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02/24/2005
Grace
This one's for April.
Infertile women and women who miscarry get this a lot: "It wasn't meant to be." "Maybe God's trying to tell you something." "If nature wanted you to be a parent..."
These things are generally said by someone who apparently has special knowledge of some grand plan. It's a hard thing to hear, especially when we're wondering whether there is any grand plan. When you haven't conceived after yet another cycle, or when you've lost a deeply desired pregnancy, that's a puzzling question. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that one of three things must be true:
- There is no God;
- There is a God and He's fucking with me; or
- He's not fucking with me, but He doesn't care enough to stop whatever is.
It's bad enough when other people say such things to you and you don't believe it. I find it worse, though, when it comes from the little voice inside my head — sometimes James Earl Jones, sometimes Elmer Fudd, sometimes Fran Drescher, which wakes me screaming in the night. Worse when I suspect it might be true.
Now, I don't believe in God, so it's easy for me to accept that there is no cranky otherworldly architect consulting a blueprint, making careful notes on the precise placement of the ottoman I'll shortly trip over. (Hey, it was funny when Dick Van Dyke did it...) But I do believe in something, some kind of universal balance, where we all eventually come out even. So when bad things happen to me, I can generally accept them as being the price for my enormous good fortune in finding Paul, in the love of my parents, in having a life that's been mostly very happy.
The circumstances of Charlie's birth jolted me out of that acceptance. I don't mean I shook my fist at an uncaring universe; I mean that for the first time it occurred to me that maybe Charlie wasn't supposed to happen at all. And that scared me. Out of something really bad — infertility, pregnancy loss, a pregnancy riddled with complications, premature birth, and a few harrowing weeks of illness, his and mine — we'd somehow snatched something really good. Charlie.
So every day I have the uneasy feeling that we've gotten away with something.
It is impossible for me to look at him without thinking, We almost didn't have you. Maybe he wasn't meant to be. Maybe, in exchange for its staggering generosity in giving us Charlie, the universe will exact some terrible payment, so that my life will maintain its balance.
But then I think of theologian Paul Tillich's profound and simple definition of grace: accepting that you are accepted.
I want to live my life with that kind of grace, without second-guessing my own good fortune. I can't assume it as my due; that's not what Tillich meant. Instead, at my best, I can be humbled by it and grateful for it, surprised to the core but still trusting that it was meant, in some cosmic non-religious sense, for me. Sometimes.
April's post made me realize that this idea applies to infertile women, too. I'm not talking about some highfalutin' pseudo-spiritual way of saying, "Relax, it will happen," or "If you have enough faith..." Nothing of the kind. It's more along the lines of, "Accept that you are worthy. You deserve to be a mother just like anyone else. Don't let others make you doubt it. Don't let the bastards get you down."
If you decide — you, on your own (and perhaps, I grudgingly concede, in consultation with your partner, whose wisdom on this point had better be positively Solomonic or I'll sic James Earl Jones on his weaselly ass) — that you don't want to pursue parenthood anymore, that's one thing. But if it's the voices of others, be it your absurdly fertile sister-in-law or the dog who goaded Son of Sam or Elmer Fudd himself, it's another.
Accept that you are accepted. Don't let those bastards get you down.
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Pefect, Julie, just pefect. I didn't go through half of what you did to get my beautiful baby girl, and I still spent my "wasn't supposed to happen" pregnancy, birth and now new parenthood waiting for the other shoe to drop. Especially seeing other people getting dealt craploads of Very Bad Things. How did I, a random fairly nice but not outstandingly good or selfless person, get so lucky?
That definition of grace, accepting that you are accepted, is one of the hardest things for me to work into my own religious faith especially given that I come from a tradition that says we are saved not by faith alone but by good works. But what helps me, esepcially in enjoying my baby, is to just stop, be calm, and say to myself "Have faith." By which I mean get through my thick skull that sometimes good things DO just happen, and we don't need to deserve them. Personally with my overdeveloped sense of Catholic guilt I have no trouble finding myself to blame for bad things, although I don't do that number on others. But my outstanding priest tells us, We are all invited to the table. Everybody. That's what grace means, not some special favor God (or who/whatever) does for us while snubbing another.
Could hijack your blog with a big religiously-themed post that misses your point entirely, so I will just say again "Brilliant."
And I am glad your beautiful Charlie is here.
I'm a Christian. And I think that anyone who says anything like "It's God's plan" for people to suffer has a truly flawed idea of God. I mean, seriously. What kind of asshole God would set up a world, create a species of creatures with brains and hearts and souls and free will, and then deliberately screw with them to make them hurt? Not the same God who created raspberries and sunsets and kittens and orgasms.
The key to all of this, at least in my understanding, is that God created us with free will. That means that we get to make decisions that may or may not be good for us (remember parachute pants?). It also means that a certain (OK, large) number of random things happen. But by committing to allow us to think for ourselves, make our own decisions, and solve our own random problems, God is also committing to being there with us while it happens. God walks with us through the things that hurt us, and those same things hurt God, too, on our behalf.
I hope this doesn't insult you, Julie, but I see very clearly the hand of God working through your words in this blog. How much understanding and hope have you given to other women suffering from IF, high-risk pregnancies, the horrible NICU experience? That's God in action. God doesn't cause suffering, but s/he does stick around the whole time to listen to us rage and cry, and figure out how to pick up the pieces.
April, the next time someone tells you "it's God's will," ask them how they know. They won't have an answer. Because anyone who says that God's will is for you to suffer while they don't, well, it's a rather self-serving and simplistic view of the universe that directly contradicts the message of the Gospel.
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
-- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
(Sorry, couldn't resist this. My husband and I have been talking about fairness and luck a lot recently)
I've spent my whole life waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have the world's most loving and supportive husband; two perfect children; a beautiful house in the woods; my health; a great family; great, loyal, life-enriching friends; a Ph.D.; two successful careers behind me.....and every day I worry that it's all going to go away. I worry that terrorists are going to blow up Boston and kill my family, I worry that I'll have to watch my children suffer, I worry that I'll die of cancer. Worry, worry, worry. That's all I do. I don't know if it's because I'm a Recovering Catholic and think I don't deserve this good fortune while others around me suffer, or if it's because I think that ultimately the pendulum has to swing the other way because that's the nature of the universe, but either way, I worry. I think that when I finally take the dirt nap, I'm going to be really mad at myself for wasting my whole life worrying instead of enjoying my good fortune while I had it. But how do you not worry when others around you suffer, and how do you not worry when you are the mother of children in this crazy world? This is a rhetorical question, but if someone does have and answer, I'm all ears.
"The circumstances of Charlie's birth jolted me out of that acceptance. I don't mean I shook my fist at an uncaring universe; I mean that for the first time it occurred to me that maybe Charlie wasn't supposed to happen at all. And that scared me. Out of something really bad — infertility, pregnancy loss, a pregnancy riddled with complications, premature birth, and a few harrowing weeks of illness, his and mine — we'd somehow snatched something really good. Charlie."
See, these are the babies I think are especially meant to be here. That's just me. I like to think that if Charlie made it here, against all the obstacles, he is here for an important reason.
And to commenter Carol, you and I are in the same boat - from the great life (minus the PhD's ;-) to the worry about it all crashing down, to the location, to the religion, to the knowlege that I will be SO PISSED at myself when I get to the end and realize how much time I wasted.
I like to remind myself that it isn't personal, that the universe doesn't hate me. I think your 'accept that you are accepted' dovetails nicely with that.
After three years of trying to get pregnant I gave birth to a beautiful girl with a rare disability. I heard an awful lot about what God's plans for us were. I'm supposed to be flattered by her birth defects, because it means God thought I was a special enough person to care for such a child, for instance.
All this stuff drives my pastor nuts. He was at our sides for the birth, after we'd been told she probably wouldn't survive. He sat with me and told me that this stuff is just random, that God didn't decide that this should happen to our family or to our daughter for any particular purpose. It happened because one particular egg happened to meet up with one particular sperm and because my body set the wrong conditions in the uterus this particular time. He doesn't believe God fucks with people's lives like this, or that He purposely gives children disabilities and picks out their parents accordingly, and neither do I.
I think we want to believe there are reasons for these things, because then maybe we can change God's mind about his reasoning. I worked as a volunteer on an ambulance for a while, and came to realize that while certain bad events are predictable most of what happens to us is completely random, which somehow comforted me. I could let go of my control, and understand that stuff just happens sometimes and it isn't about God's plan for us or for the person who hit our car or for the people who just missed the accident. While I'd like to believe my daughter made it here alive and mostly well for a reason, that logic could just as easily convince me that she shouldn't be here at all, so I have stopped bothering with it. She's here, I love her more than I ever thought possible, and we are going to enjoy our lives.
I know I'll get this wrong, because I'm not as eloquent as my feelings on this topic. But it has been an enormous comfort to me to sometimes be in touch with the truth that pain and joy in one's life has nothing whatever to do with merit. They are measured out into the world and flow along, touching all of us in their measures without regard to some sort of overseeing judgment, but rather just as the 'rent' on our lives. Good and evil come to us, and they pass; hard to let go of the one, hard to accept the other. But life is difficult and precious enough without adding the burden that somehow we are marked out for bad things because of a personal failure. At least our misfortunes give us the opportunity, if we avail ourselves of it, of opening up to the pain of other beings, and that is immeasurably enriching in itself.
Julie,
This was a marvelous post. It touched me. It really did. I'm a person who believes in cosmic fairness, in spite of myself, so every good must have a corresponding pain.
But you're right, it doesn't. It just is. The good and bad just are. And some people get more and some people get less and hopefully everyone with less will have more soon and everyone who needs help will get it.
I think that your Charlie was meant to be here and I am absolutely certain that you were meant to be a mother. But not because of some cosmic plan, because you're obviously such a great parent-brain, independent of your reproductive organs.
I think that everyone who wants to parent should, regardless of how they come to it.
I'm going to work on having some more grace. You've inspired me.
I'm still working through what I do or do not believe about God, but what I really DON'T believe is that He's sitting up there, looking down on the individuals claiming exclusive knowledge of His plan, and saying, "Yeah! That's it exactly!"
Why why WHY does anyone think those sorts of comments HELP? Do they really think that the light of understanding will dawn upon these poor women who have been through their very own slice of hell, and they will say, "Gosh, I never thought of it THAT way! NOW I get it!"
As for little Charlie being "not meant to be"? Bullshit. You had him now, in this day and age, when all the technology and all the medical knowledge was in place to give him life. That scrumptious little guy was absolutely meant to be here, to bring you and Paul joy, to give your readers hope, and for so many other wonderful reasons it's going to take you a lifetime to discover them all.
I've always maintained the following:
Time and unforeseen occurrence befall us all.
It sucks, but I do not believe that things are meant or not meant to be. I do not believe God decides who lives and who dies nor does he "call" children to heaven. I do not believe in any of those.
Life sucks. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. It's not fair and it never will be.
Very good post.
Been mulling on a somewhat (OK, very) blasphemous post which I've not posted as I fear the wrath of the righteous.
On the other hand, "So every day I have the uneasy feeling that we've gotten away with something...It is impossible for me to look at him without thinking, We almost didn't have you. Maybe he wasn't meant to be. Maybe, in exchange for its staggering generosity in giving us Charlie, the universe will exact some terrible payment, so that my life will maintain its balance."
You do have a way of putting your finger on the ouch button, you clever wizard, you.
I feel sort of odd about the whole "it wasn't meant to be" comment as it pertains to miscarriage. On the one hand, it's really annoying that people presume that God doesn't want a person pregnant. On the other hand, if you and your husband are carriers for some awful genetic mutation that will be passed onto 3 in 4 embryos, or something terrible like that, then 3 in 4 conceptions will end in miscarriage, inevitably, and it seems like a matter of waiting til the right pregnancy, and the embryo that got the right roll of the genetic dice. Then some large number of pregnancies are just going to fail, not because of divine judgment, but because of the probabilities. Too bad we can't know the percentages before hand. I'd love to know how many pregnancies I'd have to go through to be 95% confident of a baby. Or to know that there's a 75% chance that a conception will lead to death at 6 weeks of gestation, but that 100% of my personal pregnancies that make it to 12 weeks will make it all the way.
Maybe I just think about genetics too much.
And I can't really know if I would still be able to focus on genetics and probabilities after a pregnancy and the hope and dreams that come with it, followed by miscarriage. It's all still theoretical for me.
I don't know what I'm trying to say. I guess just that if I said "maybe it wasn't meant to be" I would mean, maybe that particular embryo was seriously genetically messed up, not "maybe you shouldn't be a parent".
I think what you're describing is a result of fertility struggles, because I've had the same thoughts myself, though I've referred to it as "waiting for the rull to be pulled out from under me."
Surely there has to be a catch, right?
Somehow the bad stuff is easier to believe.
"So every day I have the uneasy feeling that we've gotten away with something.
It is impossible for me to look at him without thinking, We almost didn't have you. Maybe he wasn't meant to be. Maybe, in exchange for its staggering generosity in giving us Charlie, the universe will exact some terrible payment, so that my life will maintain its balance."
My oldest was conceived thanks to minor intervention, and born via C-Section. He is four years old now, but I still find myself spooked by the possibility that he was never meant to be, or that he and I would have died in childbirth (not so many) years ago.
When he had colic (reflux?) I thought maybe this was some minor punishment. When he ran screaming from the priest on Ash Wednesday, through the pews of the quiet church, practically BUBBLING from the holy ashes? My fault, I thought.
It all goes back to that Mommy guilt. DAMN Judith Warner!
But I like your framework of acceptance, and I think I'm finally there too.
Carol: The Power of Now by Echhardt Tolle. Seriously. I know it sounds like an ad for laundry soap ("Have you ever seen whites so white? That's the power of NOW...") but it is an excellent cure for worrying. Just excellent.
And Julie, yes, I know. It's easy to think tit for tat. Especially when you've got jugs like your'n.
Beautiful post Julie. Simply beautiful.
Moxie, you are absolutely right. How can anyone know God's will? Personally I don't believe in the "God" of christianity and other religions but I do believe in a higher power. I also don't think that anyone should be presumptious enough to speak for the higher power. I think that's just a little bit egomaniacal to tell people that God has spoken to you and told you that Mr. and Mrs SO-and-so are just not meant to have a baby (and you are the one supposed to relay the message)
I don't believe in predestination or in fate. I think that each person determines his or her own destiny. If you want to be a parent then you are meant to have a child. That doesn't always mean that you will become a parent the conventional way but you WILL have a child.
This is why I *heart* Julie.
Julie, I'm coming out of lurkdom to say that I really enjoy your blog and Charlie is such a beautiful baby!
Its interesting that you chose this topic because just last night I wrote a blog entry about how frustrating all the pat christian phrases have been for us. What makes this even more interesting is that I am a christian and I'm totally irritated by them.
Wow! Julie, what an elegant blog entry and what eloquent comments! And April's post was beyond moving. A good read all around.
I share the view that the cosmos is a neutral vs. benevolent place and that any "justness" we glean from the "cards we're dealt" subscribes to artificial precepts and values. Still, "justness" exists as do "luck" and "karma" but their presence and quantities aren't necessary, absolute or divinely meted out. Imbalances abound. We create reason out of the fray of circumstances in our lives, sometimes poetically, sometimes optimistically. Sometimes a really great thing like a baby happens for some people while at the same time there's a long wait of long faces in the abortion clinic waiting room. Fortuity is a chameleon.
I feel the need to clarify. I hope you understand that by my saying I think Charlie was especially meant to be here, I absolutely am NOT saying that any loss of a child meant that child was not meant to be here. Not at all. I hadn't thought that the statement might imply that the reverse was true also. I will standby my statement that your little fella is bound for great things, though.
I have also seen some comments agreeing with your feeling of worrying that Charlie was not meant to be because of all the trials and problems that went into having him. Not to the same extent (obviously), but I felt for a long time and actually still have a pang of it occasionally about my second, for the opposite reason. With my first, we did not suffer infertility but we did try longer than I expected to (14 months). When my son came by surprise, I didn't feel like I had earned him. I hadn't worked hard enough, worried about it enough, temped, charted, fretted, enough to make me worthy of a healthy baby. I always tell my husband that my son feels like "my sick one" even though he's never been seriously ill in his life. He just feels more precarious, no less loved, certainly, just less permanent. Does that sound terrible? I hope it doesn't sound like something I've "assigned" to him or treat him as. Its just a fear I thought might relate.
As I sit here, through tears I am so humbled - and moved by each of you. Thank you - all - for your encouragement and love.
And Julie - my dear - thank you for just being you.
We're all so damn spiritual lately... thanks, Julie. That was awesome.
What a great post, Julie, though I have to say I am vastly comforted by the random hostility of the universe, when it comes to Bad Things.
I also believe in the stubborness of Charlie. He's here. He ain't going anywhere.
That's an excellent post. As an athiest myself, I side with the 'universe as oblivious to me as an individual' view. While I would *like* for things to even out, good and bad, what I have emprically determined is that random shit happens to people and what we, as humans, are charged with doing is helping each other with it. While shaking our fists at the sky, not because a deity is up there fucking with us, but because we humans are going to best whatever it was.
Humans helped you and helped Charlie. Our desire to understand, to improve and to figure out saved you and Charlie because people learned about how to handle your hellp and to aid preemies in maturing their lungs and whatever else they needed to thrive even when born so early.
The universe doesn't care. I can't believe there is a cosmic karmic something, any more than I could believe in a god or two. Your readers care (and heck you don't even know me), your family cares, and those medical personnel cared. That's what matters.
If you stub your toe today, I can't see how that would be related to Charlie's birth at all. Does that make sense?
CJ
Thank you. Damn you for making me cry so freakin' unexpectedly, but thank you. This post was not just for April. There's a whole lot of us that feel EXACTLY like she does and if I can't feel grace yet, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for being reminded that I may find it one day.
Did I mention: thank you?
Maybe the children are reproducing among themselves and the parents are "covering" up.
BTW-Love this site. First time responding.
this is v v good
you are still an asshole, but this is excellent
Let's say there is something to this tit for tat view of the universe, that you pay for what you get. It is a theory that I also subscribe to, particularly when my windshield is anonymously smashed.
From my bleacher seat, it seems that even if this were true, and you snatched your pregnancy and your beautiful baby from the hands of fate, I believe you have paid, paid, paid for the joy you are having. You had one of the most difficult pregnancy, delivery and postpartum experiences than anyone I know, and I see that not as proof that it wasn’t meant to be, but rather plenty enough pain served to validate your karma’s parking ticket.
Oh, and as for God: [from CNN] "... the Holy Father had a relapse of the flu symptoms which he had already suffered in previous weeks" , he’s got his own problems.
There is no tit for tat. If that were true, then children wouldn't be hurt or sick or murdered. Then women who would make divine mothers wouldn't be barren....and women who suck at it wouldn't have tons. Make no mistake, though, God is in control of this universe. So I understand your thoughts of stealing something (beautiful Charlie) and worrying that it all might crumble. But I also believe that the One who created us will return for us and make all this evil that surrounds us go away forever. I don't know why. I don't even try to pretend to know. But Julie, I hope that stone in your heart that says there is no God starts to chip away. Because you're so cool I'd love to spend eternity laughing at your jokes.
Completely OT - but did you know that your blog and your son are mentioned in one of Germany's most important newspapers?
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub117C535CDF414415BB243B181B8B60AE/Doc~E66F78F54328742F68F5AF8FF91702594~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
Greetings,
Ute
I have nothing to say beyond thank you. That was a very touching post.
Nice. But my response to this is that I've found that a person has to be primed to accept such advice, like a chemical reaction has to be primed with some underlying level of something in order to work. Sometimes you're open to it and accept it and believe it, oftentimes it seems too easy and cheesy and dishonest and Oprah-ish. Today I'm thinking that Grace is at least a nice sibilant word to read and write and to have in your head either way.
Have to de-lurk here to say thank you so much. I needed that really badly, you have no idea. Well, actually, you do, otherwise you couldn't have written that. Thank you.
Delurking. As an agnostic, I generally don't take into consideration the concept of a deity, benign or otherwise, in my day to day life.
For Julie-After stuggling with IF and multiple failed IVFs, we finally welcomed my lovely daughter into our lives. Her birth was a little hairy, but you don't need the details. But here's the rub: She is so fantastic that for the first 7 months of her life I was sure something bad would happen. And the way this was expressed was, "She is so wonderful that God will realize he made a mistake and take her back to be with him". Completely irrational, yet this was the only expression I could find for the intense fear I experienced. Eventually the fear just faded.
For April-I do not know for sure why anyone would choose to believe that a God is purposefully making someone suffer for some greater plan. I have seen them use this reasoning when horrible things, such as cancer, happen to themselves...because they would rather believe that, somehow, some kernal of good will arise from their sufering, than to believe that their God would "allow" or even "cause" such a terrible thing to happen to them. And from this convoluted thinking arises these comments about "what is meant to be" that have been directed at you. I simply wish you strength as you take whatever road you choose, and hope that joy awaits you.
Wonderful post Julie.
When we lost our son at 16 weeks gestation, I heard a whole bunch of bullshit....and since most of it came within a week of our loss - I screamed and yelled at just about everyone who opened their mouth around me. I told them that unless they had a direct line to God or whoever and could get him on the line for me - they should shut their big mouths.
But still to this day my mother-in-law will not accept the fact that we had a son. Oh well - it's her loss not mine.
Oh how I hated that phrase when we had our miscarriage. I think I just looked at people like they had grown another head when they made that assinine statement. The God I believe in and pray to doesn't cause suffering, but is there beside you to help you through it. 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Scary numbers huh? No one ever tells you those numbers though until it happens to you. Unfortunately we just got the short end of the stick when it came to odds that time.
Thanks...
You have no idea how much I am touched by some of your entries. How much they lift me up. And reading your entries about Charlie and your feelings about him (and yourself as a mother) makes me remember why it is we are going to such great lengths to become parents!
You don't know me, and I don't even presume to know you just from reading your blog, but I am forever happy I've found it!