Since March 16, my county has been operating under a stay at home order to combat spread of COVID-19. Friends and acquaintances of mine have remarked how uncomfortable it is to live our daily lives with our future unknown. Living in increments of a week, two weeks, a month. I agree with them. Living life in small increments is difficult. Though it’s a new experience to many of those around me, it’s no new experience in this household. I’ve lived my life in two week increments for roughly the last three years. Any woman who has tried for a pregnancy for a little while has likely become familiar with the term “two week wait.” It’s often dreaded, and it can be a really challenging time. As we pay attention to each and every twinge in our bodies, we wonder, “Could this be the time? Could I finally be pregnant?” When menstrual bleeding returns after those days of waiting, grief accompanies that flow of blood.

In this holiest of weeks, when we remember the crucifixion of our Lord, the bleeding and grief we experience in our infertility can be a participation in the wounds of the crucified Christ.

The following is a poem I wrote a couple of years ago, when my husband and I had just begun to walk down the onerous path of infertility. I offer it here as a prayer for all of you carrying your cross of infertility.

Months
by Cayce L. Farina

It’s coming.

In that alone moment I know.
That dead blood smell is the marker
And another chance is gone.
Soon I’ll be bleeding,
My heart crying.
What else would it cry, but blood?
They both taste of salt.

Are tears and blood the salt of the earth?

In this alone moment
Another hope of Satan for a foothold on my heart,
Another choice to praise or curse,
Another chance for weeping to become despair.

But also in these tears, this blood,
I have the wounds of the Cross.
Jesus wept.
Jesus bled.
His body, my body
His blood I took on Sunday, the blood I bleed now.
A different partaking, different Eucharist,
A sword piercing my own heart, too.

And I wait.
I hope.
Amen.

Cayce Farina is a mental health counselor and has been married to her sweet husband, Brian, for 6 years. They are parents to one child in Heaven and run a miscarriage bereavement ministry at their parish. In her spare time, Cayce enjoys baking, singing, musical theatre, and snuggling her two cats.