Last week we went on holiday to Edinburgh, where we met, married and lived till 3 years ago. It was the first time we'd had quality time together since the miscarriage and really felt like coming up for air in the midst of our infertility and loss storm. I called it our restoration holiday and it definitely felt like that.
It was so nice to have quality time together to reconnect and just be together. The last year and a half every spare moment together has been spent on project IVF one way or another. Even when we've focused on our marriage it's been obvious that something else had been our true focus. We were able to talk things through and just enjoy time together.
We were also able to catch up with old friends and share battle stories together. They are fighting very different battles to is and each other but the 2 separate friends we had proper catch ups with have both had recent sufferings to deal with. They are both fighting with God alongside them in the battle as we are trying to and it was encouraging to hear stories of challenges and of hope. It also helped me realise that you never know what battles people are fighting. Infertility is, often, a really long and drawn out period of suffering with no real end if you never manage to have a child. It's also a secret battle as these things often are. You deal with things internally and many things exasperate pain inadvertantly but you carry on fighting.
Being together has helped to restore our relationship and our resilience for future battles. It has also helped to restore my hope that one day I will be Mummy. The IVF failure and the miscarriage seriously rocked my faith in God. He promised us children and twice we got close then it was taken away from us. I didn't know what to do with that. I still don't if I'm honest but I feel like I can trust God again. He's big enough to deal with my doubts and uncertainties. What's more he's tangibly been with us through all the dark times and let me get angry and whatever at him! I don't know why we've lost our babies and I probably never will but I know that God keeps his promises so we will have children. I can have hope in that. It's struck me that God never promised we would have the first baby I got pregnant with. Just because we lost these doesn't mean it's the end. We still have embryos frozen and even if we didn't the promise still stands.
We looked round the national gallery while we were in Edinburgh and came across the painting pictured in this post. It's a painting of Niagara falls by an artist I've not heard of. To me though, it speaks of our infertility and loss battles. The churned up, stormy looking waters represent the months of grief, countless IVF complications and difficult diagnoses and marital tensions. This takes up most of the picture. There's also a snapped off branch at the side which signifies surprises along the way that we get snagged on. If you look closely you can see people watching the rushing waters. I'm sure that's what some of our wonderful support network can feel like, that all that can do is look on at our stormy waters, it's only us in it, a lot of the time. However the stormy, messed up waters are not the complete picture. There are little patches of brightness and still waters. To me those are the happy times in the midst of the storms. They are the little flashes of hope that we can miss it we're not careful. The other thing I noticed in the picture was the small rainbow in the bottom right-hand corner. In the world of infertility and baby loss a child after loss is often referred to as a rainbow baby. This gives me an obvious reference to our baby that will come to us after all this storminess and struggles. It's also worth noting that there are some rough waters beyond the rainbow. A healthy reminder that our struggles will not all magically end once we get our rainbow baby. We will love our baby and be over the moon that our prayers have been answered but are under no illusions that our lives will be free from suffering after that!
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