Motherhood = Womanhood?

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately - really beautiful, wonderful blogs written by Christian women who share their faith, their fears, their joys and their sorrows and all of them have babies, lots and lots of babies.  Most of these women are a lot like me - they like to garden, craft, read, I'd say that most of them fall into that hippie - mother earth category.  We're all striving to follow and listen to and for God.  We're all working to be nurturing, creative, constantly growing, possessing all the fruitful characteristics of 1 Corinthians 13:4.  But what if the most womanly biological function - the one thing that completely sets us apart from the male species - is something you are unable to do?  What if you can't create a baby?  


I can't speak for other women, but I can speak for myself and sometimes I easily deal with it and other times it makes me want to crumble into a million little pieces.  Sometimes I rejoice in other women, watching them waddling around our church, beautiful, swollen bellies - and at our church, there are a lot of beautiful, swollen bellies!  Sometimes I am jealous and I have to stop and pray and ask God to calm my aching heart and give me joy.


My own experience has been two miscarriages.  The first miscarriage was at 5 1/2 months and I had to deliver a beautiful baby boy who never took his first breath or opened up his little lips, pink gums showing, tiny tongue wagging, screaming his way into this world.  His name is Elias Kirch Wommack and his birthday is coming up - July 11th - he would be 4 years old.  Instead he was cold, cute and slightly purple.  I held him in my arms and I cried and the thoughts going through my mind were: 1. I didn't know it was possible to love anything as much as I loved that little boy and 2. That I wanted to die.  All the sudden I no longer had him growing in my belly.  I didn't have any little person to plan for or decorate for, I wasn't going to get the baby shower, I wasn't going to see if he had my eyes and my husband's curly hair, I wasn't going to get to waddle around and tell all the other women about my delivery and how long I was in labor, because who wants to hear a delivery story about a child that wasn't alive when his body came into this world?  


It took me a long time to be comforted.  It took me a long time to realize that one day I will see him and I will love on him and we will be together in heaven.  To this day, I'm still not sure of God's purpose in losing him.  When I see the back of a little boys neck - all soft, pink skin - all I can think about is that I never got to kiss the back of that little boys neck.  I never got to bath him or feed him, hug him and raise him with my husband.  I never got to witness the wonder in his eyes at seeing a butterfly fluttering around in our garden or clean him up after feeding him a cherry popsicle.  I never got to see him play with our dogs or build a fort with him in the living room.  I never got to...


The second miscarriage was sad, but earlier on and not as horrible.  It took 3 years for me to get pregnant again and we were happy and scared and older, but excited.  Everything seemed to be going well until I started bleeding.  I sat in the emergency room - alone, waiting and anxious.  Husband driving to meet me on his way from work, friend gone to take care of babies of her own - the doctor walked in, sad look on his face and said, "I'm so sorry.  There is no heartbeat."  The hole opened anew and there was nothing I could do. I felt my body had betrayed me again.  What is wrong with me?  Have I done something and I'm being punished?  Is there something wrong with me as a woman?  I'm not certain I've worked through any of those questions, but I'm trying.  


Truthfully, at this point I've given up on having a baby.  I don't want to try, I don't want to go through the heartache.  I waiver between wanting to adopt or foster and just being.  Just living with my husband and our dogs and being childless.  When we think of womanhood, we all probably have our own definition or characteristics we put on what 'being a woman' is, but a lot of us think that being a mother is a big part of that.  I wrestle with my own womanhood.  I cannot create life.  I cannot complete that most amazing and wondrous act - creating another living thing.  So I keep praying for understanding, for patience, for joy and for that little boy and the neck I didn't get to kiss.

The First. The Only?

I'm starting a blog.  I don't really know why other than I feel that I need to get some words out, express some thoughts, work through some things and create something.  I am not starting a blog because I feel that I have much to say to anyone in particular or much to teach or some kind of inner knowledge or strength to offer anyone, but to offer myself a place to voice my thoughts and possibly let someone else out there know they aren't alone in their struggles or on this journey. 

I've been reading Ann Voskamp's blog at www.aholyexperience.com and have been so moved and helped by her beautiful words.  She is gracious in exposing herself - her insecurities, her questions, her faith and is just lovely.  I'd never read a blog post until last week.  My husband and I have been 'going though it' as a friend of mine so eloquently puts it and another friend began to send me links to blogs that have helped her, comforted her, made her think and helped her work through 'it' when she's feeling weighed down.  Lately, I've been feeling weighed down.  


I'd gotten to a point last week where I was tired and sick of it all.  I was finger wagging, mouth moving, ranting at God sitting in my cubicle at my new job.  Thank goodness no one saw me because they would have thought I was a TOTAL loon!  I was tired of feeling like a loser, tired of feeling like my husband and I had a giant cosmic bulls eye on our backs and I was fed up!  I ranted and raved and asked WHY?  I yelled (well, in my head at least - lips mouthing the words) and fussed and told God I was DONE.  You know what happened?  At that moment I realized that I was the one not listening.  God had patiently been sitting next to me the whole time, walking this path with me and I had shut down.  My heart wasn't open and my mind wasn't open.  I hadn't been bending my knee and bowing my head in prayer.  I'd been going along thinking I could figure it out on my own.  Until I had my little rant and realized I couldn't do this alone - I realized I didn't have to and I wasn't.  When I opened up myself - God brought friends, blogs, books, poetry and my heart began to thaw.  


I was and still have a tendency to be in bondage to fear.  I come up with the worst case scenario on a daily basis.  I hold my breath waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I am held back from fear.  My friend Erin suggested reading some poetry for our community group book club.  She loves the poet Hafiz and just by chance I had the book, 'The Gift' Poems by Hafiz - Translated by Daniel Ladinsky.  One of the poems she suggested was 'Your Mother and My Mother.'  I sat down, cracked open this book I had bought 9 years ago without EVER looking at and hear is what I read:


Your Mother and My Mother
Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living 
In better conditions, 


For your mother and my mother
Were friends.


I know the Innkeeper
In this part of the universe.
Get some rest tonight, 
Come to my verse again tomorrow.
We'll go speak to the Friend together.


I should not make any promises right now, 
But I know if you 
Pray
Somewhere in this world-
Something good will happen.


Gods wants to see
More love and playfulness in your eyes
For that is your greatest witness to Him.


Your soul and my soul
Once sat together in the Beloved's womb
Playing footsie.


Your heart and my heart
Are very, very old
Friends. 


I sat dumbfounded.  I felt like this was written just for me.  Just for this time.  I began to think how corrosive fear is.  How it steals so much from us.  How God never intends us to live in fear but to live boldly and to live joyfully.  But it's hard sometimes.  It's hard when you feel life is closing in on all sides.  It's hard when you experience loss.  It's hard when love is hard to find and harder to give.  It's hard when you focus only on this life and circumstances and you feel your being consumed.  I have to be reminded and to keep reminding myself not to focus on the crisis, but to focus on Christ.  The fear, the insecurity, the sadness, the longing for things that matter in this world (car, house, money, vacations) have absolutely NOTHING to do with what God intends for me or Christ dying for me.  So I keep reminding myself, keep reminding myself, keep reminding myself...