As the story goes from I Samuel, Hannah couldn't have a child and "was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord, and wept sore." It hurt until she cried, and she cried until it hurt.
I’m really behind on the updates. I’ve just been so incredibly sleepy. Some time has gone by since then, but I did have my weeping Hannah moment in church. Ironically, though, it had nothing to do with me or anything I could’ve predicted.
Call it a divine revelation or or a alignment of coincidental thoughts — not that I don’t believe either is possible — but given that this site has been up and circulated, I might call it something different. Whatever it was led to an altar call for “a couple struggling to conceive.” I only recently posted positive pregnancy results, but I knew at time that I was and had told the people most proximate to me on a day-to-day basis. But it wasn’t widely known, particularly not by the person led to invite “a couple struggling to conceive” to the altar.
Don’t misunderstand; I fully believe in inspiration of the Holy Spirit to move a person to say or do something in a way that isn’t based on any prior knowledge. In many ways, I try to live my life with that kind of direction. But to have prior knowledge and to suggest it was revealed by God feels kind of like a carnival show gimmick. Already pregnant and fully aware of it, I didn’t go to the altar, but three women did.
At the moment, I realized that my struggle has not been for me nor has the blessing up to this point. It has been to tell the story of prayer for undeserved favor in an impossible situation, the unrelenting downright stupid-looking faith, and a glimpse of the promise (which is where I feel I am now) to somebod(ies) who feel even more hopeless that I have in the midst of all of that. That was my revelation that night.
I was skeptical of the way it went down, but I thought it was cool that the church, a black church in particular, devoted prayer time to infertility. Rather than let the method of how we got there permanently divert my attention, I directed my energy toward praying for them and just worshiping in general.
And I cried and cried some more, praying that God would show himself strong for those ladies as He has for me.
I’d wondered — with the postive pregnancy test and the ultrasound photos — whether I could still be considered part of the infertility struggle. I know how I felt when I’d read that someone had a successful interuterine insemination or in-vitro fertilization cycle: abandoned and even more like a failure. But my Hannah moment reminded me that the struggle to this point binds me to every woman on the same road.
Not to get too churchy on you, but it was one of my pastor’s sermons that kept me holding on to the idea that God would allow us to become parents. I don’t remember the title (and this tired mama is too lazy to go find her journal), but I do remember the scripture and its context — 2 Kings 3:18. After you prepare, which you’re already doing, you pray and you try to be patient, it’s a simple matter in the sight of the LORD. That’s the New King James Version. The Message translation reads: “This is easy for God to do.”
As hard as the infertility road is, rest with that idea in mind.
So these aren’t really mine, but you get the idea.
Here’s a little introductory trivia question, an icebreaker, considering I don’t know you and you don’t know me:
What’s the difference between brown eggs and white eggs? Not much.
The difference lies in the color of the hen that laid the eggs. Brown eggs tend to come from red-feathered chickens, and white eggs come from white-frocked birds. Nutritionally, they’re pretty much the same — just like the chickens. It just doesn’t come up in your everyday conversation.
Neither does infertility among black women. The same problems that white women have with conception and problematic ovaries and wayward eggs are same that black women have. As a group, we just don’t talk about it. Discussing it every day might be overkill, but the silence of it all and resulting isolation is enough to kill the spirit of every woman of color who carries the universal desire to bear her own children.
Wow. That sounded really profound, well beyond what I was going for.
I’m just a brown girl who inherited the genetic reproductive misfortune from the Brown family and finds herself staring in-vitro fertilization in the face. Journalism saved my life once; I figured the foundation of it — writing — might ease the stress of bringing about new life in the form of a round-faced baby or two. Or three. Or eight.
I’m also giving myself and the universe permission to say “black woman” and “infertility” in the same sentence. Part of that will include sharing what I learn about cycles, procedures and shots (oh, my!). There will be flashbacks, observations and blatant use of anonymity to protect the ignorant. You can trust that every raw tale will be true and reflect my most authentic thoughts and feelings about unscrambling my Brown eggs to finally get pregnant.
It’s what all the inquiring mouths are waiting for, after all. So, this is also to shut them up.
My Brown Eggs 