Do you ever feel like this is punishment?

For what, I am not quite sure. It definitely definitely feels like punishment though. I can't quite explain it to people who haven't been through it, and I don't know why.

Of course, the logical side of me says that it's not punishment. It's just this bad thing that happens to some people. It doesn't mean I am a bad person or have done something bad to deserve this. It doesn't mean that people who do get pregnant are being rewarded for all the good things they have done. It doesn't really matter though, because my emotional side FAR FAR outweighs the logical side sometimes.

I was raised Southern Baptist. You know how people say that Catholic people have guilt? Southern Baptists do too. The really sad thing is that the infertility and our loss have made me question everything--including religion. I hate that but I also strangely welcome it. I have a hard time believing in a God that allows these things to happen.....that gives children to women who abuse and neglect them. My husband says I should base my religious beliefs on facts, not experiences. I agree with him....to a point.

How do you remove experiences and emotion from religion? A lot of what makes a person (and a religion frankly) is experiences and emotion. Why else would church attendance be at it's highest during times of depression and recession? Of course it's because people are looking for hope, and they think they'll find it at church. Unfortunately for me, I'm not really finding it anywhere anymore.

I am left with a set of weird beliefs. One is that a God that does this or allows this to happen to women who are infertile sucks--I'm not entirely sure that is a God that I want to worship. So maybe this isn't God? Maybe this is just random and shit happens? Maybe God is removed from us and just watches from the sidelines? I don't think I want to worship that God either. If He is there, He has seen how much we have hurt this year. He knows the hurt that is facing us later this month when the due date hits us. He knows the long road ahead......and what does He do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He doesn't comfort. He doesn't provide places for hope. No, instead, he puts pregnant people everywhere around me who complain about being pregnant so that I am keenly aware that they are not aware of the blessing that they have. He puts a surgery ahead of us. He does....nothing. Why would I want to worship a God who does nothing when his followers are hurting? It seems to me that if you truly have mercy and compassion for others, then you will do whatever you can to ease their burden. It seems to me that he does not do that.

Which leads me to my final question. If all of that is true, then what? Either he's not there at all and life is random or God is a sadistic bastard (to quote my husband). I am not sure which one I believe. I struggle because I don't believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. I never have....not even when I was a child. It just didn't make sense to me. It still doesn't actually.

This is a topic we've been working on. We were both brought up in extremely religious homes. We both went to church several times a week. I even went on a 2 month long mission trip in college and pretty much devoted my college to God. I think maybe I regret that now. I wish I had used that time to figure out what I really believed rather than blindly following the herd.

Of course I can never tell my family any of this. We are dutiful children on major religious holidays. We haven't been to church in over a year.....nor are we necessarily motivated to do so.

Now I'm back at my original question. The guilt. I feel bad for even thinking this way. I feel like infertility is punishment for my lack of faith. I feel like I don't even deserve to be a mommy or to make my husband a daddy because we don't believe in God. I hate that I feel this way because I don't even believe those things, logically.

Where do they get off passing all this guilt on to unsuspecting children that will then follow them around their whole life? It's punishment either way I tell you.