Identity: Angelina Jolie, Tim Tebow, and a Pregnant “Infertile”

Angelina Jolie has become rich, famous and popular for being an archetype of female sexuality. Tim Tebow has been an exceptional, celebrated athelete since high school. But for both of these superstars, circumstances have changed. I've been thinking a lot about how circumstances shape our identities, and how changes in events influence our identities. For 5 years, my husband and I have struggled with infertility. Strike that–for 5 years, we struggled with infertility. In a breathtaking blessing straight from the Author of Life, we're pregnant. I expected the morning sickness, and the nervousness, the parties and the shopping. But I didn't see the adjustment to identity coming.

Angelina Jolie has become rich, famous and popular for being an archetype of female sexuality. Tim Tebow has been an exceptional, celebrated athelete since high school. But for both of these superstars, circumstances have changed. I've been thinking a lot about how circumstances shape our identities, and how changes in events influence our identities. For 5 years, my husband and I have struggled with infertility. Strike that–for 5 years, we struggled with infertility. In a breathtaking blessing straight from the Author of Life, we're pregnant. I expected the morning sickness, and the nervousness, the parties and the shopping. But I didn't see the adjustment to identity coming.

So I think about Angelina and Tim–not about the controversies and opinions, but them as people. I wonder how they're adjusting to not having something that was so central to who they were, and how they thought of themselves.

Unlike them, I neither liked nor strived for my "characteristic". Until I saw a plus sign on the pregnancy test, I didn't even realize that infertility had become such a big part of who I was, or considered myself to be. But as I walked through the pregnancy rituals, just like "normal people", I felt a little uncertain, a little fake. A bit like I was betraying my infertile sisters.

Traditionally, I write a post about infertility as we approach Mother's Day (the worst day of the year for many people). This year, I felt like a fraud trying to write, and chose a different topic. When Mother's Day hit, I felt a strange mix of new happiness and old dread. When we had a small scare, I steeled myself against a return to my childless identity with pessimism: Oh, so I'll be back to being babyless soon.

Yesterday, I attended my first non-painful baby shower in years. My stomach hurt as we drove up, a viceral hold-over from the old days. But I had a great time–not in a bittersweet, I'm happy for you and heartbroken for me way, but actually fun. I never hid in the bathroom crying. I didn't leave as soon as possible. When it was over, I said to hubby, "Okay–that wasn't bad." "You mean it was fun," he corrected. "Oh right, yes. That was fun." Now I know: the pregnant me is allowed to have fun at baby showers.

We're 15 weeks into the pregnancy, and it's getting better. I don't catch myself accidentally being sad when I see babies anymore. I look pregnant women in the eye and smile. The old habits are being replaced with new ones. My unintentional identity is being revised.

Which brings me back to Angelina, and Tim, and me, and you. It's easy for us to let what ever seems real right now to seep into our identities. We can mistake our relationships or success or traits or talents for who we are, but we aren't our attractiveness, or our salary, or our happy marriage, or our level of creativity.

I'm leaning into God right now, as He shows me how I've defined myself by these things. He's showing me how to root my identity in Him, no matter what my circumstances are. I am not my infertility or my fertility. I am a child of God who experienced infertility and fertility. And I'm learning to walk in that identity now.