I was reading a blog today of a fellow IFer who has been lucky enough to get pg a second time through FET (1st time was fresh IVF). She wrote about God smiling down on them a second time and those words were like a kick in the gut to me. The usual disclaimers apply - I'm incredibly happy for her and her husband, she's been through hell and has luckily come out the other side.
I felt so bad reading those words because if getting PG for her was God smiling down on her, and if you do indeed believe in God, then what makes her so special? Why won't s/he smile down on me or the thousands of other women still fighting it out in the trenches? I don't believe that getting pg is God smiling down on you. I believe it's luck, pure and simple. There is no divine intervention, no thoughts of a higher power deeming me finally ready (worthy?) of conceiving. I do believe in God and I believe that God gives us choices, that there's a path laid out with many crossroads, some pathes may be easier than others, but we are masters of our lives. Kind of like a choose your own adventure book. I also believe that choices we make will bring us closer to or move us farther from God.
So now there are two phrases I dislike: God smiling down, and "she deserves this" see "this" post.
8 comments:
I agree. You may want to thank God for having fulfilled your prayers (and not mine or his/hers etc) but it's not like you are better than me or that God likes you more than me. if we go down the road of who deserves things and who doesn't we'll be lost in seconds. There's not such a thing of "deserving" to be pregnant or "not deserving" an illness. One time I saw a movie where the protagonist had an accident and was on a wheelchair since the age of 18 or so. Someone said to her how unfair life had been and she replies "Why do you say so? Accidents are the most democratic things in the World. It happen to me, it could have happen to you. Would it have been different in the big scheme of things if it was you and not me? Probably not." I think the same about infertility. It sucks no end but it's not like I deserved it, it just happened to be me. Love, Fran
Probably she was just trying to express how she was feeling at that moment, but I get whatcha mean. There was a blog where the writer wondered about the verse, "Children are a reward from heaven." I understood it means that children are a blessing, not a burden, but it has stuck with me ever since, too. Why am I not being rewarded? even though that's not what it means. I guess it all boils down to the "Why me" (or "why NOT me")question. Which sucks, because there's never an answer that makes it any better.
I agree with you 100% on both phrases.
Every time we cycled and someone would say: "you deserve this so much." WTH??? Like someone else doesn't? I thought it was the stupidest thing to say, but then I also thought that a lot of times people just don't know what to say so they say silly things while actually meaning well.
DH & I were just talking about this very subject last night. (On Friday) How funny that you brought it up.
My husband would say that it's science/genetics and either it works or it doesn't and there's a technical reason for it, whether we know what that is or not. (He's extremely logical)
We started talking about the chaos theory and about the choose your own adventure books (my favorite when I was young!) and how everything we do and the choices we make effects everything else.
I am agnostic (raised Catholic) and have questioned my religious beliefs in the past few years. But I agree with you, we are all special and just because we get what we want it doesn't make us any more special than someone else.
We make life what we want it to be.
Thank you for your thought provoking post, I've been thinking about things like this recently too!
I SO feel you on this. I was talking to a therapist friend of mine who was telling me about a client who left her husband and then got pregnant during an affair, and she credited that she had broken free of the marriage etc. I felt really annoyed, but it took me until yesterday to realize that she was implying that if I had really done my psychological work, then I too could get pregnant. What about my husband's translocation? What about my miscarriages? What about my 10 years of therapy? FU was about the best response I could muster...
Another friend (also a therapist, given all therapists a bad name here!) said "It could make you wonder what the universe it telling you." i said "I don't believe in the universe--it always tell's you something bad about yourself, so clearly, it's bullshit." She had a good laugh, thank goodness.
good insight. It's about luck in my opinion too. My DH asked me the morning of transfer why God didn't let me be the mom. Holy moly did he get a vent. I was so mad at him. He now says it's luck too. Maybe those that have made it to the other side see it as a being blessed and they don't mean it as we are not to be blessed in that way too? ugh. Either way it hurts to the core.
I couldn't agree more. "Blessed" and "miracle" are often so misused in reference to IF and I dislike both. Lucky and fortunate work much better for me...
We are all worthy, we are all unworthy.. Children are not prizes given out for good performance.
We try to make god into something our small minds can understand, to comfort us.
Its just so hard to accept that we live in a great mystery, and while we may get glimpses of how it works, we don't really know, or have much control.
I always try to accept what is.
It's much easier "accepting what is" tho, when one is not faced with the ongoing risks to the heart that IF causes.
Post a Comment