Kiss Your Miracle

Sky, like many babies, is exasperating a great deal of the time. At eleven months old, she has a strong will and a mind of her own. She doesn’t like to be fed; she wants to do it herself. And she usually lets me know she’s done eating by wiping her high chair tray clean with one dramatic sweep of her arm. During bath time, it doesn’t matter how many times I sit her down in the tub, she continually gets back on her feet. She’s also stuck in the taking-apart stage. Our books spend more time on the floor than the shelves. Will she ever get to the putting-back stage?

But then Sky will do something like discover an old hat under our bed. And when I put it on her and take her over to the mirror, she’s so taken with her reflection that she stares transfixed and then gives herself a round of applause. So that inspires us to try other head-wear. Like the bloomers from her new sundress. And then I have to get the camera. Soon a half hour floats by, but I’m unconcerned with all the messes I haven’t yet cleaned up.

I’m writing this on Father’s Day. One year ago I was hugely pregnant. But two years ago I wasn’t sure if motherhood was in my future at all. If my former self could see me now she’d probably say, “Are you kidding? You finally have a kid and you spend half your time irritated because she’s messy when she eats and throws books on the floor?” And for a minute my current self would want to argue and say, “You have no idea how hard it is to be a mom, how exhausting it can be, how sometimes even getting this child to do the simplest things, like eat or sleep, feels almost impossible.” But even as I formulate those words in my brain, I catch myself and stop, wrapped up in the memory of my life before Skylar. “Who cares how clean the house is?” my former self would continue. “Why do you spend so much time sweeping the floor anyway? Spend more time sitting in front of the mirror with your little girl – your little girl – trying on stupid hats and laughing with her.”

Obviously, I never would have chosen infertility for myself. But I’m grateful now that it’ll always be a part of me, fixing my perspective, speaking up when I forget that I’m living an answered prayer.

The other day I was doing some organizing in our home office while Sky sat on the floor playing. She was concentrating hard on closing this little plastic Easter egg she’d found, and when I glanced down at her honey-colored curls and her careful baby hands I had a rush of gratitude for my life as a mom. A box of my old journals sat on the floor near her, so I decided to dig out the one I kept during our last year of infertility. I wanted to read the end of it especially, the part where I was pregnant but didn’t know it yet. And it made me smile – the way I wrote about how tired I was and couldn’t seem to concentrate on my students. But something else jumped out at me from the pages: I was obsessed with God.

Almost every entry talks about him. Or to him. Probably a third of the journal is written prayer. I wrote about the Bible studies I was doing, the spiritual discussions Adam and I were having, our fasting days. I wrote out confessions and prayers for forgiveness and the things I wanted most out of life. Some days I had just copied Bible verses onto the pages. And it made me think: if I was thriving in my faith then, what am I now? I still pray every day. Adam and I try to get in a few minutes together with our Bibles before he leaves for work in the mornings. But if I had to categorize my spiritual life overall these days, I’d probably call it… well, distracted. Is that how most new moms feel? Some days it’s hard to keep a train of thought going long enough to find the grocery list. I’ll pick up the pencil and realize that shoot, whatever I was going to write down vanished from my head in the five seconds it took me to walk over here.

In a way, my intensity during our infertility makes sense. Infertility forced me to a crisis point in my faith. Over and over as I cried about the pain, a question would come to my mind: if God never gives me a baby, does that mean my relationship with him is done? And as soon as I could feel that thought on the horizon of my mind I’d will it to go away, telling God, “Please, please, don’t make me answer that.” And I’d try to keep praying. But once the thought arrived, I couldn’t get rid of it. He wouldn’t let me get around it. I was constantly confronted with the reality that truly following God can’t be conditional, no matter what circumstance I want to change. Some people think becoming a Christian means making one big decision to follow Jesus. And in a way it does. But my experience is that Jesus constantly asks me that question. “Will you follow me? Even now when you’re hurt? Confused? Will you follow me through this when you don’t understand what I’m doing?” Infertility brought me to a place where I had to choose definitively: I was either going with God or heading off alone. There was no in between. Those days were so difficult for me that I had to lean on him just to get by. It wasn’t possible to be half-hearted.

Then, just like that, I was pregnant. And suddenly, life picked up speed. We put our house on the market and it sold in a week. We moved into an apartment and started building another house. I finished the school year 36 weeks pregnant and we moved again, into a different apartment. After Sky was born we moved once more, this time into our new house. We were thrilled to have our miracle baby and completely overwhelmed by her at the same time. Most of my journal then, when I did manage to write, was full of details about my sleepless nights, my breastfeeding issues, and the parenting books I was reading. I know I was reading my Bible too, but I don’t really remember God teaching me specific things – just that he was with me.

When I think about God these days his sweetness to me comes to mind first. But reading that old journal made me wonder about my passion for him. Have I become complacent? Or is it just that my life has changed so we interact in a new way now? Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” God proved the truth of those words to me during the infertility. I don’t think that means I’m not close to God now, but somehow my bond to him feels different. It seems to me that in all relationships there are times of focused connection and times of simply being together quietly. Maybe it’s the same way with God. I don’t want my faith to be based primarily on feelings, where I need to create a big, emotional experience every time I pray and I don’t believe that’s what God requires. But at the same time, I don’t want to turn to him just when things are hard and excuse myself from seeking him when things are good.

Maybe comparing my relationship with God now to how it was then is the wrong way to evaluate things. Even as I write this I hear that same, simple question in my head, Jesus asking me, “Are you following me today, whether things are awful or boring or wonderful?” And I think that maybe I’m complicating what he intends to be basic – simply doing what I can to move forward with him today.

Sky looks a lot like her daddy. She has my nose, but the rest of her face is a girl version of Adam. One of my favorite things to do these days is watch them interact. Adam crawls around with her on the floor, chasing her and tickling her till she’s laughing and shrieking at the same time, basking in the center of his attention. At ten months old she’s starting to say “ma-ma-ma-ma-ma” here and there, which I take as an attempt to call me mom. But when Adam comes home from work her entire face lights up and she says in a clear voice, “Da-da!” I make a big deal over how unfair that is when I’m the one who’s with her twenty-four hours a day, but secretly I love the way they connect. It’s one of the best parts about motherhood – getting to see my husband enjoy his baby girl, who is somehow partly him and partly me, and still entirely unique.

When I think back over the infertility, I remember how much I wanted to see Adam become a father. I always knew he’d be a great dad. There were many times when I wanted a baby more for his sake than for mine, and he often said the same thing about me. Some people might question why anyone would enter the world of fertility treatments, eagerly spending thousands of dollars to endure a string of personal, painful procedures for just the possibility of ending up pregnant. Why do we even have such a powerful drive for children in the first place? It’s difficult to explain. All I know is that when I look at Skylar Grace with her daddy, I see the answer.

There’s something to be said for not assuming things. It’s not a good idea to look at every childless couple and jump to the conclusion that they’re trying to get pregnant. Not everyone wants children. But for us, the fact that we didn’t chat about our infertility at every barbecue and picnic led some people to assume we just didn’t want kids yet, and they felt free to ask us about it. At large social gatherings casual acquaintances would throw questions at us without warning. When do you plan to have kids? How many do you want? Sometimes they were slightly accusatory – Why don’t you have kids yet? Those usually came with a bonus remark like – When I was your age I already had three! I always wondered how those particular people wanted us to respond. With an apology? With detailed information about my reproductive issues? In the moment, I’d feel like I had some explaining to do. Later, usually on the way home, anger would surge up inside me and I’d think of all the things I should have said in response.

Adam would listen to me rant and rave and then gently remind me that people didn’t mean anything by their questions. “They’re just curious and we should try to take them lightly,” he’d say. “No one intends to be hurtful.” I knew he was right. “Still! You never know what someone’s dealing with,” I’d tell him. “People should be more sensitive!” I really struggled with the flippant comments. Sometimes in my low moments I’d hear their words again in my mind and I’d feel like even more of a failure. I knew God wanted me to forgive and let go, and that my identity should be in him. I tried, but it was always a major effort.

Then one day during that time I was at a Bible study and the topic of depression came up. Someone mentioned a friend who might go on medication for it and I said I hoped that meds wouldn’t be necessary. Later that night the leader pulled me aside and said, “Linnea, so-and-so (person in the group) is on medication for depression right now. Please be careful when you talk about that, okay? She resists being on meds in the first place, but they’re helping her and she needs to stay on them.” I mumbled a weak “okay” as I left, and headed out to my car feeling misunderstood and defensive. I hadn’t said it was wrong to be on meds for depression. Several people I love have benefited from medication and I felt like I’d been very supportive of them.

I kept thinking about the discussion as I drove home. Then I asked myself a question. If I had known beforehand that the woman sitting next to me in the circle was on depression medication and that she felt conflicted about it, would I have said the same thing? And I had to admit, I wouldn’t have. Suddenly I made the connection between what I had said about depression meds and the casual remarks I’d been so wounded by myself. I thought about the way my comment implied that it’s good not to be on medication, that coping without it would somehow be better. I could have simply said I’d be praying instead of injecting my opinion into the discussion. I thought again about my Bible study friend and wondered if my comment would replay in her mind the next time she sat down to take her medication. And I began to get that sick feeling I always have when I regret something I’ve said.

I made a decision that night. Anytime I found myself in a group and a sensitive topic came up – infertility, depression, alcoholism, abortion, marriage problems, anything painful and personal – I would talk about it as if someone there was in that specific situation. It’s not that I planned to assume things. It’s just that we all have struggles and plenty of them are kept private, even in Christian circles. Especially in Christian circles.

It’s been almost three years since that conversation at Bible study and I’m sure I’ve said the wrong thing many times since then. I’m a talker, which can be dangerous. But at the very least I’m paying more attention. There is a verse in Psalm 141 that I often pray: “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips” (v. 3). I don’t think I’ll ever regret being too careful with my words.

I LOVE CLUTTER. Okay, that’s not true. It’s what I try to tell myself when Skylar’s toys are scattered all over the floor. In reality, Adam and I both like things clean and simple. There’s this place here in Florida that sells yard ornaments – statues and fountains and little gnomes to put in gardens. They keep the merchandise outside and whenever we drive by it, one of us usually says “panic attack” and we both take a deep breath. We’re what you’d call the opposite of pack rats. We love throwing things away. Extra stuff (like yard ornaments) stresses us out.

Every now and then it goes a bit too far. The other day Ad deleted something off the DVR that I wanted to see. When I asked him why he said, “We had over forty shows on there! I was cleaning it up!” to which I replied, “It wasn’t messy! It was full of good stuff to watch!” For the most part though, we agree. Clutter is bad. Clean is good.

Now we have a baby, and babies equal extra stuff and extra mess. But most of the time, I don’t mind the clutter as much as I thought I would. The infertility probably plays a big part in that. I’ll never forget the days when I would have given anything to have baby gear messing up our house. And it makes sense to me that there is a price to be paid for close relationships. The more people you love, the more mess naturally follows – whether it’s the actual stuff that comes with kids or the emotional junk we pile on each other as adults. I really don’t love clutter, but it’s an easy choice for me: I prefer the messiness of relationships to the neatness of an isolated life.