Mia Louise Randall, MS
“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage, but what about the some of us who get a carriage with no baby?!” -Mia
This is #behindthechairstories
My husband and I were married in June 2015 surrounded by our family and friends, it was a fairy tale in Costa Rica. Right after returning to the states from our honeymoon, we talked about trying for a baby. It was time, we loved each other, and while I never desired kids in the past the look on my husband’s face every time, we saw a baby was enough for me to say YES to all his baby desires! I had my IUD removed in July of 2015 but 7 years later we are still waiting on a positive test. We have seen specialist, received diagnoses, and gone through fertility procedures to no avail. It’s been almost 7 years of trying ALL the positions, pills, processes, and prayers to get to the result of baby Randall, and yet here we are today still on the journey to parenthood through Infertility.
I would miss key parts of this story line if I left out the pieces on how Infertility has at times left me folded over like a chair in a corner crying or forced me into a deep hole of isolation. The pressure to perform as a woman in society is never quite as brutal as when you are unable to conceive. It’s part of womanhood, right?! Women are the only ones who were created to birth, and yet you a woman, can’t do that? I have questioned my womanhood and my existence as a woman who struggles to produce life from my womb. There is a different type of grief that exists when it’s because of never receiving a thing vs losing it. You start to question worthiness, qualifications, and goodness. As a wife, the Bible calls me his “good thing”, but how good can I be if the one thing my husband desires most, I am unable to partner with him in producing? These were the questions that rummaged my mind and the lies that tainted my heart daily.
Late in the summer of 2015 I joined a women’s ministry called Wives in Waiting that gave me the opportunity to sit with women from all walks of life and share in my ups and downs. I was connected closely to a leader during her own infertility journey, and I watched as she seemed to navigate the journey with grace and a profound sense of faith. I would often turn to her for wisdom, encouragement, and motivation to keep going in the journey. It is a blessing to have a connection to someone who could understand the depths of my pain and create space for me and others to share in it together with her.
In 2017, I read a book by Brene Brown called “The Power of Vulnerability”, and wow did it knock me upside down. In the book she talked about using vulnerability as a superpower to allow the truth in your emotions to tear down feelings of shame and humiliation. She encouraged me to tap into the emotions that came because of infertility. It left me filled with hope and helped me acknowledge the disappointment I had with my situation, my body, and with God.
Now, acknowledging a disappointment with God is one thing, but what you do with it, is another. I thank God every day for the wisdom He granted my sister in Christ to share the opportunity of going through a Thorough Inner Healing session with Restoring the Foundations, a deliverance ministry. This has been one of the single most life changing experiences of my life. I left with the understanding of forgiveness and submission, and that true Peace is only found through that submission to God. I had to submit all of things about infertility for me to continue living in a world that would love to kill me with its lies. Through the session, I was able to identify lies that robbed me of peace, and as I continue to practice self-deliverance (almost daily), it’s been a consistent process of exchanging the world's lies (or my own) for Gods truth.
As a consistent practice, I stay connected with my community, express my emotions, and practice self-deliverance to keep me from buckling under the pressures of trying to “do” as a woman instead of “be”. In addition, I meet with a therapist who specializes in Infertility concerns and am working towards becoming certified in the field of Fertility Counseling myself. While I will never be okay with infertility on this side of eternity, I am okay with submitting to the process and all that it yields within me until life everlasting.
Mia currently works as a Mental Health Counselor with Nuwell.org and also an Issue Focused Deliverance Minister through Restoring the Foundations. She shared the following links as resources as suggestions as you embark on your overall wellness journey.
www.Wivesinwaiting.com (http:/
www.restoringthefoundations.
www.brenebrown.com (http://
www.nuwellonline.com (http://
https://www.covingtontherapy.