Grief is a funny thing.
When I was doing my graduate coursework at USU, I had an incredible
psychology professor. He taught us the
stages of grief using the example of an adult losing his favorite red pen. “God, I promise I’ll eat all my green beans
forever if you’ll just help me find my pen.”
Hilarious, right? Well it was a
pretty fun lecture but more importantly, it stuck. I’m not claiming to remember all the stages
of grief in order and all the possible manifestations of those stages, but what
I did manage to retain after 10 years of filling my brain with Go Diego Go
episodes and cleaning play doh out of the carpet is that grief isn’t just about
losing someone you care about to death, and it’s not just about crying and
anti-depressants either. We grieve over
many things in life and most significant to me right now is the fact that we
grieve over what could have been. As if
I didn’t have enough to be emotional about, now I have to deal with feeling sad
every time something doesn’t go as planned?!?
Yep. But luckily, most of us “grieve”
all those what-could-have-beens very quickly and almost without notice. Like when you’ve had a bad day and you can’t
wait to get the kids in bed so you can finish off the tin roof sundae in the
freezer only to realize hubby finished it last night. Grrr. Oh
well. This what-could-have-been has been
a little tougher for me to swallow.
I had a hysterectomy.
There. I said it. I will not bare any more children. My uterus is gone. I’m grieving my uterus. Saying it that way made me smile, which
helps. I’m actually grieving the loss of
my ability to have children.
Now before you feel too sorry for me, I do already have 4
beautiful children. To most people this
is already a very large family so they aren’t quite sure why I’m upset but I’ll
explain. I have a thing for even numbers
so when Dusty and I got married in 2004 and I happened to have our first child
in 2006, I really liked the pattern and I decided that we would have a child
every 2 years until they were all here.
I will admit to having a certain number in mind but I didn’t tell anyone
about that number of children that I wanted.
It’s not really up to just me and we had only been married a few years! I wasn’t going to give Dusty a heart
attack!!! But let’s just say I like
things organized and I have a journal entry were I listed the years and then
there’s a column for each child and their age and grade when each subsequent
child would be born (and yes, their names are there too). Psychotic?
Probably, but it’s there on paper.
And more significantly, it was written in my heart. Since we got pregnant with Brian as soon as
we stopped preventing pregnancy, and because wanting children is definitely a
righteous desire, I never dreamed anything would prevent my perfect plan from
happening. And nothing did, at least not
for a while. I had child #2 in 2008,
Child #3 in 2010 and Child #4 cutting it a little close in December of 2012. Life was perfect.
So spring of 2014, I naturally started thinking about baby
#5. Actually, that’s a lie. I’m pretty sure I thought about baby #5 a
long time before Spring of 2014 but Mary was quite a handful so I quickly set
those thoughts aside. So here I am, it’s
2014. It’s a baby year. I really want another baby, I always
have! But, for the first 5 months of
2014, our family of 6 was living in a 600 sq ft 2 bedroom hotel room on Ft.
Sill in Oklahoma while Dusty completed Basic Officers Leadership Training for
the Army. There were many days when I
felt ready. Someone else scrubbed my
toilet for 5 months, how can you not feel ready to have another baby!?!? Hehehe
But Dusty wasn’t. He was very overwhelmed with how demanding training
was and already feeling like he was neglecting his family. It was not time yet. To Dusty’s credit, I’m pretty sure if I would
have said, “Babe, I’m ready. I want a
baby.” He would have been happy to
oblige! But since a marriage is a partnership
and because deep down, I had a few doubts (remember that incredibly feisty 2
year-old Mary…) I decided to give up my perfect 2-year plan and wait. And I was ok with that. Oklahoma was an amazing adventure for our
family and could have been pretty difficult with a pregnancy. So when we arrived home that summer, I was
ready and while we both had a few reservations about having another child (we’re
going to support 5 children on a how much money?), we knew God would provide as
long as we kept our priorities right so we stopped preventing pregnancy and I
will admit, I fully expected to be pregnant 30 days later, just like our other
4. So when my period was late, I was
super excited, and then when it came, super devastated. But it’s only been one month. No worries.
One month turned into 2, 3, and then 6 months went by. In my denial and grief, I actually got kind
of excited with the start of 2015 because now, just maybe I would have a 2016 baby
and still have my perfect even numbers!!!
Silly Melanie, God has a plan and even though you’re even numbers thing
is a little obsessive, He’s going to bless you with what you want.
I had had several appointments with my midwife throughout
this time addressing my periods that were now always late and always longer
than 7 days and getting much heavier than they had ever been. After trying several other options, I finally
had some testing done in March and the Dr. found a uterine polyp. “That’s what’s causing the bleeding, it’s a simple
day surgery and you’ll be good as new.”
Well, it was a simple day surgery with a couple of days of recovery, but
a few weeks later, I was not good as new.
I was bleeding again. I was
bleeding a lot. My hopes for pregnancy
were dashed again.
In the New Testament, there is a very brief but memorable
scripture where a woman with an issue of blood reaches out to touch the Savior’s
garment and is healed. She had been
suffering for 12 years! In the past year
I have bled for 151 days. That’s 41% of
the year. I would consider that an issue
of blood! I have no idea how the woman in
the bible survived that long. When I get
to heaven, I would like to give her a big hug and say, ‘I get it.’ The other thing I was beginning to get is the
pain women experience with infertility.
Now before you get on your soapbox and remind me that I had 4
complication free pregnancies that resulted in perfectly healthy babies, I will
reiterate that I was beginning to get
it. I will never understand the pain of
infertility and miscarriage completely.
Everyone’s trials and experiences are unique and only the Lord has a perfect
understanding. But, by April 2015, I had
spent many nights crying. I had prayed
and prayed and asked why and I had received priesthood blessings and I had
tried to eat healthy and exercise and follow the Dr.’s orders and gone to the
temple and prayed some more.
This is the part of grief that I think is the hardest—this
searching for the why part. At this
point, my Dr. (because I couldn’t see
the midwife anymore, I was beyond help from her) basically said, “you have 2
options: You can have a hysterectomy, or you can do hormone therapy which will
only mask the symptoms and not actually solve any problems.” (For those of you who want the medical details,
my uterus and cervix were so prolapsed that they were literally falling out of
my body anyway so hormone therapy would have controlled the bleeding for at
least a little while. But, eventually, I
would need the hysterectomy anyway.) So
during this searching for the why part of grief, I finally started praying “thy
will be done” and looking and asking for comfort and acceptance rather than the
miracle that I wanted. It was also about
this time that almost every single general conference talk was about the family
and how important it is! That hurt. Why?
Why is this happening when what I want IS what God wants? Why can’t I have another baby when God wants
us to have families? Why can’t I have
another baby when the family is THE most important thing for me to do on this
earth? Why is Dusty so ok with this and
I’m the one balling my eyes out every night?
Why, why if this IS God’s will for me can’t I be okay with it? If my family is complete and that is what God
wants for me, then why do I have to hurt and cry and be so NOT OK all the
time? If this is God’s will, why isn’t
He sending me peace? And then I would think about all the women who can’t have
1 baby let alone another one and I feel like a complete shmuck and I don’t dare
say anything to anyone because I’m completely selfish and heartless. And I’d cry some more.
The truth is, God WAS comforting me. He sent me hugs and kisses from my kids. He sent me people to serve. He sent me friends to listen. He sent me good doctors so I could get
medical care. He sent me the most caring
husband who held me every single time I cried and listened even though I had
said the same things a hundred times. He
was patient with me and said, “It hurts me too, I just don’t show it the same
way.” And finally, God sent my mom who knows me too well to believe me when I
say I’m fine. And she said, “Melanie,
maybe it’s not God’s will. Maybe it’s
not that God doesn’t want you to have more children. It’s just that something is going wrong with
you physically and it needs to be taken care of so you can raise the children
you already have.” And that’s the day I
was finally able to stop asking why.
Sometimes things happen. And it
hurts. A lot. And I firmly believe that it hurts God a lot
too just like it hurts us when something hurts our kids. But, in His perfection, He understands what
we have to gain from allowing us to hurt.
So in the midst of my asking why, He was preparing my heart for some pretty
significant understandings that would never have come without the pain.
In a small way, I am now able to mourn with those women who
suffer from infertility. It hurts, but
it does help to have a friend who listens and understands that it hurts.
In my perfect, even numbers life, I have now had a
significant trial. I have struggled and
questioned. I have hurt and had to work
and pray to overcome. I know what that
feels like. The Lord has come through
for me again, just as He has with every other trial in my life and just as I
know He will in the future no matter what.
I am a mother. I will
always be a mother and I will mother far more children than the 4 that I bore
naturally. In his infinite wisdom and
care, Heavenly Father put a bug in my ear to host an exchange student this
year. Why in the world would that be a
good idea when we just bought a thrift store and I’m homeschooling Brian and
Dusty’s starting his master’s program? Well,
because He knew in my pain and loss, I would need concrete proof that my worth
as a mother is not dependent upon my ability to get pregnant. God sent me another child in the year
2015. She just didn’t come as a baby. And she has been a great blessing and joy to
me. I’m confident that the future will
hold more children for me.
I will be a mother forever.
I now have an unshakeable testimony that I will have prosperity without
end in the eternities. Death is not the
end and neither is surgery. Jesus Christ
has overcome it all and so will I as I do my best to keep his commandments.
So I scheduled my pre-op appointment for late October. I had to go to the Doctor a week later
because I was once again, bleeding to death.
The PA I saw, put me on the next surgery schedule because waiting a few
more months was just not an option anymore, they squeezed in my pre-op
appointment the next week and here I am 6 days post-op having a very cleansing
cry as I write.
Recovery has been brutal for me both physically and
emotionally. From the nurse who said, “congratulations
on being barren” to the need for narcotic painkillers, the ride is not over and
neither is the grief. But, there is
hope. There are smiles and there has
been laughter. One particularly
depressing day during recovery, Dusty looked at me and said, “well, I guess you
can quit.” I laughed out loud, which
hurt, but I laughed again and was grateful for the perspective of not “quitting”
recovery.
Those who know me well, know that I bought a thrift store,
and hosted an exchange student in the same year because I enjoy working and I
enjoy being busy. They also know,
resting is excruciatingly painful for me.
So for now, I will pick up another good book, start crocheting another
blanket, and pray to find new learning from so much rest. I will take the good (no more periods!!!!!)
with the pain (seeing Dusty hold our beautiful infant niece) and know that God
does have a plan for my future that includes healing, happiness and eternity
with my favorite husband and my 4 amazing children.
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