When we first started trying for a baby two and a half years ago, the early months held tendrils of hope. My mind swam with thoughts of our future family, not thinking for a moment of the difficulty we might face along the way. I assumed it would happen quickly, and was excited to start planning for our life with a little one. So, naturally, I felt blindsided by the depth of grief that washed over me, as month after month I faced another “no.” Each “no” was devastating, and was followed by waves of sadness, days of numbness, and throws of grief.
Sometimes I tried to have hope, attempting to rally up the feelings of joy that others seemed to have when they started trying. And sometimes I tried not to hope, thinking that the more I hoped the harder the disappointment would feel. Again and again, my heart swung like a pendulum between tentative hope and desperate grief. I was on a roller coaster of emotion that left me spent, and led me too often to doubt the Lord’s goodness and His kindness toward me.
If I’m honest, it’s this cyclical nature of grief that has been the hardest part of infertility for me. Just as I finish grieving another month’s “no,” my heart unwittingly shifts again toward tentative hope. And as soon as I start to hope, I am blindsided by grief. This cyclical rhythm has made it hard for my heart to settle, either in my grief or my hope. My grief was heavy, pressing, and constant. It led me to spirals of despair that I didn’t know how to emerge from. It affected my marriage, my friendships, and my faith.
In the depths of that grief I cried out to the Lord, asking Him to remember me, to hold me, to be near me, and, over and over again, to answer my prayer (because oh, isn’t a prayer for a baby such a good prayer? Wouldn’t He delight in answering it?). You see, I didn’t understand how to lament to God. I didn’t understand how to grieve while at the same time trusting that God was working out of kindness and using this for good. I didn’t yet see that my grief, my cries, and my laments could be the very pathway to hope.
But God, in His abundant grace, began to draw me ever-nearer to himself. He taught me how to cry out like the psalmist - honest, raw, sad, heart-wrenching, sometimes doubt-filled cries. He showed me that He can handle my choked sobs, my “where are you God?”s, and my beating fists. And He reminded me that amidst it all He was unchanging; that He was still good, still kind, still caring for me, even in this.
Overtime God has graciously given me glimpses of what He is doing in my heart and to my faith. He has shown me that while I have been exhausted by the incessant cycle of grief and hope, He is using this very rhythm to grow a callous of trust in my heart. The skin grows thicker, and my spiritual muscles toughen as again and again I am invited to hope, and ultimately, to trust God more and more.
It is now this very thing that I praise God for most often. That throughout this heart wrenching and lonely season, He is stretching me, molding me, and teaching me more of who He is; that He is showing me how I can hold grief and hope in the same hand (because He is good in both of them).
So while, in some ways, two and a half years of this cycle of grief and hope has led me to hold my desires for a baby more loosely (and tentatively), at the same time it has sanctified my hoping and deepened my faith. This journey of infertility – through the seemingly-endless cycle of hope and grief – has shaped my sadness. It’s moved me from a grief that leads to despair to a lament that leads to hope.
By God’s grace, my waiting and my lament has served to remind me of who God is. My grief has taught me to know Him more and to cling to Him tighter. My lament has shown me that all along, He has been there – always near, ever-kind, and forever holding me fast.
“The Lord is good to all, and his mercies are over all his works.” – Psalm 145:9
Lauren Bowerman is a writer and a wife to Matthew. She has called many cities, states, and countries home, and it is this transient lifestyle that led her to receive a Masters in Christian & Intercultural Studies from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Lauren is passionate about writing on the intersection between grief and faith, specifically on how God’s goodness and grace has met her in seasons of depression, doubt, and infertility. You can find her on her blog and on Instagram.
