To Quit or Not to Quit

This past week was a pretty eventful one with regard to my infertility issues. I started out the week talking to Bernard about whether I should do the second round of Clomid or not. The doctor said my progesterone level went from 0.48 to 0.55 while on clomid. My pessimism spoke and said, "That's just as bad as saying it stayed the same." My optimism offered the rebuttal, "But perhaps with another round it will increase more than that." I talked it over with my husband and his objectivity offered another perspective. He noticed the calendar I had hanging in the bathroom telling me exactly what days I needed to take the Clomid. He noticed the OPK's I had sitting around and had seen how many of them I had to waste from not getting a positive "you're going to ovulate within the next 12-48 hours" result. And he saw the bill statements coming from the insurance company telling us how much we now owed because of all this, which insurance does not cover. 

His suggestion: I say cut the Clomid; maybe we'll start it up when we are more settled in our lives with more income but for now let's cut the stress and let the Lord take it.

I'll admit a part of me wondered if that was the same as giving up. Does that make me a quitter? I felt almost as controlling as those women who find themselves single after 3 months of trying and therefore decide that it must not be in the Lord's plan for them to be married. I feel like that girl everyday as I lament over the few months we've tried to get pregnant and haven't succeeded. Sometimes I say to myself, "Aren't you being a little too certain of your demise for someone who hasn't attempted to conceive a whole year yet? What about the women who have tried for several years?" Sometimes I can't help but feel foolish for being upset about this. In my defense, I hadn't gotten a real reason for why my cycles didn't come until just recently. Up until that point I would just go a year without my period and assume it was my body being weird again. I only now have a reason whereas before I never did. 

Still, I can't help but feel silly and ungrateful for the way I continue to sink into my own self-pity. It's a destructive road. It poisons. It leads to resentment of others. It leads to jealousy and mocking. It leads to me being frustrated from other people's baby announcements. It leads to me feeling like some women must enjoy flaunting their pregnant bellies in front of my face. It leads to me being frustrated with the teenage girls who don't even try to get pregnant but do. It makes me just want to smack those girls in the face and say, "Don't you know how hard it is for some women like me to get pregnant? And you just decide to be so careless as to get pregnant and you cannot provide anything close to what women older than you and more mature than you can? How can you be so selfish?"

And then I see it.

I see myself becoming the very thing the Lord wouldn't want.

I see myself being the selfish one.

Becoming so engulfed in my own world as to not see trials for what they are: specifically designed for the person to whom they are given.

I'm struggling with this because I need to become someone. And the Lord knows there are some attributes I will need that I do not have. My trial was designed specifically for me and He knew I'd need to go through this in order to learn. He knew that before I became a parent either biologically or through adoption I would need to learn how to stay on the righteous path even when hope seems lost. He knows that if I want to serve a mission with my husband I will need to show those missionaries what it means to stay grounded in my faith. He knows that the only way I'll get through this trial is through reliance on and understanding through Him.

So that teenage girl who is pregnant after being careless has a lesson to learn. But that lesson isn't the same as mine.

And the girl who decided she wasn't getting married after being single for 3 months has a lesson to learn. But that lesson isn't the same as mine.

The women who have struggled for 5+ years trying to conceive have their own lessons to learn. And while I can gain strength from their examples, their lessons are not the same as mine.

The Lord can and will help me through this. Whether I have struggled with this for 5 months or 5 years, He will help me through it. 

My job is to stay off the path of self-pity and indignation. My job is to ask Him with a sincere heart what it is He would have me do right now. And then my job is to do what it is He has asked out of love for Him, not out of expectation of blessings. My job is to recognize when I start going down this path and remove myself off of it. My job is to continue to strengthen friends who are struggling with this too. 

Thinking about all this helps me to define what a quitter really is. I don't think a quitter is someone who has lost hope and is not sure where to go. And I don't think a quitter is someone who has ever felt the loneliness of self-pity. They are not those who misunderstand the Lord's ways and therefore struggle to make sense of things. If that were the case, we would all be considered quitters. 

I think a true quitter is someone who chooses to give up all hope and faith even when the tender mercies of the Lord are round about them. They choose to stay selfish. They choose to walk away from who they could be and who they could be serving. They choose to let their selfishness guide them. 

I don't have to be that person. I don't have to be a quitter unless I want to be. I can become something more. Maybe that's what I should be striving for.