The Courage, Resilience, and Hope Found in the Waiting Room

Transcript The Courage, Resilience, and Hope Found in the Waiting Room By Cantor Jenna Pearsall God comes to Noah when he’s 600 years old, and tells him God’s plan to flood all existence on earth, warning him that only Noah and those with him in his ark would be left. We don’t get his reaction, but I can only imagine how unsettling and life-changing this moment would have been, to see everything you’ve ever known for 600 years be wiped out in front of your very eyes. There would be the ‘you’ before the flood, and the ‘you’ in the aftermath, the ‘you’ that bore witness, the ‘you’ that is grieving the life you once knew. Many of us have had a similar defining moment that made us change how we categorized our life, separating it into the before and the after. Maybe it was the loss of someone you loved, or something you experienced or witnessed that changed your perspective forever. I’m going to be very vulnerable tonight and share with you what that defining moment was for me. I promise though that like the story of Noah, there came a time for me too, when the rushing waves of the waters subsided, the tops of the mountains became visible again, and I disembarked on the other side, just as Noah did. Parshat Noach is not just about the challenges of surviving a flood, but that of infertility too. The end of the parasha very bluntly states “Sarai was infertile, she had no child.” The Torah does not tell of her struggle to have children, or the emotion of her journey to motherhood. Only the silence between the lines. For thousands of years, women and hopeful parents have had silent, isolated struggles to conceive, with nowhere to put the grief and the pain. Yet it is a tale as old as time itself. A painful narrative in a community where creating future generations is the ultimate mitzvah. Even in this very parasha, God encourages Noah’s children after the flood to be fruitful and multiply, and in fact, that is the main fixture of their covenant. I can only imagine the devastation and grief Sarah went through when this was explicitly what God wanted. Sadly, I know Sarah’s pain all too well. Noah’s defining moment was the flood. For me, it was when I lost my first two pregnancies. I am not the same person I was before these losses, and my struggle will no longer be silent after tonight, because I want to help others who may be experiencing the same thing I did, and I want to speak up and share my story to make others know they are not alone. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a mom. Every bone in my body knows that I am meant to be one. So when we received devastating genetic test results before venturing down this path, that we were a match for a fatal, rare disorder, I just assumed that everything would work itself out. I was naive and convinced that we would somehow be the lucky ones, avoiding passing on the disorder we carry even though there is a 25% chance with every pregnancy, the baby will have the disorder. I lost my first pregnancy the day after my 30th birthday, and my second pregnancy in the second trimester the week I was supposed to go to Cuba with Central. The grief was overwhelming, but I knew I had to keep fighting for our dream of becoming parents. I dove head first into the world of IVF. In this portion, in addition to the flood, we also have the story of the tower of Babel. Everyone once spoke the same language across the entire earth, but as punishment for building a tower to the heavens, God confounds their speech so that they do not understand one another. Everything suddenly felt confusing and foreign. The world of IVF felt like that to me. I had to learn an entirely new language that separated me from the rest of my friends and family who had no issue starting their families: Egg retrievals, stims, embryo transfers, pgt-a and pgt-m testing– words I never thought I’d know so intimately. I sat elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder with countless women and couples going through this, all looking equally as devastated to be there, sometimes with tears staining their cheeks. I was astounded how more people than we think have to go this route to build their families. Much like Noah probably felt adrift at sea for over 150 days, you feel as if you are in your own ark watching the world you thought you knew destroyed around you, the timeline you imagined for your life now ruined beyond recognition. Despite this desolate feeling, I was proud to stand amongst these people in silent solidarity, knowing the resilience, the love and the strength found in that waiting room–filled with those who had the courage to keep trying. After the flood, Noah sends out a dove in hopes that the flood is over, not once, not twice, but three times. The first time, the dove returns to Noah at the ark, water still spanning the earth, no resting place to be found. Noah waits. He sends the dove again after a full week passes, and the dove brings back an olive leaf, and Noah knew the waters were continuing to recede. Again, Noah waited. Another 7 days goes by, and he sends the dove out, and this time it does not return. They find the courage to leave the ark, and start anew in a completely changed world. This is the perfect metaphor for what couples who are struggling to conceive go through. The waiting, the hope of a positive pregnancy test, the pain of a fading one, the anxiety that ensues between each visit, the disappointments and the losses, but ultimately the courage to send that dove back out again, to try again despite their grief and their fear. THAT is an act of love. Connor and I have sent that dove out twice, and our dreams were crushed both times. But I never lost my determination to pull myself out of that dark, narrow, liminal space. In August of this year, with the help of doctors and miracle tests that screen embryos for the genetic disorder we carry, we got the courage to send that dove back out once more, and it worked. I am now pregnant with a healthy baby, due next year. I will still have fear and apprehension until the day the baby is born, and I don’t know what the future holds. I will still feel like I’m in that waiting room until I meet my child, and the fear from my past losses still permeates. But despite everything, my capacity to hope has remained unchanged, and the rainbow that God set above the clouds after the devastation is now coming into view. Our two year journey to this moment felt devastating and unfair, but the people who helped me most along the way were the ones who had gone through it themselves. Some of you may be in the middle of this journey. Some of you may have been through it years ago. Some of you may be carrying a loss no one else knows about. And some of you may have a completely different kind of flood in your own life. I want you to know that I see your pain and your struggle. I am here for you. I’ll end with a prayer for those still waiting for their rainbow, written by Cantor Emily Simkin. Bless those who are waiting. Bless those who are grieving. Bless those who are trying again. Bless those who have no more words to pray. Bring them comfort, surround them with community, hold them in love, and in the midst of all that is uncertain, let them know peace. And let us say, Amen.