The voices echo inside me: “Let time do its thing, everything will happen at the right time, don’t be so pressurized it harms fertility and loosen up a bit”. Sounds simple doesn’t it? It’s easier said than done. I’ll explain with this story:
One man fell off a cliff and was careening down towards certain death. Somehow he grabbed hold of a branch sticking out of the cliff face and was suspended on the cliff face holding on for dear life. With no way out he cried out to G-d; “Please help me! I’m stuck on the cliff face!” G-d answered: “If you want me to save you, you must let go of the branch.”
So you can understand it’s not easy to let go of the branch and it’s even scary. The fear of letting go of the branch and being suspended between earth and sky is similar to the fear we have of letting go in our lives. The understanding that I have no control of my life causes me to feel powerless. I had this feeling when I decided to take a break from my excessive chase after the baby that keeps on eluding me. After so many years of focused activity on the elevated endeavor of trying to become a mother, I found it easier to do than to sit back. This has a direct impact on my level of faith in G-d. I most definitely need to strengthen my faith in G-d. He alone decides if my efforts will bear fruit. Even if His plans are different from mine I must believe that I’m in good hands; the hands of my caring Father.
So I decided to make a change and release the control lever and remove the great burden from my small shoulders.
My Contract Passing the Responsibility of my Fertility to G-d
On the 22nd day of the month of Av in the year 5770
Between xxxx (the daughter of the King)
And The Creator
Since we are trying to fulfill G-d’s commandment to be fruitful and multiply and made every effort possible to conceive…
And since there is no medical problem preventing conception and 6 years have already passed with no positive results…
Therefore it is declared and agreed upon as follows:
1. Introduction:
A. As part of my responsibility as a woman I must help my husband fulfill the mitzvoth of being fruitful and multiplying, living in the land, Circumcision, teaching your children Torah and many more mitzvoth pertaining to child rearing and educating them.
1. Today the question again arises: Shall I proceed to do more fertility treatments or not? How much must I try to make G-d happy and carry out my mission in this world in the best possible way?
2. Daughter of the King’s declaration:
The Daughter of the King declares as follows:
1. Until now I did every effort to conceive: Repentance, Prayer and Charity remove the evil decree.
Repentance:
From being a secular Jew to one who keeps Torah and Mitzvoth
Working on character improvement
Prayers at the graves of the righteous and the Western Wall
Seeking the blessings of rabbis and righteous people and even familyand friends as every blessing counts and should not be taken lightly
Learning Torah listening to lectures and benefitting the masses
Encouraging my husband to learn and participate in classes even sacrificing my time with him
Many spiritual remedies including; charity and tithing for Torah lectures, redeeming captives, needy people, abortion prevention and more.
Volunteering in my community,
Seeking proper nutrition, naturopathy,
Herbal medicine and homeopathy,
Accupuncture,
Fertility treatments of many various types.
2. There are 2 choices:
A. To continue fertility treatments or
B. To let go and wait for G-d’s salvation through natural means
3. Considerations of each choice:
A. The intellect is involved: the environment is pressurized and time is passing, the desire to do and to do it quickly, the difficulty of letting go and losing control of the situation, using the tools G-d gave me, to use conventional fertility treatments.
B. The heart is involved: I don’t need treatments as I am healthy and able to have children, the need to rush and control reality is not truthful as everything is in G-d’s hands, strengthening my faith in G-d, until now the treatments were not successful.
3. Responsibilities of the Daughter of the King
Understanding that with treatments or without I have no influence on the final result of becoming a mother or not, but I get feelings of helplessness. That being said, Judaism’s outlook is to “cast our burden on G-d and He will support you”. This means I must throw my burden on G-d as I have no say in the matter and even if I must try I may fall into the trap of thinking my efforts made a difference.
4. Passing the responsibility to G-d
From today and onwards, I pass to You G-d, Creator of the world the full responsibility of helping me fulfill my mission as a woman. Enough treatments; when You decide it’s time for me to get pregnant and become a mother I will thank You and praise You endlessly. But I also understand that the possibility exists that I may need to wait a long time and not know what will be the results at the end.
5. Additional requests:
My precious Father, give me the wisdom and understanding to see the many kindnesses you do for me even when it seems to be ‘bad’.
Help me have faith in You, to believe in you and feel your closeness all hours of the day.
My precious Father, help me make peace with the developments of this test, to accept the test and embrace it and not push the test away, rather to understand that it is part of me.
My precious Father, I pray and beg of You, I want to be a mother, yet I understand that everything you do for me is really the best thing for repairing me even if I don’t see it.
Signed,
Daughter of the King
Blessings of good tidings, Love, Me