Mother's Day and Father's Day

These two holidays are perhaps the hardest on the couple attempting to conceive. There are several things that you can do as a couple to cope with these challenging days.

Be proactive, not reactive.
Do not wait until the day before to plan a strategy. Decide at the beginning of May or June if you will attend church services. Decide if you will go to family celebrations. Decide what you both can deal with and what you can't. It is very important to be honest about what you can and can't do.

Be aware of painful situations BEFORE entering them.
A good example of this is restaurants. They might ask you if you are a mother or father in order to receive some complimentary item. Simply be aware that if you eat out on one of these two holidays that you might be confronted with an uncomfortable question.

Celebrate your parents/grandparents.
Focus on your mother/father. If there is a special family celebration already planned with lots of children attending and you think this will upset you, better to plan something else with your parent instead. One year, instead of attending our own church service for Mother's Day, we took my mother to a special luncheon and made her feel important. It redirected the focus from me to my mom and changed my attitude internally from regret and pain into happiness and gratitude for having such an excellent mother.

Speak to your clergy member.
Before the religious service celebrating Mother's and Father's Day, educate your minister about the experience of infertility. From personal experience, when our minister knew that we were having such an emotionally difficult time, he accepted literature and acted on the advice it gave. The year before he knew about our situation, he called all of the mother's in the congregation down front to receive a rose. My heart strained in my chest and I felt as if every eye in the sanctuary was directly on me. I was the only woman in my Sunday school class and age range without a flower and one of the only women in the entire room still seated with the men. The year after our pastor knew of our pain and heartache, he called down all women over 18 who would "mother in some form over their lifetimes". It was very touching. He continues this tradition today.

Plan a different celebration.
It is important to consider the husband's and wife's feelings during the holidays. Maybe you can plan something exclusive for yourselves and just enjoy being together.

Christmas and Thanksgiving

Perhaps the hardest parts of these holidays is the abundance of children everywhere. I wrote a devotional for a little book our church put together every year. The booklet was made up of individual thoughts about Christmas from the congregation. This was written in November of 1998, a year before my husband and I conceived our twins.

Phillippians 4:4-7 "Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again, Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, through prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

As most of you know, Steve and I have been trying to have children for some time now. This will be our third Christmas hoping and praying for God to bless us with a child of our own. This time of the year is particularly hard for us. It seems that the entire world revolves around children, babies, and family-all of which are cruel reminders that we have no children of our won. Everywhere I turn the wound of my infertility are reopened. I cannot watch television, because all of the programming is focused on children and people who have children. I cannot read the paper, because the stores have begun to advertise all of the goodies meant only for children and parents. I cannot go to the mall for fear that I'll see several hundred children clamor for a set on the mall Santa's lap, begging for a chance to whisper their deepest desires for gifts. I cannot go to my nieces' pageants and recitals, because I know I'll cry from beginning to end, mourning the children that I might never have.

All of these things serve as reminders that there will be no "Santa" at our house this year. There will be no Christmas Eve scramble with Steve and I trying to put together a bicycle at the last minute. There will be no tiny feet running down the hall in the pre-dawn hours to see what the mythical Mr. Claus has left under the tree on Christmas morning. There will be no wrapping paper torn in wild abandon, strewn from one end of the house to the other. There will be no sounds of tinkling laughter, no little voice squealing, "Look, Mommy, look, Daddy, Santa knew just what I wanted!"

Yet, through this trial that I do not understand and cannot explain, I am blessed beyond measure. I am realizing that God's grace is sufficient! God has given us the strength to bear up under this weight, and I have learned more about leaning on God than I can begin to express. God has given me a husband who loves me far more than I deserve and whom I love more than my own life. God has shown His love for us through this church family who embodies what it means to be Christian. God has given us parents and siblings who love and uplift us and accept us the way we really are. And through it all, I am most thankful that Jesus Christ understands my confusion and pain, and that He is still Lord of All. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, Rejoice!

Although I am unable to participate in all of the holiday regalia for this moment in time, God has made something crystal clear to me; it is going to be all right. God is still God no matter what. And that is quite enough.