Infertility: The Waiting Game

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes years of hardship, tears, and struggles... wait what? That's not how the nursery rhyme goes, and that's not the way I expected my life to go either, but it did. Let me tell you, it's really hard when life doesn't go quite as planned.

My husband and I have been struggling with infertility for years now. As of late I've been pondering what I am supposed to learn from this experience. Patience, long-suffering, trust? Maybe even all of those things.

I've definitely had my ups and downs throughout this experience. Some days I am strong, trusting, and faithful. Other days I can't get out of bed or can't stop crying. I even have days when I'm angry with God, and I'm ok to admit that. I thinks it's important to talk about. It's not something that is commonly discussed but needs to be. We are all human, and as humans we have emotions that we can't perfectly control. So yes, our infertility can make me angry at God sometimes. During those times I stop reading my scriptures and praying because I'm hurt that He would do this to me. Usually within a few days I'm able to come to terms and realize that this is hard and I need His help. One thing I've learned though is that His help doesn't always mean getting what you want.

People will tell you all you need is faith and then it'll just happen, you'll get what ever it is you have been praying for. This is so wrong and honestly it can really hurt someone struggling for an answer to their prayers. Faith won't give you what you want. I had so much faith when we did IVF, more faith then I have ever felt in my entire life. I was doing everything that I was supposed to, and I was trusting in the Lord with every fiber of my being... and it didn't work.

That crushed me.

My faith wasn't enough. My good deeds, service in the church, everything wasn't enough. I was so lost, devastated, depressed, confused, sad, angry, just everything all at once. It's taken me almost a year to come to terms with this experience.

Looking back I can tell you what I did wrong. I put all of my faith in my will when I should have put it in my Heavenly Father's will. At the time, I didn't have the faith to "not be healed". This excerpt from Elder Bednar's talk 'That We May Not Shrink' describes it well.

"I then posed questions I had not planned to ask and had never previously considered: “[John,] do you have the faith not to be healed? If it is the will of our Heavenly Father that you are transferred by death in your youth to the spirit world to continue your ministry, do you have the faith to submit to His will and not be healed?”I frankly was surprised by the questions I felt prompted to ask this particular couple.

Frequently in the scriptures, the Savior or His servants exercised the spiritual gift of healing (see 1 Corinthians 12:9;D&C 35:9; 46:20) and perceived that an individual had the faith to be healed (see Acts 14:9; 3 Nephi 17:8; D&C 46:19). But as John and Heather and I counseled together and wrestled with these questions, we increasingly understood that if God’s will were for this good young man to be healed, then that blessing could only be received if this valiant couple first had the faith not to be healed. In other words, John and Heather needed to overcome, through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, the “natural man” (Mosiah 3:19) tendency in all of us to demand impatiently and insist incessantly on the blessings we want and believe we deserve.

We recognized a principle that applies to every devoted disciple: strong faith in the Savior is submissively accepting of His will and timing in our lives—even if the outcome is not what we hoped for or wanted. Certainly, John and Heather would desire, yearn, and plead for healing with all of their might, mind, and strength. But more importantly, they would be “willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [them], even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19). Indeed, they would be willing to “offer [their] whole souls as an offering unto him” (Omni 1:26) and humbly pray, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42)."

From this very difficult experience I have learned so much and my testimony has grown. I can tell you that I know what long-suffering is, I'm going through it. I know about patience, I'm (slowly lol) developing it. And I know what it means to Trust in the Lord now. It means letting go of my will and how I imagined my life going to trust in the Lord's plan instead.

I never thought in a million years I would ever do foster care, but that is where I'm being lead. Even with foster care I have ideas about how I want things to go and it's so hard to realize that I need to stop trying to impose my will and just trust instead. I guess I'm scared of getting hurt again, but I will get hurt if I keep approaching it like I am. So I'm just going to Trust in His will and exercise my faith the right way this time and see how it goes. Wish me luck!