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Replacing Distraction with Readiness

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            We are a distracted society. I have seen this distraction play out in my own life in two ways. The first way is with my tendency to focus on all the negative things that are happening in my life, in the lives of the people I care about, and even just in the world around me. I can get hyper focused on the struggles I’m going through, believing they are the only things that are happening to me. This was particularly true in the early days of infertility. With each month that went by, I was focused too much on the failed cycle that I had endured, the fact that even more time was passing without a baby in sight. I struggled to see anything good happening in my life because of it: good things in my job, good things in my marriage, even just the small daily blessings that God provides. It was this tendency that led me to keeping a gratitude journal, so that I could shift my perspective and see all the wonderful things God was doing in my life...
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Replacing Pretense with Honesty

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            One of the biggest traps of struggling with anxiety, particularly when that anxiety stems from infertility and pregnancy loss, is pretending to be fine . Of all the “taboo” topics in our society today, mental health and troubles having a baby seem to be two of the biggest. The world around us has set us up to push through life feigning a sunshiney attitude when we are struggling with these issues. While mental health awareness is everywhere these days, most people are still one hundred percent uncomfortable talking about their personal struggles with anxiety, depression, and other mental health diagnoses. I’ve shared numerous times that I was ashamed of needing to go on medication to help my own anxiety, and that I kept it a secret for a while because I believed it showed me and my faith to be weak. Most people see therapy as a last-ditch effort; something must be really, really wrong if we need to talk to someone about our problems. So...
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Replacing Resignation with Perseverance

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            When you’re in the thick of infertility, when you have no way of knowing if or when you will finally achieve a successful pregnancy, it can feel easy and necessary to just resign yourself to the fact that nothing is going to change and that all your efforts are in vain. When you’ve experienced loss, whether it’s one or many, when you have no way of knowing if or when you will finally achieve a successful pregnancy, it can feel easy and necessary to just resign yourself to the fact that it will never happen for you. Let me be clear. In today’s piece, I am in no way suggesting that stopping or pausing fertility treatments or trying to conceive is the wrong choice for everyone. That is absolutely not true. Each woman, each couple, knows individually what they can and cannot endure. Only they know the conversations they’ve had with each other and God. Only they know the physical, emotional, and mental turmoil they’ve suffered. Only they kno...
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Replacing Obligation with Faith

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            One of the biggest ways I knew I was struggling with depression and anxiety after my miscarriage was how I was going about my faith in the months that followed. On the outside, I was doing all the things I always did, that I was supposed to do: attending Bible Study with my homework completed, reading my devotional and Bible reading plan daily, attending church. I was the picture of a devout Christian, turning towards God in my hour of grief. But on the inside, I was numb. I was going through the motions of these activities, continuing to participate in them because I was supposed to, not because I wanted to. My prayers oscillated between indecipherable sobs and silence. I wasn’t engaged in my faith in any meaningful way; I was doing what I knew I should out of obligation. In the early days of this feeling, I buried my inability to find the desire to practice my faith. I thought it meant my faith was weak. I thought it meant I didn’t ...
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