Monday 9 July 2007

The New Me

I'm a bit embarrassed about my outburst the other day... It was so feral and raw and angry. And so NOT what I'd like my blog to be. It's been plaguing me since I posted it. And really, my conscience has been shouting a monologue at me about how that's not what a Christian's reaction would be. And so, I've asked God to change me. To help me (oh no! - I can't believe I'm arriving here...) accept being infertile. I have fought against accepting it for so long. It's hard to accept it. Because it's not what I want. What I want is to be a mommy. And praise God for Marie-Jeanne! I will be one day. I don't know how to explain it, because I just know I'm going to sound like an ungrateful sod, but my feelings about being infertile haven't changed with the knowledge that I'll get to be a mom by some other means anyway. It's like I still feel betrayed by the flesh I live in. Spanglish described it well when she said in my comments that day that sometimes it's no fun to live in a traiterous body. I couldn't have put it better.
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You know, I keep telling myself that I shouldn't be so upset about infertility, because after all, it's not cancer. Or Aids. Or some other life-threatening illness... it's just infertility. That's all. It's not the end of the world. And sometimes I agree with myself. It's not THAT bad. Other times it feels like the end of my world. Luckily today is not one of those days. Today, the sun's shining; I'm enjoying a yummy bowl of tofu, mushroom and tomato; and a steaming mug of cappuccino. Today it's one whole week less until I see my hubby again. And today - it's the start of a new attitude. A brand new shiny attitude with happy faces and sparklies. Just for today. Tomorrow I'll conquer my bad attitude again. With a little help from my friends. But for today? Today I choose to be grateful again. And not bitter. And happy. And dependant on Jesus. Today I choose to listen to my conscience - to God's voice whispering admonitions and love in my ear. And so, today, I choose to be happy again. After all - I'm not dying. I'm living. And I'm going to be stuck in living in this body of mine, as traiterous infertile as it may be, for as long as God chooses to give me life. So I may as well accept it. And love it. Wobbledy butt, scrambled eggs, faulty plumbing and all.
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As for tomorrow? Jesus says I shouldn't worry about tomorrow. Today has enough cares of it's own. (Matthew 6 v 34)


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fantastic Char!
I have been thinking about you all weekend and wanted to say that once you give it to God, you will see how He is the God of the impossible! What we see as completely impossible and out of our reach, God sees as an opportunity to prove His love. Never stop believing and trusting in Him. He knows the desires of your heart - submit it to Him unconditionally and just continue to love and trust in Him. I am sure that you have heard this more times than you care to remember - but you have been in my prayers and thoughts and I felt that I needed to share this with you.
Lots of love Paula

Marcia Francois said...

Glad you're feeling better. I've been thinking about the Belgium thing - will there be a problem if she comes here and has the baby here?

Karen Hossink said...

Good choices, Char! I hope you have a great day today.
Having said that, I also want to say I believe it's OK to have emotional outbursts sometimes. God can handle your gut-level feelings.
As I read through the Psalms I see David having a few outbursts of his own. And they made it into Scripture!!!
So I say, feel your feelings, cry out to God, express yourself on your blog or wherever you need to, and ALWAYS remember to remind yourself of what is True. Then spend your days dwelling on Truth.
Love you,
Karen

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the shout-out.

A day at a time makes most sense. I hope you have more happy days than angry days.

Beautiful post.

Char said...

Yay! Paula! I'm so excited to popped over to my little bloggy. What a lekker surprise. Thanks for your kind words. Thanks for your prayers too. Those are always appreciated especially.

Marcia, you asked about the Belgium thingy. Apparently you shouldn't fly after you're 6 months preggy. So, she would have to be in SA for longer than three months. And that's just not fair on her or her family. (She has two beautiful kids of her own back in Belgium!)

Karen, thanks for your words of wisdom! You are so right - God is not frightened off by our feelings. Thanks for reminding me of that. You're a STAR! :o)

And Teresa - you've SO been there, done that. It's awesome to know there are people who KNOW what this feels like. Thanks for always being there!

Yay! Thanks you guys. I think I'm becoming a comment-a-holic!

Anonymous said...

Hi again.

About the flying thing... It is dependent upon your doctor and how the pregnancy has gone & the airline. You can fly up to about 34 weeks. I flew from London back to SA at 32 weeks and could have pushed for a further 2 weeks if I wanted to. Though it is a still a while away from her family.

I hope that I am not being insensitive as I am not 100% sure of all (of the many) procedures that you have been through - but are you not able to use Gift - using her egg? Sorry if I am being intrusive - just my sister-in-law & I were discussing this earlier as they are also battling to concieve.

Love
Paula

Kelly said...

Glad you are feeling better. And, who is to say (or judge) that your pain is not 'real' pain. No, you don't have cancer or AIDS, but you still hurt. You must get it out sometimes and if people can't take it, too bad.

KarenO said...

I'm so glad I've found your blog - there are so few of us in South Africa blogging about Infertility! Found you via Mel's blog from a comment you left there :)

Would you mind if I link from my site to yours? I'd love to tell more people about that quiz you had the other day - I think it's fabulous!

Char said...

Hi Paula! No, you're not being insensitive at all. I love the input. I would have considered Gift last year, maybe. But I am finished with all the procedures and techniques and meds and poking and prodding now. We gave ourselves five years of trying to do it "our way" and December last year was my cut-off time for trying to get ME preggy. This is the year of "adoption/surrogacy/other". I wouldn't be averse to the idea of gift, it the egg harvesting wasn't so traumatic for the egg donor. At least with IUI (Intra-Uterine Insemination) it's not half as invasive a procedure... except for the nine months afterwards, of course! :o)