Getting pregnant is impossible.
My cycle will never be ‘normal.’
My family of two will still be a family of two, even as I fill out my AARP card.
Things are only going to get worse.
I can’t do this anymore.
Maybe my life would be better childless?
God seems to be pressing the “mute” button on some of my prayer requests.
God is punishing me.
She is pregnant?! Seriously! She’s only 17! Does she even know how to change a diaper? (My reaction after checking my Facebook account just now)
Those are some depressing thoughts, aren’t they? Oh, how quickly they have been finding their way into my thinking lately. Especially since my last cycle was 70+ days long, most women have had two cycles to my one! I want to have a normal cycle with normal ovulation to have a normal chance to create a tiny human without needing to pump myself full of hormones.
With each new cycle, the days seem to climb higher like they are on a hike to reach Mount Everest’s top. Whispers of doubt keep telling me that my body will always be wreaked by Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), and my ovaries will never know how to create anything but cysts. I wish I could say there haven’t been many mornings like this one when all I can do (or want to do) is curl up in a ball and let the tears stream down my face as I reminisce the days when pregnancy announcements didn’t run me over like a dump truck. The dream of having three children, a minivan, and a family dog named Lassie, all by the age of 30, was still alive (I will be 31 in September=dream dead). I think back to the days when I could joyfully attend a baby shower and not sit quietly in the corner as I question when it would be my turn.
Each whisper leaves me feeling hopeless and each long cycle pulls me further down into the belief that things will never get better.
I find myself constantly looking back to the year 2007 when I stood in our tiny 475 square foot apartment and told my husband that I would stop taking birth control due to hating the way they made me feel. We both worried I would get pregnant soon and be forced to raise a child in such tight living quarters. Pfftt! Several years later and I sit here worried that I will never be able to fill the extra bedrooms we now have with all the joys of giggles, toys, and sounds of pitter patters coming from their tiny feet. Ahhhh…those were the “glory days.” A time in my life when I didn’t have a doubt, fear, or worrisome thought in my head about my ability to grow a tiny human.
But a body that is stricken with PCOS, and no improvement in sight, will make anyone start to question and doubt the possibility of conceiving. Or, at the very least, have hope life will improve. But the truth is, if I want a change in my circumstances, then I must make a change in my thoughts. I can either believe that it will always be the same or I can step out in hope and believe that all things are possible with Christ. I can choose to sit and dwell on the negative or believe that change is on the horizon.
Today, despite everything around me screaming it’s useless, I choose hope. Because you see, the God of hope wants me to live beyond my doubts and fears. Believe beyond my feelings and see beyond what my natural eyes can see. I need to trust Him when He says that the way it looks today might not be the way it looks tomorrow; what was last month might not be this month. And I need to also stop looking to the past but see the future as He sees it. A future that is full of children, prosperity, and health. He wants me to have hope that now, even though I can’t see it, He is doing a new thing. He wants me to stop doubting that He is working together all things for good because I love Him. And to never lose hope that everything is possible for me in this life simply because I believe in Him. That’s what He wants.
He wants me to hope for better days.
Therefore despite the evidence that my body is failing, I will choose hope. Despite the fact, I do not ovulate (as in never), I will choose hope. Despite the doctor’s belief that I have less than a 3% chance of conceiving on my own, I will choose hope. Despite my feelings and all logical reason to not hope, I will still choose hope.
Today, I choose to get up, dry my nose, wipe away my tears, and not focus on the negative. After all, doubt and hope can’t live in my heart simultaneously, so today, I will no longer believe the lie that it will always be this way, but rather choose to look at my future through God’s eyes and believe that better days are ahead.
Below are verses I am repeating to myself today. I included them, hoping that they will encourage you to keep believing all things are possible and better days are ahead.
- What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.” Mark 9:23
- See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19
- And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
- Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23
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