An anniversary
One year ago today, I had my first appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist. It marked for me the beginning of the end...of walking in the valley of a shadowy grief that's rarely discussed--infertility.

The miracle of my journey is that the Lord enabled me to conceive--probably just days after that consult visit--with no medical assistance at all.

Here's a poem I wrote in the midst of that stuggle to hang on to hope and faith in disappointing circumstances. It reminds me of God's faithfulness in dark times.

House is hushed

At night the house is hushed—
a dangerous peace of
too-empty rooms.

Nursery wallpaper
shrink-wrapped on a shelf,
hand-woven blanket,
tattered tag still attached
wait in dark for another day.

She sits on the shadowed bed
watching her husband’s
slumbered breathing
reading disappointment
in his exhale, inhale
undisturbed by dreamt-of
night-feeding cries.

Her world is a tangle of
ugly acronyms: OPK, HSG, PMS.
And dawn offers little
but the steady beep of failure
on a lavender thermometer.

The beauty of female anatomy
is not lost on her: waxing,
waning chemical surges
Peaks and valleys of warmness
and chill. Follicles rising
and bursting in splendor,
tumbling joyfully to a
warm, cozy womb.

It is a deep mystery.

Why ovaries are greedy
of the legions of possibilities
Half-children locked in darkness,
rocked in the lu-lay
of her thrumming heart.

Let my children go!
she cries in the night.
From safety to danger,
it’s the nature of life.
Empty rooms, empty
arms need messes,
need tears, need
bump-scrapey tumbles,
objects for our fears.

Let my half-children go,
Lord. Make them whole.

Show them light.

Copyright LWG 8-22-01