Guilt-Complex

Guilt-Complex

Week #10

Scripture Reference:  1 John 3:20-21

            For anyone who reads my blog and hasn’t struggled with infertility, you may wonder why guilt is even an emotion connected to this journey.  Merriam-Webster dictionary defines feeling guilty as obsolete; justly liable to or deserving of a penalty. So, how can this relate to infertility? Simple, I will give you three scenarios where guilt comes in to the game.

            Scenario #1: Every month you try and pray to have a baby. You are doing everything right. You have the timing down. You are eating as best as you know how. You’ve cut out caffeine. You pray all of the time that this is it, this is your month. This is the month you will get the positive pregnancy test. Only that isn’t what happens; instead your period starts.  Now starts the guilt trip. I cannot even begin to count the amount of times that my husband has had to console me because I was sobbing. I couldn’t figure out what I did that was so wrong. Why God didn’t want me to have a baby. I thought that maybe I wasn’t a good enough Christian or that my faith wasn’t strong enough. I was convinced that I was being punished because maybe I didn’t read my Bible enough that month or maybe I talked bad about someone that month. I felt so guilty. Logically, I knew this wasn’t the case. People who aren’t living perfect get pregnant all of the time, but I still felt so guilty.

            Scenario #2: So, you just found out that someone else is pregnant. It seems as though everyone around you is pregnant. You are truly happy for them, but that small pang of jealousy sneaks in. The crazy part is now you feel guilty because you feel jealous. You are happy for them, maybe even excited about meeting a new little one, but you are sad for yourself and maybe a little jealous and now you feel guilty about any of the feelings that might not be positive.  I didn’t even know that all of those emotions could be felt at the same time until I started going through infertility.  Then it gets worse.  If one of the people that you were slightly jealous of miscarries the guilt that you feel goes through the roof. Now, you never ever wished harm on them. In fact, you were more excited than anything for them, but because you felt that little bit of jealousy you are convinced that it is your fault. Again, logically, I knew it wasn’t my fault, but I still had that inner struggle with guilt.

            Scenario #3: Now, this is the area that still tries to sneak into my life. This is the area that I have to fight hard to control. In our situation it is issues with me that cause the infertility. I struggled all of the time with thinking that the infertility was my fault. I had convinced myself that I was the reason my husband didn’t have children. I thought I was the cause of his biggest source of pain.  I felt so guilty, because in my mind he could be with anyone else and have children. This way of thinking can cause great strain in the marriage.

This is where I want to start in fixing this guilt-complex we get.  Infertility is no one’s fault. I do not care if you are the only one in the relationship with the issue causing infertility. It is not your fault. Yes, I am sure you got married with the idea of owning the home with the white picket fence, having 2.5 kids and a dog, but that is not why your spouse married you. They married you because they love you. You and your spouse are a team. Your spouse will be your most valuable teammate through this situation because they are the only one that understands your situation completely.

If your spouse is your most valuable teammate it is important to remember that God is your coach. He is an amazing coach. You also need to remember that guilt is not from God.  He is not punishing you. He loves you and wants what is best for you. John 10:10 says that God came to give you a rich and satisfying life, but it also says that the thief came to kill, steal and destroy. One of the major ways that the devil will try to destroy you is through guilt, and boy, will he try to cause guilt through stupid things. There is no reason we should ever feel guilty because of infertility, but the devil will try to find your weakness.  1 John 3:21 says that if we don’t feel guilty we will be able to go to God with BOLD confidence. Well, no wonder the devil tries to guilt-trip us. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to pray when you feel guilty about something? How can you pray about having children if you feel like it is your fault that you don’t have them?

I love that first John 3:20 says that even if we feel guilty that God is greater than our feelings.  That is something that I need to remind myself all of the time. God is greater than my feelings! I would say it is about time that we give it to God and let go! Romans 8:1 says that there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. Do you belong to Christ? It is time for us to get rid of the guilt-complex and go boldly to God!

WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT:
This week, take to time to figure out if you are feeling guilty about anything. If you do, it is time to deal with it and give it to God. Then go to Him with bold confidence in prayer this week.

Obsession

Obsession 

Week #9

Scripture Reference:  Luke 16:13

                My question to you today is… Where does your devotion lie? The Bible is very clear that you can only serve one master. I realize that this scripture is talking about money, but I think it is true in every aspect of life. God and our relationship with Him should be our number one priority. Unfortunately, many things in life try to compete for that number one position. It is our responsibility to keep Him first.
                Now, you may ask what this has to do with infertility.  Let me explain.  Infertility starts with the nagging question of why it is taking so long to get pregnant.  You eventually get fed up enough that you talk to your doctor who now wants you to track everything. This means you could be charting your temperature every morning when you first wake up; before you get out of bed you have the thermometer in your mouth and you are ready to record your temperature. Or you use the method I used: the pee on a stick every morning to see what the fertility monitor will say today method. The monitor would tell me if my fertility was low, medium, or if I was ovulating.  Now this is a lot to keep track of, but this isn’t good enough for the doctor. The doctor wants you to write in your calendar every time you have sex. So, you are now scheduling your sex life around the temperature chart or what the monitor is saying.  

It’s now been a few months. You are doing everything right, having sex at the right times. You are even elevating your hips on a pillow because that is what everyone says to do, and everyone has an opinion. If you haven’t told anyone, you’ve Googled and bought books on increasing fertility. You are eating right and trying to stay calm and stress free, because after all, “if you just stop worrying about it, it will just happen”. Unfortunately, it still hasn’t happened. So, now you are doing all of the fertility testing and have decided treatments are the best option to getting pregnant.

For the sake of time I am going to skip straight to IVF. You wake up in the morning and you give yourself an injection. Some days there is more than one injection in the morning. There are so many medications in your kitchen that it looks like you are running a pharmacy. All of these medications have specific instructions on how and when to take them. You get home at night and you give yourself another injection. Several times a week you go to the doctor for an ultrasound and blood work. Finally, you get the go-ahead for the egg retrieval. The procedure is done. You start a whole new round of injections and you wait for the phone call telling you how well your embryos are growing. The day of the embryo transfer you continue injections and now the real fun begins. You wait…and wait…and wait. You are only waiting for two weeks, but it feels like an eternity. The two weeks are almost unbearable.  During this time all you can think about is whether or not it worked. You wait, you hope and you wonder. 

Before you know it, trying to become pregnant has become an obsession. It consumes you. It is all you can think about. You make decisions based on trying to get pregnant. In a sense, you have let trying to conceive become your master. I can tell you from personal experience that this is a bad place to be. Obsession is unhealthy and trying to get pregnant should not control you. I realize it is difficult to keep things in perspective while going through treatments, but even through this situation God should stay number one.

Again, where does your devotion lie? The number one spot for your devotion should be with God. Matthew 6:33 says that we should seek Him first. I love that every time the Bible gives a command it also gives a promise. If we seek Him first He will give us what we need. What an awesome God we serve. This goes with not serving two masters. You cannot seek God and trying to get pregnant at the same level. It does not work that way. You have to make sure you seek Him first!

Next, your devotion should lie with your spouse. Do not get so caught up in trying to get pregnant that you lose your best friend. If you allow it to, infertility will wreak havoc on every area of your marriage. I will be very honest with you right now: if you never have children, you will still have each other. Do not take for granted the relationship you have with your spouse for the relationship you hope to have one day with your children. Your spouse is definite. They are here now. You have got to take time to nurture that relationship. 

There are many areas in your life that can take away from your number one and number two priorities. You have got to fight to keep your relationship with Christ first and your relationship with your spouse second. We live in a world where promotions, family, friends and countless other things will try to get your priorities out of order.  These other things try to sneak in and take over. That is what infertility did to me. It is our responsibility to stay vigilant and keep our priorities in order.

WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT:
 
This week take the time to make sure your priorities are in order. If you aren’t doing devotions and praying, then start. I highly recommend SOAP journaling.  Start a prayer journal so that when prayers are answered you can celebrate. Don’t take advantage of the victories, celebrate them. If you look at life there is always a victory to celebrate.
Second, spend some time with your spouse. During this time do not discuss trying to get pregnant. Take this time to enjoy each other. There is a reason you fell in love and got married.