Hearts like Hannah

Well I just got back from our quarterly Hearts like Hannah Support Group meeting. This one was held at Caribou Coffee where my friend Ronnie is a manager. We meet two times a year at Caribou, two times a year at one of we "leader's" houses, and then we try to meet monthly inbetween for a quick lunch downtown.

I have always been blessed by this group. We have yet, in the nearly two years we have been a "group" failed to have at least one other woman join us. Every time we start wondering if this is really needed, a whole new gang of women joins us. Many are now moms and have moved on. Others are new moms and still a part of our group. Many, like me, are still waiting to be a mom.

Tonight, there were EIGHT of us! And many of our "members" were out of town.

Now this is sort of a mixed blessing. I am blessed that there were eight women that needed support and wanted encouragement. I am not blessed, however, that there are seven other women in Rochester struggling with infertility. I don't want anyone to deal with this. I don't want anyone to feel like I have felt and still feel. I know that those of you who have not dealt with this can't quite understand how it feels, and I am not asking you to. I have a few friends that are not interested in having children -- period. That's fine. However, I want to have children more than anything. And while I don't want anyone else to have this feeling inside of them, I also don't want to feel alone or have anyone else feel alone.

My first year of infertility I did it alone. I barely told anyone including my family, and it was horrible. I don't recommend that whatsoever. I filled out a questionnaire for the women's ministry, and I was very honest when I explained why I didn't attend events at church. Which event should I attend? There are groups for singles, groups for newly marrieds, and groups for couples with kids. Where do I fit in? There are groups for retired women and widows and divorced women. What about me? I didn't feel like I fit in ANYWHERE. Everyone was either newly married or had two kids.

It was then that my friend Ebby put me in touch with another woman at Christ Community. We started meeting. I started sharing. She started sharing. She knew another woman, and Hearts like Hannah was born.

We are a varied group. Some of us are not doing treatments, others are in the middle of IVF or have a child already and are waiting to return for frozen embryos. Others have gone through premature ovarian failure and know that they will be adopting or are in the process of adopting. Either way, we all share the same underlying fact: we all want to be a mom and have either had to seek medical help to do that, wait patiently to do that, decide not to do that, or find an alternate way to do that.

I am so blessed by this group. It is the one time that I feel I am not the only woman in the world whose entire family and nearly everyone she knows gets pregnant when they think about it, while no matter how hard I think, another wedding anniversary goes by with just the two of us. This is a great group, and I strongly suggest anyone else struggling with infertility to find a group in their area.

Thank you with the help for my infertility story. It will be out on September 1st, and I will definitely let you all know when it is available online.

* * * * *

Okay that post was a pretty deep post so to lighten the mood, here's another trivia question as these seem pretty popular:

Only a third of the gals say that they know how to use one of these well. The rest may never learn...