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Infertility: School for Parenting or...
Everything I needed to know for parenting, I learned from infertility
by Sandra Lenington
There is no doubt about it. The experience of infertility is painful. From the first shock of recognition through the years of treatment, a couple lives on the edge of hope and the verge of despair. Mental, emotional, physical and financial resources are stretched to the limit.
Sometimes the result of treatment is the long-awaited miracle of birth, sometimes the mirade of adoption. No matter what the outcome, the experiences along the way are invaluable lessons-lessons which, if learned well, can make parenting an easier road.
Among the many important lessons I learned, the four which have helped the most in my years of parenting are flexibility, patience, a sense of humor and the acceptance of intense, conflicting emotions.
Flexibility:
"I am powerless over some of the events in my life."
This quality is best learned early, or one will not survive for long in the world of infertility nor of parenting.
During infertility treatments, one's plans are up for change at a moment's notice and at the whim of a few chemicals which indicate ovulation is about to occur. At this auspicious moment, every other activity ceases-including work, play and social activities. The partners drop everything to make the most of this monthly event.
In parenting one quickly learns that there is no such thing as a schedule. Even the best laid plans must quickly change. Sometimes it seems that events are conspiring to prevent one from completing even the simplest act or single thought. I remember a meeting I planned to attend when my infant was a few weeks old. I fed him, prepared the diaper bag and set off for the meeting with my son safely strapped in his car seat. We were pulling in the driveway when my son decided to deposit the full contents of the bottle he had just consumed-all over the car and himself. That was the end of the meeting!
Patience:
"I cannot always have my way-or at least not in the time-frame I expect or would like."
I am one of those type-A people who wants everything yesterday. The word "wait" is not in my vocabulary. For eleven years of infertility treatment, the only word I heard from the medical staff was, "Wait!" -Wait for the results of the tests. -Wait for ovulation each month. -Wait for a pregnancy. -Wait for an adoption. We waited seven years for our first adoption.
Now that I am the parent of three young children, I am often calling them to play, to work or to dinner. The usual chorus of response from all three in unison is, "Wait!" -Wait until I want to. -Wait until the TV show is over. -Wait-Wait-Wait.
A Sense of Humor:
"I can laugh at some situations. I do not have to take life or myself so seriously."
A sense of humor can be a lesson which is difficult to learn and may only come with the passage of time. It is the ability to look at life from another perspective and a realization that one does not have to take life or oneself so seriously.
Once during a series of donor inseminations, I was laying on the doctor's table, my feet up in stirrups, waiting for a nurse to inject the donor's contribution to this procedure. I was leafing through a magazine when I came across a gorgeous male specimen. "That's him!" I exclaimed to the surprised nurse. "That's the guy I want for the next time!" We both laughed.
Parenting has brought a multitude of situations which are best handled with humor-from the minor annoyances of finding rocks and trucks in the washing machine to the embarrassing experience of the baptism of our son. There were eight other infants being baptized that Sunday and 1200 members of the congregation looking on. Our son was the only one who screamed the whole time until he was taken by the minister for the baptism. As soon as the minister finished the baptism, he returned our son to my arms. Our son began to scream again the minute he was in my arms and did not stop until we left the sanctuary.
The Acceptance of Conflicting Emotions:
"I can allow myself to experience intense, conflicting emotions and it is OK."
Prior to the infertility experience, no other event in my life evoked such intense emotions. First there was the elation of the monthly expectation of pregnancy. This was closely followed by the despair of the realization of loss. The one pregnancy I experienced was filled with joy and fear. There was the intense joy of a long-awaited child, the fear of possible miscarriage and the questions of how I would react to a biological and adopted child together. The pregnancy ended in miscarriage at three months, and we experienced the pain of loss-again.
In parenting I have experienced intense love, anger,,joy, sadness and again, my old friend hope. There have been the small joys such as watching my child achieve a much-wanted hit in baseball to the greater joy of watching my children grow up secure and happy. The fears of loss and concern during a child's illness are all the more intense because we went through so much to have children.
The other day, as my husband and I roughhoused on the bed with our three, young children, the years of lessons tumbled out of the bookshelf onto our bed-books dealing with infertility, miscarriage and adoption. Years of lessons, well-learned surrounded us. We looked at each other and laughed. It had all been worth it. During the years of infertility, my husband and I learned to experience the depths of emotion, to be there for each other in joy, pain and sorrow-what better preparation for the journey of parenthood which lays before us?
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