Bittersweet Feast

Today is the prelude of joy for the universe!
Let us anticipate the feast and celebrate with 
exultation:
Gabriel is on his way to announce the glad 
tidings 
to the Virgin;
He is ready to cry out in fear and wonder:
Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with You!


I have to say that The Feast of the Annunciation is a little bittersweet for me. I love the miracle of human reproduction. It is fascinating and awe-inspiring. What makes it even more so is this very feast. God The Word chose this process to redeem his race of Image Bearers. Whenever a woman has a child she is taking part in that same process. So I find myself so excited to celebrate this feast for the very first time tonight. There is the sweet.
As I meditate on The Theotokos carrying not only Life but the Light of Light, True God of True God, the One who was in the beginning, I can't help but wonder what it was like. Women who have carried children past the first few days or weeks must have a taste of her wonder. And a very literal  bitterness enters here. I am jealous. I want to understand the Incarnation and the Theotokos in the way that any woman who has given birth can. What makes it all the more painful is that many women, especially my Protestant dear ones, don't care. Today is just Friday. They have the opportunity to stand in front of Christ and His Mother and have just a glimpse of one of the most important moments in human history, and it is just Friday.
It is a similar feeling to when I read Facebook statuses about how exhausting children are and how parents wish that kids would just nap, or that they could go out on a date without having to find a babysitter. Now I don't think these aren't real frustrations and legitimate emotions. I don't think that these friends don't love their children with all their hearts. I don't even think they should keep their frustrations to themselves. But, it stings a little. I want to respond "I would give my life and everything I have for a sleepless night with a colicky infant rather than with my own depression."
So as people's Facebook statuses start to pop up with everyones Friday night plans, and laments of lost pre-baby weekends I'm going to be a little bitter. Because not only don't I have the baby, but tonight I will go to church for the feast and not have the experience of knowing that feeling of life inside of me to deepen my worship.
I think as long as I suffer from infertility this will be the hardest day of the Church Year for me.

The Side Effect of Hope

Warning: Post contains references to female reproductive cycles.

I got my period today. Which is 86 days since the last time, which for me, without medication, is a really good sign. I have all my herbs and my thermometer and calendars. I didn't ovulate last cycle, but I hold high hopes for this month, I'm doing low-carb and I've been walking.
Last cycle I couldn't help myself and I counted. If I had conceived my due date would have been my birthday. I told myself, I promised myself, that I wouldn't do that again. How long did this resolution last you might ask? 8 hours. I was updating my calendar with information about my parents upcoming trip and I did it, I counted. Average first pregnancy count vs. "due date" count would have me giving birth on Mother's Day. I thought I was going to cry. I had this image in my head of holding a baby in my arms and nursing for the first time as the sun rises on Mother's Day morning.
Brian likes these images. He likes the way that my mind illustrates concepts and they make him smile. He fell in love with me while I described the scene I had in my head of watching my first child take his first steps. But I don't feel these images the same way. They aren't pleasant "maybe one day" things. They are tiny deaths. The baby that might have been born on my birthday was then a child I lost. And if I don't get pregnant this month I will lose that baby that I see in my arms on Mother's Day morning.
Every month, every week, every day I wake up with the image of the way the world should be and I am always disappointed. If I didn't see the world as it should be in such perfect clarity. I could be content. If my hope didn't come in Technicolor. If my dreams weren't like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel that alters itself to guarantee a happy ending. Because life doesn't have happy endings. Life has real endings. Life has bitter endings. Always bitter, if you're lucky bittersweet. If you're blessed bittersweet. If divinity intervenes on the behalf of mortality, then there is something that makes the bitter, not only palatable, but intoxicating and fabulous.
So I don't lose all hope, because hope is faith. To have hope is to believe that there is a higher power. There is no way to conceive of a world where anything good happens without a power that makes that good; because a glance at humanity proves that relationships, disease, incompetence, hatred, and ignorance untempered only kill us if we're lucky, otherwise they simply poison our spirits and make each moment unbearable. I let my hope, my faith, run like a film in my head and then when life disappoints I crash into that poisonous cesspool that is my mind. There are days that I can't get out of bed because the disappointment is so overwhelming. But I did it anyway, and I knew instantly what a mistake it was, and chances are I will do it again and again and again, because faith is hope. I have faith and so I embrace the insanity of hope. Like a fool I keep going back to that kernel of a dream that I can't let go of. I believe that it's coming right around the bend. If I believed it was years away I would know I don't have the stamina. If I believe that it's right around this next bend I can do it. I don't have two more years in me, but I can always handle two more weeks. Even if it's 52 times that I wait for 2 more weeks, it's better than wrapping my self around two more years. So at the end of those two week waits I find myself back in that pool of despair that shackles me to my bed. Then something happens that pulls me forward one more time.

Why My Heart Is Breaking

Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons? So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD. And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee. And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD. Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. - 1 Samuel 1:8-18

"For Hannah, having a child was the ultimate expression of her relationship with God," according to Holly Pavlov, author of Mirrors of Our Lives- Reflections of Women in Tanach. "It was as a mother, she felt, that she could serve God best. Therefore, her bitterness was a spiritual distress, an expression of spiritual loss. This prayer, then, was not merely about her own needs, but about her ability to serve God." (Found this here.)

I conceived a child a year ago. The timing is debatable and the midwives and I never bothered to nail down an exact date. Suffice it to say that it was about a year ago. I had a miscarriage, which is also nothing new. I've spent the last year trying to get it together. Trying to fix everything in my life that might have been wrong. There is a long list of things that might cause a loss as early as mine.
I cut down my caffeine intake. I don't take NSAIDs. I have been exercising (got out of it the last couple weeks, but anyway.) I have quit smoking. I don't drink often or much. I take vitamins and herbs. I am attempting to eat whole foods. Even my ridiculous dinner tonight had only 1 ingredient that was processed.
Yet, everyday coke-heads, 300 pound Jerry Springer guests, and other sundry women get pregnant. I really thought I was okay. I'm studying to be a labor doula. There was this whole part about my own issues and dealing with them. I thought that I had put it all in its proper Westminster Catachism perspective.
Then I started getting healthier. I had a period naturally for the first time in over 2 years. This meant things were suppose to be getting on track. I was thrilled to have another one. Unlike other women who are trying to have a baby I look at it as a sign that my body is doing what it is meant to do. But the second one didn't come. And then I threw up. And then the smell of the court room in Media on Monday had my so nauseated I was sweating. And then we took a test and it was negative. I was so sure this time. I've thought I might be pregnant before. But never this sure.
Yes, we can adopt. We have always planned to adopt even if we did have biological children. But, it all comes back to giving birth. I want to be a midwife. I want to be a doula. I have a passion for childbirth. My studies convinced me that birth has a distinct spiritual and theological significance. It is the reason I believe what I do about God and what it means to be a woman. Yet right now I feel very sure I am never going to experience it. I believe in predestination. I knew someone once who believed in God and predestination but believed that he wasn't chosen. Thats how I feel. I feel like I know all about this thing and how special and wonderful it can be but I will never have it.
So my heart is broken. So I am embarrassed. So I am depressed. So I don't feel a whole lot like celebrating my second wedding anniversary. So I don't feel much like doing much of anything.