Eeny, Meeny, Miney, and Mo.

Raj and I have, for the last few years, been going through assisted reproductive technology. Unsuccessfully.

Today I confirmed that the last of our 4 embryos (Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Mo- had I presence of mind I would have called them maggie and millie and molly and may) didn't make it after implantation.

We're done with this process. We are grateful for the technology and the access we have to IVF as Singaporeans. And we're sad. 

Sad is too short a word, but it's also an appropriate word, the sigh lisping out at the start, the little exhale in the vowel curling up in the back of your throat like a hurt animal, and the downward pitch of the last closed syllable.

Now you can read on if you are thinking "how is Lois making sense of this?" and "how can I be helpful to her?"

I caution that if you're processing your own loss, infertility, grief or gender identity, my reflections may not be the most helpful thing for you to read for you right now. I will try my best to make this coherent, but if you know me then you already know I am not coherent at the best of times. Anyway. Read on AOR.

Why we wanted a child

We wanted to have a kid because we love each other and we were ready to make space for someone(s) else. Because I think we have received, unmerited, and built, through much error, a new sort of family unit, one where you accept the other instead of conforming them to your dreams, where you tell the truth, where you fight fair and let the other spark off you like iron on iron, and where you're lit up on the best days with the glory of knowing what God made this other human to be.

I wanted Raj (and maybe myself) to be able to think of "father" with more depth to it than the familiar sourness of the images and patterns of fatherhood we'd inherited from our families. I wanted us to make new patterns, new traditions, to watch a new person take shape in all their crookedness and (despite ourselves) traumas. I wanted to watch our child hit or not hit developmental milestones, watch them grow the way I've watched my godchildren grow. I wanted another human around like an impossible, snotty little proof that I chose Raj.

I'll put it out there- because why not- that after 18 years in healthcare, I wanted a chance to show the tenderness and compassion and hope that are my inner resource (my brains were never my USP in medicine), to use my body and time and soul to tend to someone(s) with incessant needs, to remind myself even as I'm rendering the care with the use of myself, "you who are evil...", that the inclination of Jesus towards the weak and needy overwhelms my own as a sun to a faulty pentorch. 

So yes, I'm grieving the loss of a dream.

I know all the stuff about freedom and things we can enjoy because we don't have children. This post is not about that. Consider it read. No need to let me know. On that subject:

Things that really don't help Lois right now

- Looking at my abdomen and/or asking if I'm pregnant (this is twice painful because then I feel both fat AND infertile). If I were you'd find out eventually.

- Insistence in any form that the outcome will be different from childlessness, that the probability is not zero, that God will surely do XYZ, that this or that AR centre or ritual or herbal medicine or ancestor or prayer or declaration can help us. Maybe you're right and I know your intentions are good, but as far as I'm concerned, it simply transfers your lack of acceptance of reality onto my shoulders, puts another revolving spike on the wall of my denial-anger-bargaining-depression-acceptance gauntlet. Get behind me, Satan. (I'm going to say that out loud to people, and I apologise in advance for any offence this may cause). Shall we accept good from God, and not evil?

- Didn't think I needed to say this, but- tricking me into doing rituals to change the outcome!

- Complaining incessantly about your own parenting struggles, which I know are considerable for everyone. Just have less bandwidth atm to do the emotional labour. I will try, but I think it will take some time.

- Don't insist if I don't want to meet or speak or reply at length. Please don't take it personally.

Things that people think hurt, but are actually tolerable

- You can talk about your kids, esp if I know them and love them too, and if they know who I am (I think this is the key difference in whether it hurts or not). I don't begrudge anyone their happiness and I'm able to feel the blend of joy and loss at the same time. If I can't take it, I will let you know.

Things that help

- Please give me patience (and kudos to my amazing Maluk team- PMTLs, SMT and other maluk who have picked up the balls I've dropped, covered for me during my regular prolonged absences in the last 2 years and prayed for me)-- I'm not at my functional best, haven't been for a couple of years. I have 368 untriaged emails despite (sitting in Singapore now) the fastest internet connection in Maluk Timor.

- Have tissue paper handy if you're meeting me these days.

- Remind me of Isaiah 56, and pray with me.

- Give money and/or time to Maluk Timor, so that we can feel fruitful in at least one area of life, and so that, you know, kids and mothers don't die of preventable diseases. 

$6 pays for painless tooth-saving treatment to a kid who will grow up less scared of dentists (and able to chew). 

$135 pays for essential supplements for 20 pregnant women to reduce their risk of bleeding to death during delivery. 

And $1500 pays for us to co-run a government mobile clinic in 6 rural villages, strengthening government health workers through on-the-job supervision, and giving hundreds of families experience of positive engagement with their local doctors.

Why I'm not devastated or trying harder (being, after all, less than 40)

For the patriarchs, I think children were the means through which YHWH would eventually bring about the promised "offspring of the woman", the one who would crush the serpent. (They were also economically necessary for survival of the nation, but that's another topic). 

I don't think that biological offspring are the ultimate goal of the Christian marriage. No doubt it's in the good design, but in contrast to both our Asian cultures of origin, one of the first calls of the gospel is for God's people to be our people. For our present abundance to supply the present need of the adelphoi; for the random stragglers into the community of faith to sit at our tables; for our hearts to be bound to and our lives poured out to younger ones that we have no claim on, that could disappear overnight. I should know this. Since I have followed Jesus, I have sat at those tables, cried on those shoulders, teenage-raged incoherently into those chatgroups. And I have sometimes disappeared.

There are more than enough children, teenagers, youths, young people, and older people for us to share our resources with in this life. And despite the inner voice that says to us that we do not have any claims, any stakes in the life of another who is not biologically related to us, the call --for me, anyway-- is to risk it, to cast our bread upon the waters. Nothing but an extension of the choice that made us pack up and live in a different land.

"Oh God, I am furrowed like the field
Torn open like the dirt
And I know that to be healed
That I must be broken first
I am aching for the yield
That You will harvest from this hurt

So I kneel
At the bright edge of the garden
At the golden edge of dawn
At the glowing edge of spring
When the winter's edge is gone
And I can see the color green
I can hear the sower's song
Abide in me
Let these branches bear You fruit
Abide in me, Lord
Let Your word take root."

- Andrew Peterson, The Sower's Song