Letter to the Woman Who Wants My Life

I wrote the following letter to an actual woman in my life.  She and I have had many conversations over the last few weeks about her longing for a baby.  I've shared many thoughts that she finds helpful in her attempt to wait patiently without succumbing to depression, but ultimately, I can't fix this struggle for her.  It's a battle she will face repeatedly, as we all do, and wrestle with on her own and find her own way through it.  But my heart goes out to her.  I was in her shoes for 10 years of waiting and wanting a baby.  I want to try to ease her burden as much as I can. I communicate my heart best through writing, so I put these words to paper for her and for all the women in her shoes I've talked to over the last 10 years.

I also wrote it for myself.  I wrote it to help me remember not to look back with longing to my former life without children, or look forward to my future life when they are grown, but to live in the present moment, fully thankful, fully joyful, fully fulfilled. This truth applies to every person, in every situation, in all walks of life.

Dear Friend, Sister, Colleague, and Woman passing me in Walmart,

You see me and you desire what I have.  I'm not going to lie.  My life is blessed.  It's not wrong to desire what I have.  I have two adorable little girls who offer joy every day, whether I see it and enjoy it or not.  I want you to have what I have.  Children are a delight.  My life is charming in so many ways.  I have a roof over my head, food on my table and three people in my household who love me, not to mention your love for me and the love I feel from at least a hundred friends around the world.

You see me and desire what I have, and it's hard for you to grasp why my life is so challenging for me at times. You can't fathom why I would have any reason to curl up in a ball on the closet floor occasionally and cry my heart out just exactly like you do occasionally.

You see me and desire what I have, so I'm going to try to paint a better picture of exactly what it is I have.....

I am 150% thankful for this life and the babies in it.  I wouldn't change a thing. The reason I am agonized, at times, is because I have a high standard for wanting to live my life to the best of my ability and do a good job with what I have been given. I want to fully enjoy my babies while they are little before it's too late and I don't want to waste a minute.  It stresses me out every time a well meaning stranger says in passing, "Enjoy every minute... they grow up too fast."  I do have many glorious moments of enjoying them. But it's just not humanly possible for every moment to feel glorious. Many times the exhaustion is overwhelming and it's not possible to fully appreciate the babies in those moments. This reality is a grief to me, but nothing can be done about it. This is the plight of motherhood. The act of being a mother is primarily a sacrificial gift of love. Love for the children you are raising and love for all the people who will be blessed by them. God's primary purpose in giving us children is not for personal gratification. However, for mothers who are blessed with wisdom and vision, those mothers can see that it is more blessed to give than to receive. This is the truth that can sustain us in the many, many hard moments. Yes, there are many.

Yet, fortunately, there are also many moments of sheer delight and joy and personal fulfillment in the act of being a mother. It's an added bonus.

I'm an idealist, so I have unrealistic expectations that tell me that if I am doing everything correct, and am the best mother I can be, all moments will feel glorious and wonderful at all times. This is just not true. I know you are an idealist too, so I know you are likely to face this same challenge when you become a mother.

In those moments when things are HARD, I feel guilty because they are hard. I make it EVEN MORE HARD on myself by thinking it's my fault and if I was just a better mother, this would be easier.  Certainly there are times when I make things harder than they need to be with my shortcomings. But there are plenty of times when I have the right attitude and I'm doing everything right and it is still just plain HARD.

When we are in a season of infertility or when we are intentionally waiting to have children, many of us women look at mothers with babies and we want their life, not because we are eager to sacrifice our lives for others, but because we think their life would be more fun than the life we are currently living. And when we hear that those mothers are struggling, we think that they must not be grateful enough for what they have. I admit, certainly there's the occasional ungrateful mother out there, but I highly suspect that most mothers are like me..... SO grateful that they want to do the best job possible and they are beating themselves up trying to do just that. And if you're a good mom, you are going to do the same thing when it's your turn.

So try to stop beating yourself up now, thinking your life isn't full enough now. Try to see your life now and your future life raising babies, not as two separate lives, but as one life.  If babies are in your future, you are already making sacrifices for those babies right now and preparing yourself to be a better mother when they come.  The life experiences you are living now are preparing you for whatever unique challenges you will face in your own private walk as a mother. If you get used to and embrace sacrifice now, it won't be as rude an awakening when sacrifice is an unavoidable reality during motherhood.

So please continue to dream, continue to look forward to the arrival of a baby.  Don't shut your emotions off to protect yourself from the pain of waiting, as I did.  Keep longing, keep desiring, keep waiting so that when your dreams finally do come true, you will be open, ready and excited to receive.  But wait with more awareness of what lies ahead, both the joy and the heartache.  Enjoy your current season of life so that you don't look back and feel you wasted it by pining away for the future.  I have to do the same thing right now.  I have to discipline my mind regularly, telling it to stay in the present moment and not pine away for a future of grown children that will come all too quickly.  If you learn to stay in the present moment now, you'll be better prepared to stay in the present moment and enjoy as much as possible when your glorious babies do come.

This truth applies to every person, in all situations, in all walks of life.

Infertility, Motherhood, Humility, Suffering, Joy

I lay outside in the grass today, during my baby's nap time, reading another chapter in a book about motherhood and as I read, I had a light bulb moment and I want to share it with you.

It is the following words from Sarah Mae in her book Desperate that grabbed my attention...

"I have no foundation in homemaking or baby-raising.  I only babysat maybe three or four times..... I never wanted to babysit because I didn't like it; I found it boring.  Entertaining other people's children was not my idea of a good time."

As I read those words, I found myself realizing there was a time in my life when I would have read those words and felt smug because I LOVED entertaining other people's children.  I was blessed with a foundation in homemaking and baby-raising because of a mother and grandmother who made it look like a joy.  My heart should have been humble, knowing my love of children was a gift given to me, not something that came from being a naturally wonderful person.  But did I fully understand that at 22 years old?  No.  I would have read the words of that author and secretly congratulated myself because I thought I was better than her.  I wouldn't have voiced this, but I would have thought it.  Don't we all have secret smug thoughts we would never voice?

Now, at 35, I can relate to her.  Why?  Because ten years of infertility gave me plenty of time away from children and I learned to love all the time I had for myself.  There was a season of about 5 years when I no longer wanted to babysit.  During that season, entertaining other people's children was no longer my idea of a good time either.

I do love entertaining my 10 month old baby now, and her little friends, most of the time.  The love of children has returned to me.  It came rushing back with overwhelming love for my new baby.  But because of that other season of life, I can relate to the author.  And that's when it hit me; this is yet another reason God allowed those years of infertility.  If I had not gone through that season, I would never have seen that side of my heart;  my ability to be so selfish, that it was no longer fun to play with the most adorable creatures on earth!

It's always a great relief to see myself more clearly, to see how imperfect I am and to be able to relate to other imperfect people when they admit their weakness and failures.  I'm a much happier person now, at 35, than I was at 22.  It's not fun to be proud.  It's not fun to think I'm better than others.  That is a burden of loneliness I don't need.  The more time goes by, the more I realize I can relate to every person on this planet.  Given the right set of circumstances, there is no amount of evil too great that I could not be tempted.  The more I embrace this truth, the freer I am.  Free to love others on their worst days.  Free to enjoy the fact that God loves ME, on my worst days.

I know God had many reasons for allowing infertility to be part of my story, but if the above lesson was the only reason, it would have been worth it.

I hate the reality of suffering.  I don't have an answer for every perversion and every awful thing that exists.  I watched a deer die today.  Another car hit it and I drove up seconds later.  The deer lay in the road, heaving, wide eyed, trying to breathe.  We all stood around, wondering what to do.  Eventually the deer stopped moving.  She was gone.  I don't have an answer for why stuff like that happens.  But I've seen enough good come from pain to continue to trust God in those moments when I don't know the reason or purpose for the awful.

I know I would never see myself clearly if I didn't go through trials.  Every trial has revealed more of myself and stripped away burdens I didn't need to be carrying.  Every trial has left me happier than I was before.