This really is an odd place to be. I'm in a Women's Bible Study on Tuesday nights. Tonight was week 5. For the last 4 weeks, we've spent the entire post-Bible study chat time talking about pregnancy, child bearing and parenting. It's a 7 woman Bible study. I and a college student are the only women in the group who do not have children (including my friend who is pregnant). So we (the college student and I) participate when we can with nervous humor anecdotes from babysitting and friends kids, but mostly we just sit there staring at the floor and occasionally each other. It's glaringly obvious that we have virtually nothing to add to that conversation and I just feel conspicuous and weird. Even if we didn't struggle with infertility, I still find a little off putting that the persistent conversation is a topic in which only some of the very small group can participate. I feel equally annoyed when the topic turns to husbands, because the group again includes that same single college student, as well as a very recent widow. I can't help but feel uncomfortable for them.
Tonight I had the worst time of it. I think some of it was "good grief, here we go again" but then I found myself equally frustrated at myself. If I participate in the conversation I feel like a fraud because that isn't our world yet, and it still may never be. We continue to tell ourselves that there is value in this journey because it is what God has designed for us. It is valuable now and its value is not contingent on whether or not we get a child at the end of it. So we're not counting on things going "our way." We're just being obedient and following one step at a time, trusting that it is Good, whatever the outcome will be.
On the other hand, if I feel uncomfortable or sad, I feel ungrateful for and insincere in my enthusiasm about the opportunity we have been given in our EA. I found myself very frustrated at this fight between my emotions.
Eventually I was tired of arguing with myself and I excused myself to the bathroom, collected my thoughts, returned to get my things, and left. 6 months ago the exact same scenario would have sent me to tears. I'm grateful that I'm not at that point anymore. But I guess I still find myself sensitive to heavily saturated exposure to the topic. Though we're grateful for this journey, it still hurts that we have to work so hard and that our wait has been long for something that others come by so easily. I guess those kind of conversations, at such a frequent and prolonged interval, just remind me of that. I feel uncomfortable, and then I feel guilty for feeling uncomfortable. CS Lewis said something like "Grief is unpredictable. It never stays where you put it." I guess that's what I'm dealing with because I was surprised to be caught by grief, when I have so much joy for our journey. I don't think I'll ever be "cured" of my grief. A lot of it is resolved, but some of it is not and I think that's ok. But I guess I feel like the world expects me to be "over it" now that God have given us this new dream so I am hesitant to share my heart with anyone, save you, dear readers!
I guess at the end of the day I don't think it's completely unreasonable to think that 7 women should be able to find something else in common to talk about. I don't want to pretend like pregnancy, childbearing and children don't exist, but I guess this journey has made me painfully aware of my surroundings and of those awkward moments when you glance around the room and wonder if the topic at hand is making someone uncomfortable. Maybe I'm hypersensitive. I don't intend to say anything to the group, but like I said, the internal struggle between my emotions is frustrating. Have other IF "graduates" experienced and dealt with this? Have any tips? It's not like I don't want it to never come up, but I do think that every week for nearly the entire visit is an excessive amount of time to visit about any one subject that doesn't include the whole group, especially since our group is very small so finding commonality in Christ shouldn't be hard.
I also recognize that Satan can do a number on my heart and that in a blossoming small group built on the Lord is exactly when I should expect an attack, so I don't want to give this an undue position in my heart and I want to call a spade a spade, if it is indeed a spade. But I also want to be responsible with navigating my emotions and being obedient to the Spirit in dealing with the cobwebs and spiders that escape as He overturns the rocks in my heart.
Our meeting with the caseworker is tomorrow! I am excited! Hopefully we'll come home tomorrow with a much clearer understanding of what lies ahead of us, procedurally. We'll update tomorrow! In the mean time, thanks for thinking of us and for joining us in prayer!
