Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a real blessing.
Children born to a young man, are like sharp arrows in a warrior's hand.
Psalm 127 verses 3 & 4
I love children, and after marriage and the time was right, I thought it would be easy having some of my own. Unfortunatley, infertility set in and I saw my dream shattering before my very eyes. I wanted to have children so badly and as my struggles progressed, my yearning only intensified.
My yearning was so overwhelming and crippling and many times I felt guilty that I was yearning so much. I even felt I was doing something terribly wrong by yearning so much.
I remember one day, I was feeling particularly tired and beaten up by my struggles with infertility and had the chance to talk to a friend. It was the first time she was hearing of my struggles with infertility and so I was at least expecting some words of encouragement, after pouring my heart out to her, but instead she said to me, "you want to have a baby so badly, oh." I was taken aback, whatever does she mean, I thought, is it wrong to want to have a child so badly? It did not make it any easier to hear this from her for the mere fact that she herself was a mother and therefore would never know what it feels like to want to have a child and is being prevented. Her comment however still left me feeling guilty that I was yearning so much for a child and this guilt was greater than before.
There were other instances in my struggle that made me feel as if I was yearning too much for a child. I remember hearing that someone had said that I was allowing my yearning for a child to cause distress to my husband. I was saddened and angry to hear this and if I had not heard it from a third party I would have confronted the person. She too is a mother and even a grandmother. This particular incident had me feeling that persons were seeing me as this obsessed person who was consumed with my struggles to have a child so this added greatly to my guilt of yearning. It did not help either that by this time I was also consumed with the feeling that I wanted to prove to other women that I was as normal as they were, I could conceive a child just as they could, I could be a mother, have a family just as they do, after all, am I not deserving of even just that. I was however wondering if it was because my motives for wanting a child seemed a little bit selfish at times, why God was not answering my prayers.
My question therefore is, "is it wrong to want something so badly." I know it can be wrong to yearn for things that are not necessarily good for us, the job with the office with a view, the beachhouse where we can take our family for summer vacations, the bank account with the huge overdraft facility, but how can it be wrong to want a child, to want a family to whom we can give and experience unconditional love. A family that is there for us when others can't. My answer then can only be no, it is not wrong at all to yearn for these things as they are very much a natural part of our lives, a part of who we are and a part of who we will ever become.
I have been reading a lot of blogs by people experiencing infertility and with each one I read, there is one thing that stands out, there is a strong yearning for children, for a family to call their own and they are leaving no stones unturned nor sparing any costs to satisfy this yearning.
In closing I want to say to you who continue to yearn in this way, do not for one minute feel guilty for yearning so much, do not for one minute feel like you are doing anything wrong in yearning so much, yearn on, fight on, in the end it will be well worth it.
ALL THE BEST TO YOU, and until next time, keep clinging to hope.
