infertility - my land of captivity

I've been battling in my head if I should post all of this or not, as I've been trying to post less personal things, but on the other hand this is something I feel needs to be shared. Something that is burdening my heart, and something I need others to understand.

There are two things in my life that seem to greatly alienate me from other women my age, and that's infertility and depression, and depression often feeds off of my infertility.

I feel this strong need to let others know just how badly this hurts, but on the other hand I don't want to bring people down, and I don't want to be told not to dwell on such things. If only I could life would be so much simpler.

Recently I found some old friends on-line, and when I do I usually like to dig out old photos to scan and share with them on-line. I was doing this again and these particular friends where from a time in my life when I was helping out with my mom's at home daycare quite a bit. Most all of the photos of me were with kids. Holding babies and pushing strollers, I was just a young teen, but I remember then thinking about how my hopes were to marry young and be a young mom, I did the marry young part, but my body had other plans. When those photos were taken they seemed natural and it looked like I'd enjoy life with kids from that moment on, but very sadly that hasn't been the case.

Lately I've been having dreams about holding our child in my arms. Usually she's about 2 or 3, chubby and with my dark features. She's a beautiful blend of the two of us. I never want to wake up from these dreams because I know during them that they're just dreams. I know when I wake up there will still be a messy quiet house with an empty nursery. I know that I'll wake up sad, feeling the sensations still seeming real, but fading as I wake. Depression and sadness filling that emptiness before I can even try to rationalize things as I become more awake.

The thing I keep hoping I can get across is the immense sense of loss this makes. Every time I wake up from these dreams it's as if I did have that baby and they have now passed away and are gone from me. It feels like a death, a death of someone I've never yet had to begin with. This sadness only grows the depression. And it starts afresh each time these dreams return. The process of grief keeps playing out only to start over all over again just when I feel like I have a handle on my emotions again.

I don't know why my life has always felt so certain to always include kids. I truly imagined that I'd be home-schooling children by now - not still waiting and hoping to open my arms to a child. I feel so horribly behind from what my dreams have been. I can't see how to make things happen when they just wont. I see my nephew and nieces get older and older, and wonder if they'll even care about my kids when and if we ever have them, or if by then they'll be too old to connect with our kids. These worries break my heart. I think about this with all our friends too, I see them all growing wonderful families and I wonder, by the time we have kids, will everyone be done? Will I be forced to meet new people and have more circles of friends just to insure that my kids will have someone to play with? I just can't understand why Kevin and I are left so far behind.

I'm tired of grieving, I want to wake up and know that the baby in my arms in my dreams is the same one in my house, but he or she still isn't here. It hurts like when my cat passed away, it hurts like when my grandpa passed away, it hurts like any other great loss... And yet only I have ever bonded with this child of my dream. Only I have seen the way they smile, the way they'd smell after a bath, the sound of their voice, only I've gotten to know them, so no one else feels this sense of loss. People may sympathize, but I grieve alone.

I really don't want to bring the moms I know down, but imagine your child, imagine the love and joy you have of the little things about them, and then imagine they just don't exist, I'd imagine you too would start to see how I can grieve a death of a person who's yet to live.

I know my life has too many issues right now. I know I can't even keep up with making all my appointments let alone someone else's life right now. I know my arthritis still limits me too much, that my inability to keep house makes the environment too dangerous for a wee one, and that God knows the best timing. But when I look back I just hurt more and wonder why this arthritis had to pop up now anyway!? We finally have a home, and I'm able to stay at home and not work, those things seem like perfect timing for starting a family... so why not now? All I can do is hope, I read Jeremiah 29:11-14 and ponder if this is a truth for me too, that this exile of mine will someday be replaced? I have to keep on believing that God has more for me. Why did He grow in my heart the desire all those years, only to keep me home alone, and in pain?

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity."

So please Lord, bring me back, heal me enough to follow out these dreams. Take this burden of emotional pain. Show me this child that lives only in my dreams, let me love her, nurture her, raise her. Let me bring her up to honor You! Let this future family be an honor to You, that we may see others come to see Your love, salvation, and hope.

I can't understand this grief that fills my heart, and I want a way to heal and change. I've seen myself heal and grow from my other losses, I don't want this to forever burden me.

Give me hope Lord, give me understanding in how this is to happen, heal my broken lonely heart. Help others to be more sensitive of the words they share, and guide their hearts to know just how emotional and delicate this heart is because of infertility. If I've had it wrong all these years, if children is not what You've ever had in mind for us then I deeply need healing. I need to know why all these years We've been preparing for something that has never happened. I need to know why it was important to both Kevin and I when were were courting that we agreed on the fact that we did both want children someday. I need to know and understand why I have to live with all of this.

I do know that I've been brought close to women I would never have meet otherwise because of our common issue, I've seen friendships grow as we pray for each-other, and I know that we as humans need other humans and this is something God has His hand in. But the path is one I can't understand, I just have to look at the things I can grasp and wonder what else God is teaching me that I need to open my eyes and heart to see.

The other issues these dreams make for me is that of which path to take. In my dreams I have no doubt that the child is my blood. That she is made from Kevin and I, that she is our biological child. We've talked for years about adoption and foster to adopt and I have not closed my heart to such things, but these dreams make me feel this sense of considering anything other than natural childbirth as wrong. It's a new grief that I've never dealt with. I never thought I was this attached to having my own child. I suppose so much comes from watching the amazing journeys of all my friends who have given birth or are pregnant, and I know I wonder what it would be like for me if we were given that miraculous and blessed chance.

I don't know what else to write about, or if there is something I shouldn't have. This is immensely personal, and yet here I am feeling I need to share this with the world. But I know their are others who hurt like I do and yet still believe as I do. I know I need for those who care about me to know the grief I'm trying to deal with. I just want to heal, and it does me no good to keep this hurt inside and to myself. All it does is fuel depression and keep the cycle going. I hope this post is one that teaches and helps. It is not my intention to bring others down simply because I deeply hurt. I pray for understanding for myself, and for those who read this.