Revelation

Sometimes I do or say things that make me want to run away from myself. Things that make me feel ashamed to be me. I don't need to go into details but I had one of those moments this morning. Normally I would beat myself up for hours after something like this and cry lots. Today however it happened straight after a really good time of prayer for the IVF and encouragement from a friend. So after about half an hour of giving in to temptation to be horrid to myself I felt myself 'wake up' and recognise the situation for what I believe it to be: spiritual attack in response to the work God was doing in the prayer time. I'm not saying the devil made me do the stupid thing but I do believe the temptation to respond to it in a negative way was spiritual in some way. I realised I had a choice to make. I could choose to be horrid to myself in various ways all day or I could forgive myself and ask God to forgive me too and move on. I chose to move on but it was not easy, I had to ask God for help me to forgive myself but I got there and had a pleasant afternoon. I've been feeling physically tired and unwell today which is probably due to my difficult working hours and I find it very hard to like myself when I feel like this but I now know, with a lot of conscious effort I can try at least.
On a slightly different subject but still a revelation it's starting to dawn on me that I'm probably going to have an embryo in my uterus in around 6 weeks! Really need to start praying that it works but that I don't get too stressed out if it doesn't. I've booked 2 weeks off work at the time I hope I'll be transferring. I wasn't going to buy I've been told I'll need to be relaxed as possible. I can't do that with several 12-14 hour shifts per week!

No longer a slave to fear.

The journey of infertility is marked by fear and what ifs. Fear of treatment, fear of failure, fear of miscarriage, the list goes on. What if this doesn't work, what if I don't respond to treatment, what if I can't maintain a pregnancy, what if we can't cope with the grief, what if my period never comes?... Throughout this journey I've struggled with all of those and more. As a Christian I have realised that through prayer God has replaced the fear with peace but the what ifs still remain. However they now have a different answer. What if this cycle doesn't work? Well we'll rest on God and follow what we feel he's telling us to do next. What if I can't maintain a pregnancy? God knows what he's doing and maybe I'll be able to use my experiences to help someone else. What if we can't cope with the grief? Well he's helped us cope with the grief so far, I'm sure he will continue to do so. He's given us each other and a great support network. What if my period never comes? That may seem a strange worry for someone going through infertility, you'd expect the opposite. But this is the what if I'm living in right now. I need my period to come so that I can then have another regular cycle with which I can book to have my frozen embryos put back in me (well one of them). I'm recovering from being over stimulated in June. I thought I was recovered but my cycle is currently 6 days late so obviously things are not back to normal yet! Gods answer to this what if? Trust in me and it will come. I now know that the clinic making me wait an extra cycle for transfer was an answer to prayer as we would not have been ready this month clearly. I'm hoping to do an unmedicated transfer and need a regular cycle for that. I'm not saying that the pain of infertility goes away when you pray, far from it. But it is possible to feel peace in the place of fear even in the midst of what ifs. The difference is I have someone I can ask these questions, someone who has the answers and reveals them to me, just as much as I can handle at a time. I used to live my life with clouds of fear above my head, even before infertility but I am slowly learning that I do not need to live like this. To quote the song I used as a title, I'm no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God. I just need to let go of my fears, sometimes easier said than done!