I know I complain a lot about the drugs and blame every conceivable feeling I’m having on them.  But the difference between today and a few days ago is noticeable.  I’m definitely feeling negative and grouchy and bloaty and depressed.  Tomorrow we find out how the rest of our embryos are doing (translation: how many died).   I am pretty nervous about that.

I have noticed that I am quick to see or fear scarcity.  So much so that when I have something wonderful, whether it be money, brownies, episodes of "24", brand new Thor-Lo running socks, or anything that I love, I am happiest when I have a LOT of it, and I feel edgy and disappointed when I start using / watching / eating whatever it is, and my supply dwindles.  Never mind that the joy of brownies is in the eating, not the hoarding; and I am not good at hoarding anyway.  At least not nearly as good as I am at eating.  It’s hard to explain – I just love the security of abundance, and I am not good at seeing the abundance of things yet to come. 

This is probably why I am an overeater.  I try and try to tell myself that Breyer’s is making a hundred thousand gallons of ice cream every hour, and it’s all exactly the same; but I still gobble what there is in my house as if it’s the last I’ll ever, ever see.  I’m sure this is a sad thing for God to watch me suffer from, and suffer I do, whether it’s overeating and all its consequences or the sadder, deeper wound I constantly feel from not trusting.  Because if I don’t trust, then I always want to have my cake, to save it for whatever rainy day is coming; but I must also eat my cake because that’s what it’s for.  That tension is not resolved by more cake.  Having a lot of cake just means that cake is the only thing I trust.

Of course if tomorrow we find out that all our embryos, which we think of as our tiny, tiny babies in the dish, have died, we’ll be devastated.  But we have to trust in whatever number we end up with because God ultimately decides.  Before we all go "awwwww" at this touching Thomas Kincaid picture of Christian faith, I gotta tell you the faith doesn’t feel strong.  God may not be the one who made it hard for us to have kids, but He hasn’t exactly made it easy, either.  I trusted Him to bring along a husband and kids for me in the usual way and … well, you see where I am now.  Now I still trust Him to allow this thing we’re doing to bring us kids, and I think I can see why He would use this whole deal to help us to grow and I’m not as out-of-my-mind pissed off about the whole thing as I once was.  But you can probably also see why I’d rather have nine embryos than one, or two. 

But Bob Dylan says I’m gonna serve somebody, so it might as well be God.  I gotta trust somebody, and I’d rather trust God than some doctor, or anyone else who money can buy.  Especially since we hope our embryos become babies who become children.  If we get that far we’ll have to constantly entrust our children to God’s care in a hideously dangerous and poisonous world.  Might as well start now.