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Success after IF
DavezWife
member
Bored? Roundtable discussion about the word "Miracle"
DavezWife
member
mir?a?cle/'mirik?l/
| Noun: |
|
So we could pick any number of examples on this board and in life, (feel free to use your own) but I spend WAY too much time thinking about the word MIRACLE.
And I struggle with it, because in MY mind, it's a faith-based word, and it's no secret I'm mad at my God. I personally don't believe that God caused my huge number of losses. I'm old, I have egg issues, and maybe I'll admit to a little bad luck and a short straw. So if I don't believe He was in charge of the losses, then I don't know if I should believe He is the one behind the changes in Cricket's medical status. Of course, I'm a nurse, so sometimes things ARE just science to me. It CAN just be a medical occurance, and no one gets credit but the body who did it. (of course, then you could go back to who made that body, but whatever....)
But then I find myself healing (?) a bit in the comfort that others (a LOT of others) are praying for this kid. Which in my mind, can't hurt. But is it helping? I mean, I admit to "praying by proxy" where I call my Gram and tell her what's going on, knowing full well she's on her way to Mass and will mention a thing or two to God on Cricket's behalf. lol.
I don't know... I guess I'm just curious what your take is on the word "Miracle" and maybe how it pertains to science as us ART/IF mommas see it. Or is it devine intervention? lol.
And.... discuss!
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"I did it for Cricket"
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Bored? Roundtable discussion about the word "Miracle"
Well, I don't believe in the divine, and I generally think the word "miracle" alludes to spiritual/religious genesis, and therefore try not to use it. But I'm a bit heartened to see the second definition and I'll admit I have occasionally referred to our little ones (more Boodle, due to the second definition) as "miracles" (or a play on the word using Boodle's name).
I guess the first one makes no sense to me as far as describing my children (or anyone else's) because there is always a natural or scientific explanation unless it was literally a virgin (and ART free) birth. It was unexpected, but science/egg-meets-sperm is still the reason Boodle was conceived (and Toodle). And with your little man, while I love that many pray for him and I'm not so confident in my lack of religion to say that with 100% certainty it doesn't make a difference, I can also say that the surprises he's given you (and will hopefully continue to give) can be explained as much by medicine/science (even if the explanation was a prior ERROR in such) as by someone divine intervening on your behalf.
It's an interesting thought, when you say "So if I don't believe He was in charge of the losses, then I don't know if I should believe He is the one behind the changes in Cricket's medical status", and it reminds me of an old George Carlin bit about how athletes always thank God when they do well, but no one ever says "The good lord made me choke at the scrimmage line", LOL. No disrespect meant to anyone who believes, just noted the parallel and thought you could use a smile.
Regardless, even as a heathen, I appreciate when others pray for us in times that I've needed it, and hope you continue to receive your share, and that your little dude proves his own "miracle", whichever definition applies.
Just have a sec, but ...
In my mind a miracle is something beyond scientific explanation but doesn't necessarily have to be "divine" either. ...if that makes any sense.
It never hurts to throw your hopes out into the universe to see if anyone answers.
My husband and I just had this conversation the other night. I have been having a crisis in faith so to speak lately, where I have really been questioning the power of prayer, does it work? Disclaimer: I believe in God and pray all the time, but lately I have been questioning its effectiveness.
Two people get cancer. Both families pray as hard as they can. One survives, the other doesn't. The one that survives declares their prayers answered. The one that doesn't has been forsaken, it must have been God's plan, etc. What if that's just the way it was going to be no matter what? What if it is nothing more than we are organic creatures that get illnesses and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose? Why was one prayer answered over the other? In the animal world, this kind of roulette happens all the time, why should we be different? Is it just the fact that us as humans have a more evolved brain with a need to assign meaning to everything?
Is prayer just a mechanism of comfort for us? When I was pg with my twins, I prayed my ass off for God to keep them safe. He didn't. I miscarried. I think they were bad embryos caused by a reckless stim ordered by my doctor. The only way I could deal with it was to believe it was God's plan. Then I got pg with Maya. I prayed a lot again that he would let me keep this one. I did. The more I think about it, I don't feel like God had a hand in it either way, and no matter how much I prayed, it didn't effect the outcome either way. I had a good egg with a good sperm this time. Last time I didn't. Was Maya the child that God picked out for me? Or just like every other mammal, was it a one in a million chance she came to be? I ovulated, a sperm met an egg, and by chance I got her.
Some of the amazing pregnancy turnarounds that have been happening around here lately have gotten me thinking even more. Did these "miracles" just happen because that is biologically what was happening anyway and only was thought to be different because we have the technology to let us peek into the womb? Or was praying physically changing what was going on in there? I am not so sure anymore.
As you can see, I have a lot more questions than answers, and I hate the feeling of questioning something that I so strongly believed in before.
while I don't believe in a god that takes care of us, etc...I do believe in the power of positive thinking and group thinking....
There is a tv show out there right now, that talks about how our brains are influenced by magnetic waves..and it references this crazy anomoly on Sept 11, 2001 where the earth's magnetic field spiked before, during and after the attacks. linky
mindblowing.
maybe its all hooey, but it ties into my cockamamied theory that "god" is really more like "the force" from star wars...and that we are all tied together by this as yet unexplained thing - (although some recent, incredibly dumbed down shows I saw about membrane theory and other stuff that I have no idea what it means seemed to back it up
I believe in definition #2, but not definition #1.
Both my dad and my stepdad were diagnosed with Stage IV cancers in 2006. My Dad died months later and my stepdad is still alive and kicking. I don't believe that God favored by stepdad over my dad or that my stepdad received more prayers than my dad. The unfortunate fact is that my Dad had a more aggressive type of cancer and wasn't diagonsed early enough to receive treatment and my stepdad was able to receive treatment.
I also think it is in the eye of the beholder. After we told my ILs that we were receiving medical treatment for IF and to stop bugging us about when we were having a baby, my MIL gave me a story from a magazine about St. Gerald (I think that is his name) that basically said that some infertile Catholics prayed to him and lo and behold they became pregnant. This saints day is actually Lucas's birthday. MIL thinks that her prayers made me become pregnant and sees his birthdate as being a sign. I think that my IVF treatment made me pregnant and the fact that I started IVF after the holidays (because I selfishly didn't want to deal with monitoring appointments and not drinking over the holidays) resulted in Lucas being born in mid-October.
I think miracles happen all the time. I just believe in the second definition and not the first.
I for one truly believe that we have Miracles that happen around us everyday. I do pray to God. I for one do not believe that God just changes what happens because we pray. I believe that God provides us with opportunities and we have our own free will and we may see those opprotunities and we may not.
I believe that God uses those here on earth to assist in his miracles and I have to admit that bad and horrible things do happen and in the end that is the life we have here on Earth. They suck they test our beliefs and try to push away from God. God expects this from us he expects us to be angry, he expects us to say we are not sure it is all a process.
Each one of us could have just kept trying to get PG on our own with no assistance for an RE etc having a completely different outcome. But instead I look at it this way God has given the knowledge of science to be able to assist us.
I do consider each and every PG a miracle. I find that when someone completely heals from a life threatening illness a miracle. I hate that there are so many people that do not get to have these types of miracles in their lives. I will never understand why and will probably ask God why a lot throughout my life.
grrr I can't NOT reply, but I don't have time... jerk.
Ok my take...I tend to pray for strength/sense of peace/ability for people to find things in themselves to "get through" the bad... So instead of praying "cure her cancer"... I try to pray "please help her find the strength to fight"....
I also truly believe that good things come from bad. I believe some people are "angels among us"....
So my #1 is a miracle in my eyes because science said the embryo should not have continued to grow (since ALL the others fizzled). But she did, she is a spit fire and is here!
#2, I had the subchorionic bleed, this isn't as cut and dry, because nothing really links m/c with the sch, but the pregnancy was threatened and she survived...
I don't have much time, I am cleaning the house before company arrives, but I wanted to get this out there. I hope it makes sense with such little time to compose it.
I am a Christian. At least in the most broad sense in the word. That being said I am also a very liberal minded person. There is nothing I could ever do that could make me change that. It is just the way my mind works. I love learning about all religions, beliefs, science, etc. I just am not totally sure that my way of thinking should be the only way of thinking, or even is it the right way of thinking.
I do believe in miracles, even that God makes miracles. But like I said somewhere in my mind maybe it is just a bunch of atoms getting together doing something totally unexpected.
But that is not really why I am replying to this, Daves. I spent a lot of my youth angry at God (my parents getting a divorce and basically abandoning my brother in I in favor of thier new familys). I had things happen to me that made me hate God (being raped as a child by my uncle). Things in my life now make me wonder why God would let it happen (my brother having to live an agonzing life with Schizophrenia)
But now that I am a parent I see where God is coming from. I love my children so much. I would do anything for them, I cry at every wound they receive, I cry at the haertache they will endure in thier innocent little lives. But I cannot stop any of those things from happening. If I did I would be stunting thier growth, thier journey. Instead i hold them when they are hurtng, try to guide them so they may endure less. It is all I can do.
It is what, I believe, God does for us. He cries when we cry, He hurts when we hurt. And even though He is all powerful, he doesn't end all our pain, or answer every prayer in a way that would make our life simpler, less hard. He holds us when we are down, and lets us be angry at Him, he might even point us in a different direction in hope to save us from more agony. And sometimes, for no reason that we can explain He creates a miracle.
I hope I don't sound preachy, as I said I am very open to all other ideas when it comes to faith and science. And infact a sort of "force" like thing sounds very interesteing. But I hope I at least came out understandable. If not just ignore me.
To me, anything with a possible physical explanation is not a miracle. Sam is not a miracle. Me getting pregnant w/o assistance was not a miracle. Me getting cancer was not a miracle.
I use the word miracle as hyperbole, and have never witnessed or heard of an actual miracle.
I do believe in luck, coincidence, random chance and, for lack of a better term, karma - so prayers and good wishes never hurt and at the very least, can benefit the psychology of the recipient. I am not a spiritual or religious person, which is why I do not offer to pray for people (though I do offer and follow through with thinking positive thoughts). But I would never turn down an offer for a prayer - putting good energy in to the universe is never a bad thing, in my book.
I am a runner, knitter, scientist, DE-IVF veteran, and stage III colon cancer survivor.
This all really struck a chord with me. Thanks for writing this.
I believe in both definitions.
To me DD is a miracle if I'd been born in a different time. it's a miracle of science but a miracle no less to me.
As for the prayer issue like the PP said God is like any parent and sometimes he can't stop bad things happening to us.
When Eve ate the apple she opened Pandora's box and so we suffer illness and heartache. We gained free will but that separated us from the perfection of Eden.
This exactly and this from Navy&Violet
But now that I am a parent I see where God is coming from. I love my children so much. I would do anything for them, I cry at every wound they receive, I cry at the haertache they will endure in thier innocent little lives. But I cannot stop any of those things from happening. If I did I would be stunting thier growth, thier journey. Instead i hold them when they are hurtng, try to guide them so they may endure less. It is all I can do.It is what, I believe, God does for us. He cries when we cry, He hurts when we hurt. And even though He is all powerful, he doesn't end all our pain, or answer every prayer in a way that would make our life simpler, less hard. He holds us when we are down, and lets us be angry at Him, he might even point us in a different direction in hope to save us from more agony. And sometimes, for no reason that we can explain He creates a miracle.
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These two ladies have said it so well. I am a Christian and believe that God and science are not mutually exclusive. I believe in God's supreme power and that science is a part of this physical world that He has created. I don't think that because certain occurrences have a scientific explanations that it means that there is not a God or that an event was not miraculous.
In this life it is so hard to answer the "why". Why do good things happen, why do bad things happen, why do some people live and others die? I wish I could answer these questions. I believe that God wants us to question. He has instilled in all of us an innate yearning to seek order and understanding for those things which are both within and outside of our control. But, I do know that my understanding is limited, and we unfortunately have to accept that we will never be able to explain with full understanding the complex nature of the human body and the human race - neither through science or through faith.
I will continue to pray for Cricket and that you will find a peace as you navigate through this journey. I do believe there is power in that!