Confessions of a Formerly Infertile Mom [Motherhood after Infertility]

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The other day, as I was rifling around in a medicine cabinet looking for more shampoo, I came across something that made me pause: A box of pregnancy tests.

Less than a year ago, I remind myself. All of the appointments, the doctors, the diets, the ovulation strips, the basal body temperatures, the old wives’ tales, the heartbreak of another negative test — all less than a year ago.

And you would think, after all of that — you would think — I would be skipping out of bed at 3am to feed my son; I would be gleefully doing laundry daily covered in spit-up milk; I would be joyfully singing lullabies in the rocking chair until the wee hours of the night when he refuses to sleep.

You would think.

Instead, though, I have to confess: More often than not, I’m dragging my feet out of bed to feed him, wondering if maybe he will just fall back asleep on his own just this one time? I sigh at more spit up, thinking about how I just washed this one pair of jeans this morning. And I get frustrated when he still won’t sleep, more often than not opting to pop his binky back in rather than trying to rock him to sleep.

How could I have already forgotten how hard it was to get here? I wonder with guilt. How long I prayed for this? I was afraid this was going to happen.

Of course I love my son; I love being a mom. But it’s times like this when I’m afraid my formerly infertile self would hate me: Do I seriously have the audacity to complain about anything involving motherhood? How am I not more grateful for these sleepless nights?

But I have to wonder: Did God really have me go through infertility and miscarriage so that I would feel guilty every time I get frustrated instead of joyful when I tend to my crying son at 3am? Was His whole purpose in all of this to guilt me into gratitude now that He’s given me what I prayed for?

I don’t claim to know God’s motives, but I kind of doubt it.

I remember the story of Job, 41 chapters of suffering followed by 1 of blessing. The moral of the story doesn’t seem to center on gratitude. Instead, the result of Job’s suffering is humility:

³You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
    Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me to know.
⁴ “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.’
⁵My ears had heard of you
    but now my eyes have seen you.
⁶Therefore I despise myself
    and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 42:3-6, NIV

Through his suffering and later blessing, Job was humbled to repentance, not guilted into gratitude.

And as I think about my current season of motherhood, I think God is continuing to humble me, too. I will never be grateful enough — for this child or any other blessing. I learned a similar lesson through infertility, too, when I realized I could never be deserving enough. Just like I’m not prayerful enough, trusting enough, patient enough.

I’ll never be enough. And so thankfully, even through the joy and blessing of motherhood, Jesus is still reminding me that I can never be enough. I need Him, just like I’ll always need him. He is everything that I lack.

And you know what the funny thing is? I’m noticing that the more I realize this — the more God humbles me and brings me to repentance, reminding me of all that I lack — the more grateful I become, too. Grateful both for this earthly blessing I never thought I’d have, as well as for the eternal blessing of heaven. It turns out that humility and gratitude go hand-in-hand.

So am I skipping out of bed at 3am now to feed my son? Not quite.

But for some reason sleepless nights are not quite as difficult as they used to be.