted child of mine less than the genetic progeny of the family.  I have felt really guilty about feeling that way for a long time, though in my defense, it’s not the primary reason that Tony and I haven’t adopted. [I'm sure I'll post more about that at a later time.]   But it has been a nagging concern of mine.

It’s a way of looking at your family that can be difficult and painful; trying to evaluate, not only how do you fit in your family as an infertile woman, but how would any adopted children fit into the family? Is your family open enough, accepting enough, tactful enough to see your child as  your child, regardless of the way that child joined your family?

My Great-grandmother had been my yardstick for Christian living all my life, and this unwelcomed piece of information does not sit well with my understanding of either her,  family or Christianity.

I believe that God honors adoption.  Some of His greatest works were wrought through adoption.  In fact, two of his greatest leaders, Moses and Samuel, were both adopted into other families.   And the letters of Paul indicate the very special relationship we have with God as adopted children.

Interestingly, I read this blog post today that brought the whole thing to mind again.

I will forgive my Great-grandmother for being imperfect.  In so many ways she still epitomizes Christian womanhood for me, and that’s probably where I committed my error.  The only measure of Christian living we look to should be Christ, anyone else is bound to disappoint us, but He never will.

And we can always be assured that He loves us as His very own children.

Facing Christmas

Christmas is a scary time for me.  No, I’m not afraid of elves or white-bearded men who drive sleighs. 

I’m afraid of me. 

I never know, from day to day, which me I will encounter.  One moment, I will be swept away in the joy of the season, the decorating, the holiday cheer, the cooking.  The next moment, my spirit will fall crumpled up into my feet as I think about another Christmas without children in my home. 

It’s hard to put up a tree sometimes, knowing that no tricycles or Barbies or Tonka trucks will ever grace the base of the tree.   It’s hard, sometimes, to listen to Christmas music knowing that Santa Clause may be coming to town, but he’s going right past your house to the house next door where the two little blond girls live.  It’s hard, even at times,  making stuffed toys for my neices and nephews, knitting little hats for them, no matter how much love them and enjoy doing it for them.  I won’t be knitting little elf hats for my children. 

Sometimes what is hardest is being invisible.  When the decisions about family get-togethers are made, I’m not consulted about my plans to see how my plans will work into the family schedule.  In the early years of our marriage, Tony and I tried to establish our own family traditions for Christmas, such as, “Christmas Eve will always be our nuclear family time to spend together at church, but Christmas Day is for gifts, and family, and food.”  But when my brother and his wife started having children, suddenly our household family traditions weren’t valued as family, because we didn’t have children of our own.  It’s more difficult for my brother and his family because they have children, so plans revolve around their household.  I’m told where and when to show up.  And I do, even if it means giving up that time alone with my husband on Christmas Eve, because to do otherwise would mean to miss out on spending time with the rest of my loved ones.  The family spins around in a whirlwind of Christmas activity that centers around the households with children, and I try to hold on as best as I can.

Occasionally I feel resentful about the way the holidays center around children.  I can’t help it.  There are times when I really resent my childlessness, and the holiday season is one of them.

But if I breathe, and pray, and stop thinking about gifting, decorations, schedules, and food, I remember that Christmas has always centered on children, or at least the birth of One Child.   If I can keep Christmas focused on Christ, if I can see the child in the manger as the infant given, not to me, but for me, it helps.  It certainly doesn’t take away my pain, but it does put it in perspective.

O come, o come, Emmanuel…and ransom captive me.  Ransom me from the captivity of sorrow. 

To bring you up to date

As I mentioned in my first post, I keep another blog at etrish.wordpress.com, and on that blog I’ve posted several messages about my recent thoughts on my life with infertility.  Rather than have you go and filter through all those posts, I thought I’d post links to them on this page.  Then we’ll all be up to date on the conversation and ready to move on!

Here they are, in descending chronological order:

Dear Anonymous Visitor

Final Thoughts on National Infertility Week

National Infertility Week Thoughts

Things left undone

Emilie, don’t read this

Of course, I hope you read the other blog, too.  That’s where all the info about school, farming, family, and more insights into eclectic little ol’ me.

Infertility hurts

If you are struggling with infertility, this is not news to you.  Infertility hurts you.  It hurts your family.  It even hurts your friends.

I believe it even hurts God.

Just think about that for a moment.  For all the times we’ve shaken our fist at heaven and cried out, “Why are you doing this to me?  Where are you? How can you watch me hurt like this?”, what if, instead of only hearing our cries, God also grieved with us?  Would that make a difference in your life?

Jesus wept.

It’s the shortest verse in the Bible, and maybe it’s one of the most important, because through this verse we can see the empathy that God feels for His children in their pain.  John 11:33-36 tells the story of a Jesus who was so moved by the grief of his friends that He wept for them.

No one understands our pain more that God, who sacrificed His own son for us, in essence, giving Christ  up on the cross for us, so that we could then be adopted into His eternal family.  I believe that God knows the pain of miscarriage, the fear of infertility,  or the death of a child, and understands it in a way that our families, our friends, and others cannot. When you feel alone in your pain, you can be assured that you are -never- alone.

He is weeping with us.

What is this all about?

I don’t like to define myself as an infertile woman. I prefer to think of myself as a scholar, a hard-worker, a friend, a wife, a daughter, a teacher, and most of all, a Christian woman. But there’s no doubt about it, my ten year battle with infertility has made a mark on my life. I keep another blog, etrish.wordpress.com, but I don’t want that one to be about infertility – I want it to be about everything else in my life.

But because infertility is a recurring theme in my life, I thought it would be best to set up another site to address my struggle in living with infertility. So here it is, my pain, my fears, my triumphs, my thoughts, my reflections, my hopes, and my prayers in my search to find meaning.