“The sun will come out tomorrow”

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.

Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

Are you feeling particularly beaten up by infertility today? Are feelings of inadequacy, inferiority and hopelessness crippling you causing you to feel like you want to give up, throw in the towel and find a cave somewhere so that you can be by yourself and wallow in self-pity? As one who has had many of these days during my struggle with primary infertility, I know you have them too.

It is not practical and sensitive of me to say, do not let these days get you down, because that is exactly what they are designed to do, to take the wind out of your sail and cause you to feel like you are being kicked while down.

Instead I will tell you that when those days and those feelings come, it is important that you stay in the moment. Allow yourself to feel the hurt, to feel the pain. Do not get out of bed if you don’t feel like and have to, cry if you feel like, as hard as you possible can because, guess what, “the sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar.” The words of this song are so true because I found that somehow when tomorrow came there was usually new energy, new hope and a new resolve steering me onwards. I guess it is because that is what a new day brings, newness. The Psalmist says, “Your mercies are new every morning Lord, great is thy faithfulness.”


I might have mentioned a couple times on my blog that I am a stutterer. Well, I struggle with feelings of inferiority and inadequacy from I was conscious that I stutter. It did not help when I learnt that I would have to deal with infertility as well. To me, that was a double whammy. To say life has been hard for me because of these struggles would be an understatement. With the help of God though, I have managed to overcome one of my struggles as you all know and not only have I overcome this struggle, I have purposed to support and offer encouragement and help in my own small way to others who are struggling in this regard, by way of this blog. That is a great accomplishment I must say, as I did not know that I would ever be at this place in my life.

What I am saying then is if I did not give up (and at times had good reasons to), I have confidence that you won’t either and you will be a better person for it. It was brought to my attention recently by a fellow blogger that we who struggle are more sensitive and empathetic to others. For quite some time now I find that I surround myself with people who at times need a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on, so this seem very true. I guess it is because we understand pain all too well, we understand yearning and most of all we understand that we cannot take anything or anyone for granted and guess what, we are better friends, better brothers, better sisters, overall better individuals because of this, so, when the bad days and the feelings of inferiority and inadequacy comes, just remember this and you won’t feel too shabby at all. I take comfort in this as well, to help me deal with my struggles that continues.



Be encouraged therefore, and as usual, keep clinging to hope.

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y T H E O D O R E

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.

Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

Our son will be two tomorrow, June 16. Two years ago we welcomed our miracle baby and now he is growing up, we have no baby anymore. We will not be celebrating his birthday in any public way, we will doing something private. We are not big on throwing him birthday parties, instead we try to invest in more tangible and meaningful things for him and that was one of the reasons why we made the effort to have him visit with his grandparents recently and believe me, the bonding I saw with his grandparents was better than any party you could have thrown him.

I have learnt so much about parenting in this short time. I have learnt what it really means to love unconditionally. To have to discipline our son because of something naughty he did and then watch him run into your arms a few minutes later with a special hug or kiss for you, totally forgetting the discipline he just received. I would imagine that, that is how it should be with our relationship with God as well. He disciplines us and wants us to run into his arms soon after when we need comfort.

Throughout our struggle with primary infertility, I have often heard mothers say that whenever their children hurt, they feel that hurt in the bottom of their stomach, some even hold on to the bottom of their stomachs and cry in pain. I always felt jealous of these moms because I was not sure I would ever be able to relate in this way to what they were feeling. Thank goodness I now totally understand and can relate, even though thankfully my son has not suffered any real hurt, only the occasional falls where he hit his head on the floor. Those do terrify me and I do feel the hurt in my stomach, especially that he cries so hard whenever he suffers one of those falls.

Last night we were watching the movie, ‘not easily broken’ by T.D. Jakes and the physiotherapist in the movie lost her son to a swimming accident. He won his race but he went too hard into the wall of the pool and seemed to have suffered a head injury and sadly died. This overwhelming sadness came over me and I suddenly pictured myself in the same position. Believe me, this was not my child and it was acting, but I felt the pain deep down in my stomach as if it was my child, it was frightening. I saw my husband turned on two occasions and looked at our son who was sleeping on the sofa beside us and I knew he was going through the same thing I was going through. What came to me forcefully was that this child was an only child and his mom was a single mom and so she is now all alone. I revisited the whole issue of having an only child and vowed again that there is no way I will settle with just one child, as long as I can do something about it.

I had no idea parenting was so challenging, but so worth it. Mind you I have heard stories and I have witnessed enough parenting going on around me, but you never know the extent of something until you experience it yourself. At times it has me wondering if this is probably why God seem to not have wanted to give me children, the fact that I might not be able to co-op with it. Trust me with a child as active and daring as ours, you would be wondering too, ‘what did I get myself in.’ The thing is, the minute I start having those thoughts, he does something so sweet, so cute that those thoughts immediately disappear and I start thanking God for him all over again. While visiting with family recently, one of my brother-in-laws said to me that I deserved a medal for parenting, after seeing the amount of energy that our son has and how you constantly have to have an eye on him in case he hurts himself or someone else. I was able to respond to him in the most practical way, that I came into this experience with an open mind. Of course we all would like to think that we will have the calmest and easy to control children, but what a quiet and dull world that would be. Can you imagine it? Quite frankly, I prefer the noise, to me its a sign of life and good health.

What can I say, parenting has taught me unconditional love, unselfishness, patience, “to cry a little, live a little and let my poor heart break just a little, for that’s the glory of, that’s the story of love.” These are the words of a song I heard sang once and I have remembered them since. Parenting has also taught me trust in a new way, because when our efforts to be the parents we ought to be to our son seem insufficient, we can only move onward through faith in God, that everything will turn out well.

One of the vows I have made is to ensure that our son enjoy and live in the moment of his childhood as much as possible, so that when he is older, he does not come up missing anything.

To all of you struggling with infertility, my prayer is that one day you will be able to write a post on your blog site such as this, but you have to hold on to hope. You have to picture it happening for you. You cannot afford to lose heart or hope or else you lose everything.

Until next time, keep clinging to this hope.

Yes, secondary infertility does hurt too

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

One of my fellow bloggers did a recent post entitled, "secondary infertility does hurt as well," and I feel compelled to share her post with my readers, to stress the fact that persons suffering from secondary infertility do hurt too.

Secondary infertility is when a woman, after carrying a pregnancy to term fails to carry a subsequent one to term. This can be due to various factors, endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome and age among others.

The thing is, many women suffering from secondary infertility get pushed aside because they often have feelings of guilt that they are yearning for more children when some are still struggling to have even one and quite rightly so, because women suffering from primary infertility (the inability to become pregnant at all) do resent these women, thinking that they are selfish to want more children, when they are still struggling to have one. It is selfish to think that anyone should settle for just one child and many women know what their ideal family should look like and does not stop trying for children until they have reached this target. Primary infertiles do know this I am sure but when you are struggling with infertility, as per my experience, you do behave irrationally at times.

I know of a few persons who are suffering with secondary infertility and it does hurt just as much as primary infertility sufferers. I myself is suffering in this regard seeing that I carried my son to term two years ago and still had a miscarriage a few months ago.

With that said, please follow the link to see my fellow blogger’s post and article on this subject and see also the comments of other women suffering from secondary infertility.

http://infertility-fertility.blogspot.com/2009/06/secondary-infertility-hurts-too.html



Until next time



Keep clinging to hope