IF leads to a lot of anger, resentment, jealousy, self-doubt and depression. It tests our relationships with the people we love and with G-d. As a person who started this process with little to no faith, I had more anger towards the idea that a G-d could be putting me through such pain, than faith that turning to a G-d would help me get pregnant. I broke down one night while watching the television show meet the Duggers. They have an unwavering belief in Christ, they live debt free and seem to breed and multiply like yeast. I kept being told to have faith in the Lord and I would be blessed with a baby, and that I needed to pray more. Combined, I felt like I was being told to convert to Christianity. I looked to Judaism for answers and not surprisingly didn’t find much more than the names and stories of women who suffered from IF in the torah. There are no prayers and no answers. Imagine where that led me…a crisis of faith, and path of anger.
I turned my back on G-d, and unleashed my anger on the Brain. Everything set me off. It all came to a head one evening as I prepared to go to work. I think it had something to do with lunch. She almost left and I wouldn’t have blamed her.
I felt trapped, like I was allowed to do nothing more than work and try to get pregnant. I was watching my life pass by. I needed to enjoy me life, break free from my anger and depression and appreciate what I did have. This happened Around August 2010. We traveled to Napa, Sedona, bought Disneyland Annual Passes, booked a trip to Belize and in general…lived. I made a resolution to focus on the many blessings in my life by acknowledging that my life was whole. The Brain and I had a series of conversations, I apologized for taking out my frustrations on her, and discussed our feeling about my depression and feelings of inadequacy.
My crisis of faith, and fall into depression ended in all places- a bathtub. Perhaps it was the lavender scented oils or the gonadotropins surging through my system that sparked the cathartic event. By the end of my bath I felt renewed. I had released all my anxiety and fear, and accepted that I only had a limited amount of control of my fertility. Aside from taking the medications as prescribed, maintaining my physical and mental health, and attending all my medical appointments, everything else is out of my control. I have to have faith in my doctor and my body, and release all the rest of my control to my higher power. Maybe that higher power is G-d, maybe it’s fate, or my Kokopelli candle or an imaginary happy place in the corner of my mind. I inadvertently 12 stepped it.
- I admitted I was powerless over my IF- than my life had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore my to my sanity.
- Made a decision to turn my will and my life (fertility) over to the care of my higher power as I understand “him”.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.
- Admitted to my higher power, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrong.
- Was entirely ready to have my higher power remove all these defects of character
- Humbly ask “him” to remove my shortcomings.
- Make a list of all persons I have harmed, and be willing to make amends to them all.
- Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with my higher power as I understand him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other people in the IF community, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Taking one day at a time...Pinky
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