Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Signs

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO SPELL CHECK????????????

Now that I have that off my chest, I have to preface all of my future blogs with the disclaimer that I hate spelling, but even more than that, I hate proof reading, so you may notice a much dumbed down version of me until SPELL CHECK comes back. Now, back to our previously scheduled blog...


In my before life, I used to laugh, a little, when people would talk about "signs". In my dark and pessimistic little brain I always look for the 'other sign', the one people ignore while they are oohing and ahhing over the one they believe is telling them their destiny.

I rememeber in the immediate days after 9/11 there was an email that circulated about how God was hard at work that day saving lives. The email went on about the subway trains that were inexplicably late that day, the buses that were delayed for no reason, the various stories by people who worked in the Towers who were unavoidably detained that morning, the people who missed their flights because of incidental decisions etc.. At the end of the email it said something really hokey, such as "God's power is everywhere...even when it doesn't feel like He is there." I can't remember exactly. I do remember thinking, Jesus, wouldn't it have been easier for God to have just made some bolts go missing from the aircraft so the flights would never have taken off in the first place? I mean really. If that other stuff is a "sign" of His Power, me thinks God may need to retake 3rd grade.

In recent years, as friends have been adding to the gene pool, some successfully and others not so much, I started hearing more of the "I really think God wants me to have children, he is just testing my determination" type comments. Whenever that was said to me I would do the nod and smile bit and think to myself, "Well, if God is handing out signs, maybe you're not reading yours right. Maybe yours says adopt." (Let me just say here, LOUDLY, to anyone who is or has dealt with Infertility of any kind, this comment does not in any way mean that I think people shouldn't try as hard as they feel able to, to make a baby with whatever medical intervention is available to them.) I just think why the fuck would God make a perfectly capable, loving family struggle to have a child and at the same time have the entire fucking population of Ethiopia breed like rabbits?? It just doesn't pass the giggle test for me.

So now, given my recent ah, 'history' and my 'advanced maternal age' I have to wonder, "Am I not reading the signs?" One of my favorite 'signs' sayings, which I guess doesn't have to be about God but does usually incorporate Him/Her, says that when God/Life is trying to teach you something and you are not listening, first life taps you on the shoulder, then if you don't listen life will shake you a little, then if you still don't listen life gives you a slap and finally if you still haven't learned, life will hit you with a brick.

As I look back here is what I see: After my daughter was born 6 years ago, my beloved former OB said to me, "If you think you are going to have another one, don't wait more than a year to do it. You aren't getting any younger and it's only going to get harder for you the longer you wait." There was my tap. Then we decided almost 5 years later to go for it. Got pregnant after 3 tries, yay eggs! and proceeded to miscarry. Boo eggs and here's your shake, courtesy of life. Then instead of just an ugh, "routine" miscarriage and D & C, the new OB perforates my aging uterus, panics, leaves the baby in me and admits me to the hospital where my BP bottoms out and I think I am going to die. Not to mention I have to come back 5 days later for a second D & C. Anyone else out there feel or maybe hear the slap? 4 months later, I am pregnant again, yay eggs! and then 23 weeks into it, well you know. I got hit with a brick, it came wrapped in a hospital blanket, he was beautiful, he was my son and he was dead.

I hate signs.

14 comments:

Julia said...

I am sorry, but I am not buying. I just can't buy a notion of a G-d who hands out signs in the form of dead babies. That would just be cruel. And I am just enough of a purist to say that if that's what G-d is like, I want to part of that G-d.
I also don't believe in divine intervention, just so you know. That 9/11 email pissed me off so much because what it implied was that the people who were "saved" were somehow better than those who perished, more deserving somehow. That, I thought, was just effing insulting. Same mindset is pissing me off about the talk of divine intervention in childbearing-- those who get their living children are by definition deserving, and those who don't, well, aren't. Same effing mindset people use to separate themselves from the grieving parents-- "there must be something about them that caused their children to die, and I am not like that, and it won't happen to me." Chickenshits, one and all. Hm, you think I am a bit set in my ways on this one?

k@lakly said...

Julia,
Your words come right out of an earlier post of mine...I too want nothing to do with a God who would hand out dead babies as a sign. I know in my heart, that losing my son was a tragedy, a horrible awful tragedy that happened to me and my family. Nothing else.

Doesn't stop me from wondering if my old OB, my body and nature are trying to tell me something...those are the signs I hate.

c. said...

So, I think C@llum was a slap. And, I'm not sure if I have the balls to get knocked in the head with a brick. Not today anyway.
PS No spelling mistakes. A+.

Amy said...

I think I agree with C., I am hoping William was my slap and not my brick. Although, I have to admit it feels like one hell of a fucking brick! We'll wait and see what happens. See what signs get thrown my way that I don't read or listen to! I hate those damned signs anyway.

G$ said...

It's raining bricks over here and I am doing my best to not get KO'd on one. Losing my son, after years of infertility was a brick. It knocked my ass out for a while and will continue to pummel me for years to come.

I know my religious inlaws/friends think along those lines... we couldn't conceive on our own and look what happened.

Fuck them and fuck the concept of signs. If it's a sign, it's a sign that I can do hard things. I can live when others may wilt.

Great, now I have the Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs song earworm. Thanks a whole lot. :)

CLC said...

Julia hit the nail on the head. There's no "deserving" vs. "not deserving" in childbearing or life in general. Everything's random in this universe and there's no amount of praying, chanting, sacrificing things, etc. that's going to change that. And this from a girl who went through 16 years of Catholic education...

missing_one said...

I think for me, the hardest part of this deadbaby thing is that the way I thought the universe (and God) worked was proven wrong....
now everything looks upside down and I don't know which way is up

ya know?

*hugs*

niobe said...

Now I'm wondering what's the next stage after having been hit with a brick and still not getting it. Being run over by a truck?

Coggy said...

I do not believe in signs. They are all just coincidences and we were all just really, really unlucky. I hate it when people jump on stupid coincidences as proof that G*d exists, in my eyes they only serve to weaken the argument. Like you say why not just stop the bloody planes.
If I did believe in G*d, which I don't, I could not believe in one that would use dead babies as any sort of sign.
I don't believe anyone is trying to tell any of us anything more than sometimes life sucks for no apparent rhyme or reason.

Also spell checker works fine for me, what's going on over the pond?

Antigone said...

At least you have a certain amount of rhyme and reason.

You know what...I ENVY you. You have way more than I have. (Just had to get that out of the way.) I'm referring to your family and not to your belief.

I don't have God or religion. I was raised religiously but I never could believe it, any of it.

I can't help but think you have it easier. At least you have something. I've got nothing but a great big sign that says, "Life Sucks".

Ashleigh said...

i say i don't believe in signs or a G-d that would be so cruel, but i'll admit sometimes i wonder "but what if i'm wrong?" it scares me senseless.

a- said...

The only sign I would accept is if God himself pinged my gadget.

charmedgirl said...

there are no signs, there is no god. there are just people, desperately trying to inscribe meaning on mystery. that's it.

anf that crap about 9/11 really pissed me off. my husband was there.

Aunt Becky said...

*hugs*