Tomorrow

I've come here a couple of times and tried to start a new post, and I just don't know what to write.  Or, I can't figure out a good, coherent way to say what's going on in my head.  So I think I'm going to just dump it.

I'm having a laparoscopy tomorrow afternoon.  In NaPro Technology treatment, there's sort of a progression in the diagnosis.  You start with the easy stuff: hormone analysis, seminal fluid analysis.  You check to make sure the fallopian tubes are open.  You try some hormone treatments.  You wait.  And wait.  And when the patient still doesn't get pregnant, you start a barrage of ultrasounds to see whether or not she's ovulating.  If she's not ovulating, you give her a trigger to force the ovulation.  You try that for a couple of months.  You wait some more.  At a certain point you exhaust all the investigative things you can do without actually going in and having a look inside.

That's the point where I'm at.  So far, nothing else has worked.  My hormones have been regulated, my tubes are open, hormonal triggers have actually forced 3 months of ovulation.  But we still haven't conceived.  So now the doctors will take a look inside and see if there is any endometriosis or adhesions that could be interfering with things.  It should be fairly straightforward (one small incision, outpatient procedure), and I'm feeling more-or-less okay considering my general anxiety over medical stuff.

Rather, my anxiety is over the results, and perhaps not in the way you would think.  My biggest fear, honestly, is that they will spend 90 minutes looking inside me and find me to be . . . absolutely normal.  "Nope, we see nothing here that would explain why you've been unable to get pregnant.  Keep trying, it'll happen!"  For a few days, I was actually praying that they would find endometriosis.  Realizing that might be sort of foolish, I've now been praying that they'll find something they can fix, whether that's in this surgery tomorrow or a more extensive one later.  Finding something, even if it's bad, sounds better than finding nothing.

Because my biggest, biggest fear is "unexplained infertility".  I'm scare of being left in that limbo of not knowing why it's not happening now, and the vague hope that maybe it would still happen someday.  If it's going to happen, or it's not, I would just rather know.

Isn't that the way, though? Of course we want to know the ending of the story.  I can't be the only one who feels like if God would just reveal His will to me, I would happily carry it out.  But wondering, discerning, praying, trying to figure it out, is so. very. hard.

I've talked a little bit with our priest about this journey we're on, and he reminded me that infertility is sort of a theme throughout our salvation history.  Abraham and Sarah, Hannah the mother of Samuel, and Elizabeth all struggled with infertility.  In each of these situations, God was working to bring about great blessings in the lives of these parents and of the faith.  I haven't fully reflected on this, but I do hope that God is working to bring about great blessings in our lives too.

Hopefully, tomorrow's procedure will be a successful step toward finally starting our family.  At the very least, I hope it will bring some clarity to our situation.