Maybe Baby #4: Hope, self-protection and the centre of reality

This is the fourth in a series of posts reflecting on our [in]fertility journey and how it intersects with the assumed scripts of life and faith.

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In my last post I sought to find some way to articulate the potency of grief. An attempt to describe the devastation of loss that had so fiercely interrupted the joy of a long-awaited pregnancy and brought grief as its companion.

About 6 months after this experience we re-entered the IVF world, and over the next two and a half years we experienced more rounds of treatment and a combination of numerous embryo transfers that had no resultant pregnancy and the grief of another miscarriage. And this had all taken place alongside the deep sadness of losing Hannah’s best friend to cancer.

At various times along the way we would periodically meet with a clinical psychologist to help us navigate the complex world of our feelings, responses, emotions and the impact of all of this on us, our relationship and our own health. We have been fortunate to be in a relationship that has not suffered under the weight of fertility treatment and grief, as I know that for some people it can create relational strain that is difficult to bear. Our ability to communicate well, to talk through our responses, and to be present to each other somehow enabled us to find strength in each other rather than tension.

What I did find, however, was although our initial forays into fertility treatment had been shaped by optimism, the longer we went without success the less convinced I became of the eventual outcome. And I recognised in myself the degree to which I sought to dampen my own levels of hope.

As we approached each new embryo transfer, I would tell myself not to get my hopes up and not to think too far ahead. I would remind myself of the unlikelihood of success, advising myself that it probably wouldn’t happen.

An ancient wisdom saying in the Jewish text tells us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick” and so in many respects my response here was entirely understandable. The avoidance of hope is a wonderful self-protection mechanism, because despite the remarkable resilience of the human spirit there can come a time when this resilience is worn down. Especially if our youthful invincibility comes face-to-face with the real fragility of the human experience. We come to know better than to hope. Instead, it becomes easier to cultivate emotional distance. This distance is far less emotionally taxing and it enables you to avoid the risk that comes with hope. If you avoid hope and expectation, you’ll never be disappointed! It can be a very effective strategy.

I remember using the analogy of temperature change as I explained this to our psychologist. If the temperature drops from 15 degrees to 5 degrees, I suggested, at least I would only experience a 10 degree drop overall. But if the temperature drops from 35 degrees to 5 degrees, well that would be a much bigger shock. In the same way, if I could avoid getting my hopes up then perhaps the inevitable disappointment would be easier to cope with. At this point she just asked me two simple questions. 

Firstly,

does it, in fact, make the disappointment and heartbreak any less difficult? 

Well, no not really I guess. 

Secondly,

do you really want to live your whole life at 15 degrees?

Both of these questions really struck me. She did not deny how understandable my strategy was, but she was questioning whether this self-protection was a healthy way to live in the longer term. 

When life doesn’t follow the script, I think it feels easier to live primed and ready for disappointment. To suck as much hope out of the air as you can and ‘hope’ to avoid the feeling of hopelessness that comes with hopes unmet. It’s one of the ways of coping with the world. When you’ve experienced up close the deep impact of tragedy or illness, repeated disappointments, and even encountered the impact of death, hope seems too painful. If you allow hope to grow again, then surely you’re just setting yourself up for more pain. The higher your hopes, the further you have to fall when reality eventually kicks in.

And yet, ironically, the avoidance of hope in order to avoid feeling hopeless often ends up self-defeating. In fact, it’s hope that keeps us alive. And going. It is hope that helps us to keep staring in the face of tragedy and suffering while we take another step forward. 

But this kind of hope is not supposed to be some kind of vague optimism or collection of positive clichés. It is not an avoidance of reality or some naïve conviction that everything will always work out fine.

German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, who came upon faith as a POW during the second world war, stated that “hope does not promise successful days to the rich and the strong, but resurrection and life to those who must exist in the shadows of death.” This “resurrection”, symbolised for Christians in the story of Jesus, is about much more than arguments between scholars over the details of historical validity. Resurrection remains a potent symbol that there is something more going on here than the shadow of death. This “resurrection” is not just about some mysterious anticipated future, but about the discovery of hope, and therefore of life, here in the present.

In the Christian tradition, hope is grounded in a core interpretation of reality itself. It asks the deep question: what sits at the heart of all things? If the centre of all reality is emptiness, aloneness, isolation - well then hope can be hard to summon when life becomes profoundly difficult to face; this is the case for me at least. But if at the centre of reality is something of love, of meaning, of life and of a sense that we are connected to something and someone(s) beyond ourselves, then when I enter the darkness I am reminded of the possibility that hope offers me. 

The late Irish philosopher and poet John O’Donohue suggested to us that,

"Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the instinct that at the deepest level of reality some intimate kindness holds sway. This is the heart of blessing. To believe in blessing is to believe that our being here, our very presence in the world, is itself the first gift, the primal blessing. As Rilke says: Hier zu sein ist so viel — to be here is immense.”

This is a hope that does not guarantee the absence of depression, nor the elimination of anxiety and uncertainty. But it is a hope that says to me that even if the temperature plummets and the shock sets in, that doesn’t mean there is no longer anything to hope for.  

Perhaps I can still find a way to live my life above 15 degrees.

Click here to read part 5.