{"id":193,"date":"2016-10-18T09:11:22","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T15:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/?p=193"},"modified":"2025-12-11T22:28:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T05:28:29","slug":"strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/10\/18\/strength\/","title":{"rendered":"Strength"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"strength\"We\u2019ve probably all been told at some point, \u201cWhat doesn\u2019t kill you makes you stronger.\u201d And we\u2019ve seen the motivational posters. We\u2019ve maybe even said it to someone else or told it to ourselves. It seems like such a nice encouragement, and I\u2019ve heard variations of it a number of times during my infertility journey. But when I hear it I hesitate.<\/span><\/p>\n

This journey is making me stronger? Please. When I\u2019m told this I roll my eyes, or more often I try *not* to roll my eyes — I know it\u2019s not considered nice — but, to be honest, I have never had a good poker face and I\u2019m sure that even as I bite my tongue and try to control my eyeballs, the well-intentioned person trying to encourage me can see the unpleasant emotions filling me up. Because honestly, this is how I feel about it: if I wanted to be stronger, I would go to the gym more often.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know that no one says this kind of thing intending it to be physical strength. I am aware that they are referring to strength of character. But I really don\u2019t think infertility has had much of a positive impact in my life — infertility certainly doesn\u2019t make me feel strong. In fact, I think the saying, \u201cwhat doesn\u2019t kill you makes you broken\u201d is far more accurate for describing infertility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having my heart broken by infertility has made me feel weak and powerless. Crying on the way home from bad news at the doctor\u2019s office doesn\u2019t feel strong. Feeling hopeless and sad when my period starts and my blood test confirms no pregnancy doesn\u2019t feel strong. <\/span>Sitting with my grief<\/a> is important, but it does not feel strong. Facing the fear of not knowing whether or not I will have children is certainly powerful, but not in a victorious, strength-filled kind of way. And honestly, I don\u2019t really like the idea of only proceeding with half hope — it\u2019s not fair and it feels weak. I\u2019d like to push forward with full hope and forget all of this agony crap. But we all know I can\u2019t do that. I\u2019ve learned the hard way to be cautious and careful. The <\/span>infertility roller coaster<\/a> is a rough ride. <\/span><\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t really like the idea that infertility is making me broken… and I\u2019m trying hard not to think of it like that, even though it\u2019s how it feels. So I try my best to put the broken pieces of myself back together. I hold them together with love and hope. And I try to think of other ways to think about the experiences I\u2019ve had on this journey. I have a quote saved on pinterest that says, \u201cYou are not broken. You are breaking through.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0I really hope that\u2019s the case.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>
image source: https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/208643395216284517\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So as I go around trying my best to stay in one piece, and then I\u2019m told that infertility must be making me stronger, I really wonder if and where that strength is accumulating. Because infertility doesn\u2019t feel strong. So where *is* all of that strength going? <\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the strength is building up my stubbornness. Because I really want to be a mom. Like really, really. Ugh. Don\u2019t you get it, infertility?? <she says as she crosses her arms and stomps her foot> But really. I\u2019m stubbornly pursuing treatment despite our failures, asking questions to stay informed, and hoping for the best even though the past has repeatedly let me down.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also think that infertility has strengthened a little defiant streak in me, particularly in regards to my body. Infertility has made me feel so out of control of my body, so in attempts to take a stand and own myself again I\u2019ve made a couple small changes. A few months ago I added purple highlights to my hair. I pierced my nose last summer. And I like the changes. They suit me, at least right now (I sometimes have to remind my mom that these changes aren\u2019t permanent!), and these little changes have been a tiny, somewhat defiant, way for me to take control and make a statement about owning my body.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or perhaps the strength is increasing my patience? I have certainly been waiting for a long time for our child, and although I have bad days, I think I have yet to throw any grand tantrum. But\u2026 then I do find myself stuck in traffic feeling frustrated with the badly timed lights and poor traffic flow in our city\u2026 so it must not be that. Infertility has given me a lot of practice in patience, yes, but apparently it\u2019s not helping me in daily life\u2026 darn. It\u2019d be great if I could claim patience among my virtues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe after all this, all I\u2019m building is insanity. After all, we keep trying again and again and expecting different results — isn\u2019t that a silly definition of insanity on t-shirts or something? Yikes. To be honest, sometimes I do feel like I\u2019m losing it\u2026 but I like to blame that on my medications and hormones. Let\u2019s really hope insanity is not gaining strength.<\/span><\/p>\n

So if not patience or insanity, perhaps infertility is strengthening my courage. In the face of all of our failures, we do keep trying and hoping for the best. Infertility keeps throwing me around, and I keep picking myself up and carrying on, trying not to let it get the best of me. I may not always feel very strong while I pick myself up and brush the dust off, but with Matt\u2019s help, and love and encouragement from our family and friends, I\u2019ve managed to have enough courage to continue on.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>
image source: https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/208643395215303793\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I asked Matt where he thought my strength was going, he told me that maybe this journey is making me more resilient; that I\u2019m handling the lows better than I used to. Hmm. Practice makes perfect? Ha. I\u2019m not sure this is the case. I told him maybe infertility has just made me more jaded. Usually I\u2019m not even surprised anymore when I\u2019m not pregnant. Don\u2019t get me wrong — I\u2019m still sad and disappointed, but not altogether surprised. Sad, right? But why should I expect different results? <\/span><\/p>\n

But if I think about resiliency more carefully, he might be onto something. He\u2019s a pretty smart guy. Maybe infertility *has* made me more resilient, and maybe this is what people really mean when they say this journey is making me stronger. I have practiced a lot of coping mechanisms that have helped me to try to stay in one piece, so that I can bend with the harsh conditions of the roller coaster instead of snap. I really don\u2019t think I am able to just bounce back; after all I\u2019ve learned that sitting with my grief is really important\u2026but I do think I\u2019ve learned a lot about myself, Matt, and our relationship during this time, and I suppose that the things I\u2019ve learned have brought us closer together and better equipped to face this tough world we live in.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I think that maybe most of my strength is going into my ability to hold on to the threads of hope we still have. Half of the threads we\u2019ve got left on our rope are agony — they\u2019re filled with pain and loss and disappointment, and we\u2019re trying to let those ones go. We\u2019re still hoping for children. \u00a0We\u2019re hoping for our future to be happy and full of love. We\u2019re hanging on to our threads of hope with all the strength we\u2019ve got, and we\u2019re trying to let the other ones blow in the wind, hoping that they\u2019ll loosen and fall out of sight. <\/span><\/p>\n

So is this journey making me stronger? Maybe. Or maybe it\u2019s just making me flex my muscles in different ways than I used to, focusing my strengths into different areas. Either way, I think this journey is shaping me into a different person\u2026 One who is trying to be hopeful in the face of disappointment. One who is practicing patience. One who is attempting to hold the pieces of herself together, and break through this difficult time. And all of that requires strength, whether it\u2019s newly gained strength or not.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve probably all been told at some point, \u201cWhat doesn\u2019t kill you makes you stronger.\u201d And we\u2019ve seen the motivational posters. We\u2019ve maybe even said it to someone else or told it to ourselves. It seems like such a nice encouragement, and I\u2019ve heard variations of it a number of times during my infertility journey. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[28,14,30,29],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-breaking-through","tag-hope","tag-resiliency","tag-strength"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s7UmuL-strength","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":39,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/09\/19\/date-nights\/","url_meta":{"origin":193,"position":0},"title":"Date Nights","author":"Jenna","date":"September 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Early this year during a hard time, I decided we were going to plan date nights to keep us busy and have activities to look forward to. At first Matt thought they were a bit silly, but he\u2019s a good sport so he went along with it. Now they are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Coping"","block_context":{"text":"Coping","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/coping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"date_nights","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/date_nights-223x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":423,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/05\/30\/hope\/","url_meta":{"origin":193,"position":1},"title":"Hope","author":"Jenna","date":"May 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ll be totally honest -- when I started writing this \u201cinfertility is\u201d series, I thought by the time I got to \u201chope\u201d I\u2019d be ready to write about it. I thought maybe by now I\u2019d have some again or maybe even have some amazing insight about hope after all of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/infertility_is_hope-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":256,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/11\/08\/support\/","url_meta":{"origin":193,"position":2},"title":"Support","author":"Jenna","date":"November 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"While Matt and I have been lost in the terrible land of infertility, we\u2019ve been the ones guiding our loved ones through it at the same time. As I\u2019ve mentioned before, not many of our loved ones \u00a0have experience with infertility and loss, so they are often unsure of what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Awareness"","block_context":{"text":"Awareness","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/awareness\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"support","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/support-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":308,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/01\/23\/coming-to-terms-with-ivf\/","url_meta":{"origin":193,"position":3},"title":"Coming to Terms with IVF","author":"Jenna","date":"January 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ll admit it: I used to say that I\u2019d never do IVF if I couldn\u2019t get pregnant. I used to tell myself I'd accept that pregnancy wasn't in the cards for me and I'd stop pursuing it. But then again, I never imagined that I would actually have any difficulty\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/coming2terms-1-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":266,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/11\/14\/whos-that-girl-in-the-mirror\/","url_meta":{"origin":193,"position":4},"title":"Who’s that girl in the mirror?","author":"Jenna","date":"November 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I was trying to take a picture of myself to send to some of my far-away loved ones who haven\u2019t seen my purple hair in person... I just had my hair re-purpled and it is most brilliant when it\u2019s freshly dyed, so I wanted to take the picture right away\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":230,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/11\/01\/looking-for-rainbows\/","url_meta":{"origin":193,"position":5},"title":"Looking for Rainbows","author":"Jenna","date":"November 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"At support group once we were talking about how we are not our infertility and how we can identify ourselves separate from our infertility\u2026. And I understand that on a rational level, but I argued that it\u2019s not how it feels. 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