Since starting this blog, I have had the opportunity to talk to many amazing women who have or know someone who has some experiences with infertility or miscarriage. Each one's story is as different as each individual, but there are some common threads and themes running throughout. The discouragement and tears, the hopes and prayers, the struggle between supporting your child-bearing friends and family and grieving for your empty arms, the frustration with the instability of your emotions and how they make you suddenly and irrationally angry and resentful of the first random pregnant woman to pass by.
But overwhelmingly, the thing these women most often express is the feeling that they are somehow broken. I remember sitting in the exam room at the OB/GYN's office after we found out the first time that our dreams had just popped like a balloon, and the first thing I was able to whisper through the tears was, "I'm broken." He, of course, immediately and without hesitation reassured me that it wasn't true, admonishing me in the same breath not to say that again.
This, again, is the standard response of the husbands of these women. They love us no matter what our bodies can or cannot do. And that means the world to us, guys, it really does; but at the same time they don't quite understand. It's hard to shake the sensation that you're broken if one of the things that makes you essentially female just isn't working. That you and your body have, somehow, fundamentally failed. (I can just hear the pens of uber-feminists furiously scribbling over my choice of words at this point. All I can say is, if you've never had the overwhelming desire to do something you know you should be capable of naturally and consistently failed despite all you can do, you're more lucky than you know.)
It took us a year and a half between going off birth control and finally getting that first ill-fated plus sign. At first we thought it was just the after-effects of being on the pill for a couple of years, but it soon became painfully obvious that, no, I was not pregnant, and therefore the only explanation was that I was not ovulating, either. And oh, did I feel broken.
And then, one Sunday, the Relief Society lesson was about
this talk. I sat in my little corner behind the piano (I was the permanent substitute pianist for the Relief Society the entire year we were living in that ward) and felt grateful, first, for waterproof mascara since the tears were freely flowing down my face and making puddles on my shirt, and second, for the inspiration of this talk:
The first words Jesus spoke in His majestic Sermon on the Mount were to the troubled, the discouraged and downhearted. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” He said, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Whether you are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or among the tens of thousands listening this morning who are not of our faith, I speak to those who are facing personal trials and family struggles, those who endure conflicts fought in the lonely foxholes of the heart, those trying to hold back floodwaters of despair that sometimes wash over us like a tsunami of the soul. I wish to speak particularly to you who feel your lives are broken, seemingly beyond repair.
To all such I offer the surest and sweetest remedy that I know. It is found in the clarion call the Savior of the world Himself gave. He said it in the beginning of His ministry, and He said it in the end. He said it to believers, and He said it to those who were not so sure. He said to everyone, whatever their personal problems might be:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
It said exactly what I needed to hear that day, and I still can't read it without crying.
"If you feel you are broken, please know you can be mended."
"Broken Things to Mend," Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.
