How Gardening Changed My Perspective on Infertility and Identity
The garden behind my parents’ house was my sacred place. I grew up planting vegetables there, watching them grow, and tending to them.
When my grandma would visit, we’d routinely walk out back together, and I’d point, “There’s the banana peppers, there’s the squash, here’s the tomatoes,” and she’d applaud every time as if it were the first time she got the tour. I was so proud of our family garden! It was abundant and wild.
As a child, it all looked so easy. You till the soil, plant the seed, water it, and wait. And then, wallah—you have a bright red tomato ready to pluck.
However, it wasn’t until the year after my husband and I were married that my understanding of the world changed; all that looked easy wasn’t so easy.
Soon after we started trying for a child, I noticed signs of infertility and went to the doctor, who confirmed that I had PCOS.
My internal belief system knew that if I prayed hard enough, worked hard enough, waited long enough, and took care of my body well enough, that one day, the seed my husband and I longed for would take root.
However, no one told me the toll this would take on me. My infertility diagnosis gnawed away at my hope, my identity, and body, month after month, year after year. Each negative pregnancy test drove the stake further and further in the ground.
I wasn’t doing enough; I was not enough.
“Trying” became my full time job. Try this supplement. Try this breathing exercise. Try removing dairy. Try this prayer. Try this herbal tea. And so I did.
What else was I to do, other than wait around and grieve?
And then it dawned on me—I needed to watch the slow growth of things—to see that I could bring goodness and beauty into the world. I needed proof that I had it in me: mothering, that is. So, I returned to the garden.
Gardening showed me that even though I couldn’t grow this one seed, I could grow others. And as I look around now, the garden of my life flourishes with growth.
If my grandma were here today, I’d take her out back and point, “There’s the healthy community I grew, there’s all my wisdom, here’s my thriving marriage, here’s where I cleared out broken fragments of my story and made them something new.” And she’d applaud. I know she would.
This vibrant garden is my proof. I was not as infertile as I thought.
While I waited:
And now, after seven years, somewhere between all the thriving seeds, a little boy grows.
Not because I worked hard enough, or because I learned “the hidden lesson,” or because I healed enough. But perhaps, I had it in me all along—mothering, in barrenness and bounty.
12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:12-13
If you are wondering what productive things you can do while you wait for [fill in the blank], consider story work. The more you address the trauma of your past now, the less likely it is to repeat in the future.
