Saturday, September 30, 2017

God Didn't Do This To Me.

Well, it's #LDSconf weekend and Mormon Twitter is out in full force, tweeting how spiritual everything is, and occasionally calling out crap we hear from the pulpit (*coughcoughOakscough*).

But those aren't the kinds of talks I want to talk about. There are some other talks that sit somewhere in between. That make me uncomfortable because of their content but that are not necessarily out of harmony with how most Mormons understand the Gospel. I know that my own understanding is limited, and I'm willing to admit that perhaps I am wrong about this, but I'm gonna throw it out there anyway: I don't think God designed my pain.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Hi, I'm Still Infertile, But...

Author's Note: This is a long-overdue follow up to this post I wrote back in 2015, a personal update, and includes a modified version of a short speech I gave at the We Brave Women Lecture Series. If you live in Utah, I highly recommend you check it out.

Seven years ago now, I was engaged. I got on birth control to assuage my fiancé's fears of fatherhood on the promise that soon we would start trying. A few months afterwards, I stopped taking birth control, and my nervous husband sort of shrugged, saying at least he'd have at least nine months to get used to the idea.

Six years ago, I started asking friends for OB recommendations. I was still not pregnant, I was devastated, and I knew something was wrong with me. I had been reading a blogger whose infertility issue was solved with one simple pill. I believed I had the same problem and that if I could see a doctor and get the same pill I'd be pregnant within a month or two. By the time I could schedule an appointment, I had been trying for ten months, complete with charts, thermometers, and ovulation predictor kits. Despite my pleas, he insisted I wait until the year mark to start testing. I was so hurt by his callous response that I didn't see a doctor again for a year.