Living within the constraints: Part II

Element of acceptance #1:  The willingness to live within the boundaries of life’s natural constraints

Get caught up by clicking here

Brittany’s body has constraints that suggested to us adoption was the path towards parenthood.  However, we have, as everyone does, financial constraints. Should those constraints prove too large, our new constraint would be life without children.  

We weren’t happy about these constraints.  We’re still not, in fact. We’re taking advantage of the resources we have available to us to process our various losses, including the loss of the way in which we thought life would go.  Yet, when the going got tough we were lucky enough to have people around us who were able to guide us into making decisions based on the constraints we have. They did not encourage us to make decisions based on a denial of the constraints.  

This was the first step in our journey towards acceptance, and I believe the first step in the journey for everyone struggling with new constraints.  We see the constraints and we respond accordingly. We don’t pretend they aren’t there by continuing to sacrifice Brittany’s present and future physical well-being.  We try to find a strategy that worked within the options available to us.

Sometimes, that is the best we can do in life.  We recognize that we have limited options available and we choose from within those options.  If we don’t do that, we’re either living in fantasy or setting ourselves up for even more disappointment.  

And, sometimes, having constraints pushes us towards creative and satisfying solutions we would not have otherwise considered.  I had not previously considered adoption and, as much as our losses hurt, I couldn’t be happier to be Norah’s dad.

Living within the constraints

Element of acceptance #1:  The willingness to live within the boundaries of life’s natural constraints

Get caught up by clicking here

I understand this post is longer than our usual posts.  Bear with, please.

One Thursday night last August was the worst night (so far) of me and Brittany’s life together.  We went to the doctor for an ultrasound on her pregnancy and found out that the pregnancy was not viable.  We also found out that Brittany has an extremely rare (less than 1% of women) condition: a unicornuate uterus, which basically means she has half of a uterus (at best).  After consulting with the doctors it became clear that, in her particular case, a best-case scenario is an extremely early (25 weeks or so) birth with incredibly high risks all the way around.  That is a true best-case scenario. In other words, statistically, we’d more than likely be looking at many, many losses and even if we could get to 25 weeks one of those times, that is still very touch-and-go for a baby (though it is technically possible for a baby to survive at that time) and for Brittany.  This is why, when people say to us, “Well you’ll probably get pregnant now that you’re adopting,” we respond with, “We hope not- as the risks are very high.” The risks are even higher now that we have a child of our own.  We do not feel we can risk losing Norah’s mom just to play roulette with biological children.

When we got this news, life presented us with a new set of constraints we did not previously know that we had.  IVF would not be particularly useful to us as we did not have problems getting pregnant (we had problems staying pregnant).  We could either: continue to risk Brittany’s body and health on the hope that we would stumble into a best-case scenario, at which point Brittany’s health would still be compromised and we would instantly be tasked with caring for an infant who may or may not live (again, that’s best-case).  Or, we could adopt.  Or, we could figure out what it would mean to live as two people who desperately want to be parents who will not have the opportunity.  Primarily we discussed the second and third options as Brittany already felt like she had been in physical agony for a full year.

You see, despite how much pain we were in, we knew we had to live within life’s constraints.

More on this tomorrow.

(Some) Elements of Acceptance

In these past few days we’ve discussed a few strategies that help us avoiding living as contemptuous people.  One is seeking out both a skilled therapist and a trusted spiritual advisor or mentor or whatever word you want to use.  This helps us deal with the source(s) of our contempt. The second thing we did was attempt to reframe how we perceive other people’s lives.  Contempt can be the product of comparing what we have to what other people have.  The reality is, we have no clue what other people have or do not have in their lives.  And so, comparisons are foolish, though we can’t help but do it, can we? It’s only natural, even though we know it isn’t particularly good for us.  

The third “strategy” (if you can call it that) I want to mention is acceptance.  What do I mean by acceptance? I personally think that acceptance is a rather expansive, multifaceted topic and I plan to take a few days to address just a few of the many ingredients that lead to acceptance.  I’m surely going to leave some things out. I’m going to give you my list in no particular order as I have no idea how to rate the importance of each of these aspects of acceptance. I’ll unpack these over the coming days so, if the sentences are not immediately clear, they soon will be (I think).  

Without further ado, here are my elements of acceptance:

1. The willingness to live within the boundaries of life’s natural constraints

2. The willingness to tolerate tragedy (in both a global and personal sense) without trying to pinpoint its source

3. The willingness to resist idealizing alternative ways in which life “might” have gone

4. The willingness to trust that, on the aggregate, God steers creation in a hopeful direction

Contempt and Comparison: What NOT to do

From yesterday:  Avoiding comparisons to other people’s lives is an important step in avoiding living as contemptuous people.  This is not easy to do, but there are a couple of things we must all keep in mind as it pertains to the comparison game.  

What are those things?

1. You never know the various ways in which others are suffering in secret.  Yes, in a given area, someone may have it better than you, but you don’t know the various ways in which they have it worse.  Life is not easy for anyone. We tend to assume people are living an ideal life simply because we don’t have all the information.  So, don’t assume the best about others’ lives. Assume you don’t have all the information- that’s the truth.

2. You don’t know what people want for their lives.  Someone may get the thing you want- but they may not want it.  The presence of that thing, in that person’s life, may constitute a very real suffering.  In such a case as this, both parties are on the receiving end of life’s unfairness.

Playing the comparison game is ultimately pointless because, at the end of the day, we have no clue what we are comparing ourselves against.

What to do with Contempt: Part II

Our contempt does not serve us well.  Yesterday I suggested that addressing the causes of our contempt is the first step in crafting a life beyond our hurts and resentments.  

It is difficult to avoid comparing our lives to the lives of those around us, particularly as it relates to our hurts.  As Brittany and I dealt with infertility, we couldn’t help but notice how easily it seemed all of our friends got pregnant and birthed children without complication.  We know, we know, lots of people struggle with infertility- that’s not the point. The point is that the comparison factor kicks in when you’re hurting.  It often does not help to be told there are plenty of nameless and faceless others out there like you when all you see around you in your day-to-day life are people who, in this area, have it easier than you do.  This comparison is fertile breeding ground for contemptuous living.

Avoiding comparisons to other people’s lives is an important step in avoiding living as contemptuous people.  That’s really the goal isn’t it? We want to avoid living as contemptuous people in order to give ourselves the best possible chance at a hopeful life moving forward.  

This is not easy to do, but there are a couple of things we must all keep in mind as it pertains to the comparison game.  

What are those things?  Check back tomorrow.