The Godlessness Of Infertility

Infertility drives us to all kinds of nasty questions like as getupgrrl put it “Why me? Why not me?” It becomes very easy to struggle with questions of spirituality and yes, even God, when you can’t complete the most natural act of all: having a baby. Before I started trying to conceive, I believed very much as Julie states so eloquently on her fabulous site:

I derive comfort from the notion of an absolute and eventual balance in the universe. I do believe that the universe is ultimately fair and just, not necessarily in the short term but in the vague, theoretical distance; and not based on how "good" we are as people or how "deserving" we are of good fortune, but as something of a birthright. I do believe that every one of us has the chance to feel roughly equal measures of sorrow and joy in our lives. (Whether we open ourselves to those feelings is another question entirely.)

Being sober usually helps one develop basic spiritual beliefs. Most of us stumble into recovery shocked that we’re alive. This immediately sows the seeds of some sort of belief in a higher power, because if there weren’t something watching out for us we would have died in that car accident/suicide attempt/overdose.

When I first began experiencing difficulty in conceiving, I contacted another sober woman who’d been through this. She said to me, all the while holding her baby boy in her arms, “You know, I’ve never really been able to forgive God for those first two miscarriages. Even with my son here, now, alive and well, I can’t let it go.”

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Over the years of my sobriety, I’ve become less and less sure what God is. When I first turned my life around, I quickly went from professing no belief in God at all to a being a full-out Wiccan. I boldly shared this fact at meetings, never mind the fact that I’d never once done a ritual. In fact, I didn’t like most Wiccan practicitioners I knew cause they were a bunch of lame flakes who had never had any thing really bad happen to them.

Eventually, I let go of my rigid idea of God. I began to believe in a benevolent, loving force in the universe that strove for balance. I remember hearing the story of a Native American guiding tourists through treacherous parts of the Grand Canyon during flash flood season. He told everyone that if water came pouring in, they were to try to point their feet in the direction of the flow, keep their heads above water, and above all else, never, never try to swim.

Staying in tune with my idea of God has been like that. Keep your head above water, and never swim against the current—it just exhausts you and smashes you into rocks (some days I can’t resist a good rock smashing, though, and swim hard against the current).

Through each step of our fertility treatment, my husband and I have gone forward very cautiously, wondering if we were doing the right thing. When I asked my sponsor about moving on to IVF, whether or not that went against God’s will, she said, “Well, you have to put your faith in something. You might as well put in these doctors.” It seems easier these days to believe in the doctors than God.

It’s almost better to not believe in any sort of God than believe there is one that is thwarting you at every turn and trying to repeatedly fuck you up the ass. Cause that’s how this feels. It started slowly, with each negative home pregnancy test (not to mention that one false positive), but then as we got more information, it got worse. When the andrologist told us, “Yes, your husband’s overall sperm count is up after three months on Clomid. However, his sperm doesn’t wash well. IUI really isn’t an option for you. You should consider IVF,” I could see God in the background getting out the lube.

In the last couple of weeks, as my first IVF cycle begins, I’m filled with anxiety. I lie awake at night with my brain running in circles like a NASCAR racetrack. I spend my whole day at work researching the frequency of cerebral palsy in IVF twins. Then I go to the fertility boards for some hope, and find all the members of my little IUI circle have miscarried.

When I told my sponsor this, she laughed, and said, “Well, stop. Stop researching stuff that makes you crazy. Before you do that, pray—but not to your higher power. Pick someone else, someone benevolent, like the Dalai Lama as a child.”

So yesterday, I was thinking about this, and I heard the bells chiming from this huge cathedral across the street from my job. Now, I’m not catholic, by any means, but it seemed to me that perhaps the Virgin Mary would be an appropriate higher power for me until my God and I are back on speaking terms. After all, she’s basically the current incarnation of the Goddess, and it took a miracle to get her pregnant, right?

So I called a recovering priest I knew to make sure I wouldn’t be stepping on the toes of the Catholics of the world if I went over there and made on offering to the Virgin. He laughed and said no, so I went on over.

It was incredibly quiet, with the exception of someone running a vacuum in a back office. After I paid my dollar to the poor box and pushed the button to light the little electric candle (ok, whose stupid ass idea was it to get rid of real candles? I was all prepared with lace over my head and everything), I sat in front of the statue of Mary for fifteen minutes, trying to open myself up to feel a connection. I felt comforted, mostly by the mere act of not thinking about anything for a few minutes (except why were Mary’s feet bare? Aren’t there a lot of rocks in the desert?). I left and had lunch without a side order of terror and anxiety. It was nice.

Comments

[Sarah]

1.

This site is fabulous! I teared up reading your comments about going to make an offering to the Virgin Mary.
I am so pleased you were able to abate the anxiety even for just a little while. This blog is gonna be HOT, and help and inspire so many women....you are fabulous!
Love,
Sarah

[Julia]

2.

I'm not catholic either, but I considered having a chat with Mary the other day, too.

I too many thoughts on this subject to monopolize your whole blog, so I'll post them on my own... at some point.

[Karen]

3.

Lots of good stuff again! It seems like we might be IVF buddies. When are you starting?

I'm glad you were able to have a nice day. And liked your poems. I haven't been able to write poetry yet about my IF--seems too unpoetic, you know?

[Julie]

4.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Tell Mary I said hey.