*As a side note: I have decided several times that I’m going to stop writing about infertility and how to cope with it. I’m trying to dwell on it less, and sometimes I fear it’s becoming too much a part of my identity. But in some ways, I feel that if God is still bringing me through this, then He is continuing to call on me to write about it. So here I am, with another infertility post.
[Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure here.]
This post is not about how to cope with or overcome infertility by getting pregnant. It’s not about a hope that you’ll get pregnant eventually. It’s not about telling you to “never give up,” either. (There are plenty of posts out there for those things; I have plenty of those posts.)
This post, though, is about something I don’t think we talk about enough: How to survive infertility and build resilience while you’re going through it…whether that’s for one more month or the rest of your life. It’s about coming to terms with the fact that infertility may indeed always be a part of your life. And finding joy and meaning even in the midst of it.
The 3 P’s of Resilience
Don’t get me wrong: I haven’t given up. I’m still actively trying to figure out ways to improve my fertility. (Just this week I called a fifth fertility doctor!) But I’m trying to find a little more balance. A little less about figuring out how to get pregnant; a little more about serving God and finding meaning in the midst of not being pregnant.
That being said, I’m halfway through a book called Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. (By the way: I highly recommend the book because it will completely change the way you interact with others who are grieving. I cautiously recommend the book because it does get a bit too political, at least in my opinion.)
In the book, the authors bring up the work of psychologist Martin Seligman and his thoughts on building resilience. And although a main focus in the first few chapters is overcoming the grief that comes with the death of a loved one, I think his three P’s of resilience are crucial for overcoming infertility, too.
The 3 P’s are: Personalization, Pervasiveness, and Permanence. How can these 3 P’s help us to build resilience and cope with infertility? Let’s take a look at them in reverse order, because I believe the last one is the most difficult, but also the most important.
1. Permanence
Sometimes infertility feels like it’s never going to end.
I don’t even mean the idea that I’ll just never have children (although that thought occurs to me, too), but the idea that the appointments, the decisions, the conversations, the treatments, the sadness, the envy, the isolation, and the heartbreak…will just never end.
Permanence, just as it sounds, is the idea that things are never going to change.
When going through infertility, we have to realize — or maybe convince ourselves — that it will not always be this difficult. There is hope in the midst of heartbreak.
I don’t mean to say that infertility is not permanent; after all, it could be. (Just as the death of a loved one is permanent, too. They’re not coming back to this earth.) So that’s not the point. The point is that things will get easier, even when it doesn’t seem that way.
Let’s be honest, it seems like the opposite. Sometimes it seems like with each month that passes, things actually get harder, rather than easier. When you first start trying to get pregnant, everything seems easy. But as time goes on, and appointments or treatment plans fail, as you’re running out of options, the outlook appears more and more bleak and heartbreaking. And you start to convince yourself that things can only get worse from here.
Easier
The other day a friend and I were talking, and she shared about her baby’s sleep schedule and nap times and first words and favorite foods. I sympathized and ooh and ahhed and asked the appropriate questions. It wasn’t until later in the day that it occurred to me that not once during the conversation did I think about how I don’t have a baby. Not once did I lament that I couldn’t relate.
This is not to pat myself on the back — baby conversations still sometimes leave me bitter and angry and sad and envious — but not always.
The key to refuting permanence is realizing that infertility does not mean you are doomed to a life of permanent heartbreak. Having children cannot and should not be the source of your hope and happiness. Serving God is. And part of realizing that the sadness that comes with infertility is not permanent requires you to reevaluate what is most important in your life.
The promise of eternal life in heaven is the reason that we have hope for our future, not the idea of having children.
You will still have moments of grief and sadness and sometimes anger or jealousy; allow yourself those moments. But realize that those will not always be your responses.
2. Pervasiveness
Pregnant people and babies are everrrywhere…amiright? (I mean, literally, a pregnancy announcement on the radio this morning on my drive to work even!) That’s all anyone talks about anymore, amiright?
And so I sometimes believe that the issue of my infertility impacts every single thing during every single second of my life. I am guilty of thinking all of the following, at different times while I’ve been going through infertility:
–We will be stuck in our small house forever; there’s no reason for us to buy a new house if we never have kids.
–In a few years, our friends won’t ever have time for us anymore. They’re already too busy with the one child they have. Imagine when they have another!
—Everything in all of our friends’ worlds is centered around kids; if we can’t have them, we’ll have nothing in common anymore.
–I always thought maybe I could teach part-time and then write on the side so I could stay home. What’s the point of staying home if we don’t have kids?
In other words, pervasiveness is the idea that infertility affects every single area of my life: My house, my job, and my relationships with others.
The first problem with this thinking is that it’s extreme. I tend to use words of permanence, like always, everything, ever, and forever.
The second problem is that I’m the one who’s convincing myself that kids (or lack of them) impact every area of life. The truth is, I do a lot that has nothing to do with my infertility: I teach, coach, play sports, camp, travel, cook, sew, and craft. And why can’t we move even if we don’t have kids? Why can’t I write from home part time even without kids? Have I forgotten all of the conversations I have with friends about things that have nothing to do with kids? Could it be that I’m the one making infertility affect every area of my life?
Easier
Recently my husband and I booked a last-minute camping trip. We made the reservation less than a week before. As we were driving to the campsite, it occurred to me: This would not be very easy if we had a baby. It may not have happened, even. Not to mention: We had a great time all weekend. Even though we still aren’t pregnant.
This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t trade my sometimes easier life for a baby. I would, any day. But I can remember that not everything in my life has to do with babies (or lack of them).
3. Personalization
I have to admit that I’m still a little obsessed with figuring out what’s wrong with me. (Seriously, unexplained infertility will do that to you.)
I hate the idea that infertility is something I’m doing wrong. Personalization is the idea that infertility is all my fault.
In short: You have to stop blaming yourself.
This is a tough one, because scientifically, there could be something that is making things difficult for you to become pregnant. In reality, though, this is not your fault.
God is not punishing you for something you did. No one “deserves” a baby. Asking yourself why someone else gets a baby and you don’t is a form of blame too. You are trying to figure out what you did to deserve this.
The truth is, God doesn’t owe us anything. We don’t deserve any of the blessings we receive from him. Babies, like any other blessings in life, cannot be earned.
Easier
I love Rachel’s story of infertility in the Bible (you can catch more of my thoughts on that in an entire post here). She might be the most dramatic woman in the Bible, telling her husband, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” (Genesis 30:1)
She was intensely jealous of her sister Leah, who had kids easily. She even offered up her maidservant to her husband so that she could have kids through her. Talk about desperate, sinful, and totally undeserving of a child.
And then she conceives.
And that story changes my whole mindset. God gives babies even to people who don’t deserve them; even to people who totally mess up. Even to people who have things wrong with them.
God gives babies to women who are physically “unable” to have them, too — just look at Sarah and Abraham, and the Shunammite woman and her husband.
Whether you’re afraid you can’t have children because of some sin in your past or because of something in your physical body, rest assured that nothing is too difficult for the Lord to forgive or overcome. This is not your fault.
No, using these 3 P’s to reframe your mindset about infertility won’t get you pregnant. But they will help you to cope with infertility and find hope in the midst of heartbreak. They will help you to build resiliency and become a more faithful woman of God.
