It's Your Own Journey

This "menopause shit," as Chris referred to it today while we were talking and crying, is definitely an individual experience. We can read all the books, and talk to each other as we go through it, but I doubt we'll ever find another person who is having the exact same experience that we are.

That is cool because it points out again how "fearfully and wonderfully made" we are. We're as individual as the snowflakes...no two are alike. Maybe identical twins, but I bet even in that situation there are emotional differences...different ways of dealing with it all.

But the individuality also sucks because it's in our nature to seek out someone with similar experiences. Especially when we are struggling with something we don't understand:

"In every human being is the need to understand and to experience a sense of belonging. A sense of belonging is to feel, in the depths of your being, intimately loved and regarded with honor and dignity."

Today the differences became Chris and me became crystal clear. And I'm celebrating those differences, and yet a little heartbroken for her because of them. Because I am not in the same place that she is, I worry that I may not be able to support her in the way that she needs. But, I'll do my best. I'll love her and pray for her and listen as well as I can. I'll ask her questions that I hope will cause her to ask herself a lot of questions and and hopefully she will make some revelations about herself as a result of them.

We were talking about children. We were talking about the end of the functioning life of those reproductive organs.

I have two children. They are my biological children, which were conceived very easily and carried through two fairly uneventful pregnancies. In 2005 I had a hysterectomy and one ovary removed. I was glad to be done with it. I never looked back. I think I had one moment where I thought, "Well, for sure no more kids now!"

Chris has one child. A child that God provided to her and her husband through adoption. This little girl, who came to them through a conversation between a relative and a friend, is a miracle.

Chris and her husband struggled with infertility and underwent many treatments to try to conceive. It just was not meant to be. Her system would simply not play by the book. She recounted for me how she felt when she went for a pregnancy test, knowing full well that it would be negative. She felt useless. Less of a woman. Worried that her husband might wish he'd married someone else that didn't have these problems.

Today the emotions of uselessness, "used-up," "worn-out," "less of a woman," came flooding back when she went to her doctor and was told that they would begin reducing the estrogen she is taking, and increasing the Prozac.

Chris said called me and cried out, "I'm just old now. I feel like my youth is slipping away from me."

The anguish and pain in her voice struck me to the very core. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and rock her and whisper "sshh sshh sshh" into her hair.

And so I met her at a coffee shop. We sat outside and talked. She told me her daughter's birth story. Her tale was full of wonder and joy and anticipation. I could imagine her and her husband in the birthing room with this young teenager that they had cared for, at 2:30 in the morning. Kevin so flustered about the goings-on that he unwittingly wandered out to get coffee. Chris trying to respect this young woman's privacy while barely containing her excitement over the crowning of Samantha's head. Kevin cutting the cord. Chris holding the baby for the first time.

And that long drive home from the hospital. For us it was 15 minutes. For them it spanned several states as they drove from Kansas to South Carolina, a puking, crying, wetting, sleeping baby in the car with them.

Chris is mourning the final chapter of her life as an infertile woman. There will be no more glimmers of hope that modern technology will advance to the point where it figures out how she can have a biological child.

It's hard for me to understand the depth of her emotion here. But it's very real. And very, very painful. I can only hope that she understands how much I cherish the fact that we shared this intimate moment. And that I do honor and respect her