The View, Part I

Where my thoughts (and heart) go as I look out onto another year . . .

The view is bleak from below. A colony of noxious, brown caterpillars leeched onto our beloved lemon tree. When we discovered them, hundreds were all piled on top of each other--a tangled, gnarled mass. The tree did not look well. It was covered in moss from the rainy, sunless winter. Tiny, black ants invaded the leaves, threatening to take over the green completely. We pruned and waited . . . treated and waited . . . . We waited, but the tree didn’t bloom as in other years. No beautiful white blossoms calling out to the bees; just sickly, scrawny limbs and leaves torn up by hosts of hostile invaders. A kite string strangles the lower branches.

I stare up at the lemon tree with blurry eyes, heart suffocating from the pain of waiting. I see in that tree my own barren reflection. The view from down here is bleak, indeed. Almost eight years of trying since bearing first-born fruit—a beautiful baby boy whose head now reaches just below the branches of the lemon tree. And I remember . . . .

Shortly before Nathanael and I were to be married, I began to have doubts and questions about contraception. Honestly, I hadn’t given children, let alone how to prevent them, much thought. I borrowed a book from a friend, prayed, and decided to talk with Nathanael about what was then my heart’s desire—allowing God to determine the timing and growth of our family. So three weeks before our wedding, I shared my feelings with Nathanael who prayerfully and wholeheartedly agreed. We looked forward to the large family our future held.

We married in July and in October, we discovered we were pregnant--much to our delight. At our first doctor’s appointment, there was a baby, but no heartbeat. We lost the baby Thanksgiving weekend. I didn’t grieve; I had never experienced disappointment like this and was completely unequipped to process it. So, I pulled myself together, went back to work, and let those events pass by without acknowledging the devastation I felt. I dealt with my pain in complete dysfunction—withdrawing from my husband, eating for comfort and disconnecting from the world around me for almost a year until we discovered we were pregnant again. This time for keeps!

Again, quite against my nature, I began to question the merits of hospital births, and along with my sister who was also pregnant, sought out a midwife. Months later, looking forward to my post-birth herbal bath, Nathanael and I traveled across Houston to the midwife’s comfortable birthing center and began what I naively believed would be an easy birthing process--still not accustomed to difficulty! Thirty-six hours later, Ethan arrived via C-section in a nearby hospital where, by the way, they don’t give herbal baths. We took our beautiful boy home and embarked on a year of transition into parenting and across continents.

Before Ethan’s first birthday, we discovered we were pregnant again. “Yes, Lord, now we’re on track. We don’t prevent, and you give us lots of babies,” I thought. We lost this baby at twelve weeks the day after we announced our pregnancy to our church congregation--the day after Mother’s Day. Again, I didn’t grieve; I barely acknowledged that I had been pregnant, that there had even been a baby. We left for a two-month furlough, and I buried my pain in the comfort of family and food.

And the waiting began . . . one year turned into two . . . four . . . five . . . eight years . . .

And now I stand under the lemon tree looking up. Years of waiting wear at me, eat holes in me, turn what was once fertile green to dry brown, and bitterness lurks behind every birth announcement and baby shower. “God, where are You? Do You hear me? I understand if You don’t hear me, but what about Nathanael? Doesn’t he deserve better? We trusted You!”

And I grieve two babies . . . eight years . . . and unmet expectations . . . .