The Storm Cloud of Infertility {Guest Post}

This is a guest post from Ellie. You can see all her previous guest posts here.

My husband and I are coming up on the year-and-a-half mark since infertility first entered into our lives. Although I hate to admit it, that sobering fact sent me plummeting last week into one of my “bad places.” This, simply put, is a day, week, maybe even a month when I walk around with a little storm cloud over my head. A negative, angry, why-are-all-my-friends-getting-pregnant-and-not-me, why-doesn’t-God-see-me-fit-to-be-a-mother storm cloud.

I think all of us who endure infertility, no matter when or for how long, fall into our own personal “bad place” sometimes. In my case, I usually find myself pushed to the point of becoming bitter without consolation, and for me and my husband this can very quickly begin to wreak havoc in our marriage. All of a sudden I’m in a perpetually bad mood, and my husband’s constant positivity and his attempts to cheer me up just piss me off. All of a sudden we are having trouble communicating, having intimacy problems, or fighting about little things we would never have fought about otherwise.

I sat in church this past Sunday in my “bad place,” finding it difficult to focus on the message because the girl in the pew in front of me was pregnant. Why does she get to have a baby and not me?, I stewed. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from tearing up, when suddenly the pastor’s voice broke through my bitter thoughts. He was describing a time nearly twenty years previously when he and his wife had packed everything up in their car to move to southern California to start up the church my husband and I now attend. He told us how, only an hour into the cross-country trip, their car unexpectedly broke down on the side of the road in the pouring rain.

“We [my wife and I] looked at each other, and just burst out laughing,” he said. “We just knew; if the devil was attacking us this early on, what great things must God have in store for us down the road?”

Wow! I can’t tell you how deeply that resonated with me. What an outstanding outlook to have in the midst of an unexpected hardship. Slowly, I felt the storm cloud above my head start to clear…

I don’t believe that the devil caused our infertility; I believe it is something that God has allowed to happen in our lives for a reason that my husband and I don’t, and may never, fully understand. However I am convinced that the devil uses the storm cloud, or the negative way in which I often respond to this experience, as an attempt to get a foothold in our lives and in our minds. I believe that in allowing the evil one to pull me into my “bad place,” I’m giving him direct access to attack my marriage.

Are we all entitled to feelings of discouragement, pain, heartbreak, anger, longing, and sorrow while battling infertility? Of course. It is natural as future moms to yearn for our children! But when we allow these bitter emotions to consume us, it can be detrimental to us and to our relationships. Not only that, we can miss out on the opportunities God presents us daily to let His light shine through us, as well as the valuable lessons God may be trying to teach us through this challenging experience.

As I applied the pastor’s story to my own situation, I was strangely comforted. If the devil is trying this hard to drag us down…what amazing things must God have in store for our future?

What amazing things does God have in store for yours?

Ellie Barbee is a writer, children’s book illustrator, runner and military wife. She has a Bachelors degree in Early Childhood Education and dreams of one day becoming a mom! After a 3-year-long struggle with an eating disorder and exercise addiction which led to a new, additional battle with infertility, she has found a passion in supporting women working through similar situations, and is particularly knowledgeable about hypothalamic amenorrhea and the female athlete triad.