LB was on her way to 2 years old by this time and we had very few conversations about more children in those early months with her. With all the kids before her, we knew we wanted more but after bringing her home, we really weren't sure what we wanted to do. We were content with our big beautiful family the way it was. But we also left the option open to grow again down the road, but there was no rush. We were busy! We have always been open to pursuing any option of growth for our family if we felt the time was right whether that be international adoption, domestic adoption, pregnancy, or even opening our home as a temporary family to kids in foster care. For me, the closer I got to 30 the more I wanted to experience pregnancy just one more time. In the few discussions Peter and I had about this, he definitely did not feel the same strong desire. I never pushed him to make a decision or to see things the same way I did. I had been blessed to experience pregnancy twice and I felt okay accepting that it might never happen again. So imagine my complete surprise when we are sitting in Whistler and Peter announces that he's really okay with and ready to try for another baby! Needless to say, it was an exciting time of dreaming!
Now let's do some fast forwarding - through marital issues that had to be resolved, a trip to Jamaica that we didn't even consider put us at risk of Zika (forcing us to wait out a 6 month period) to a phone call at the tail end of the Zika waiting period telling me that I was a match for someone looking for a stem cell transplant (forcing me to wait another 6 months because you can't donate when pregnant) we had quickly found ourselves a year and a half later finally in a place with the green light to actually pursue this dream of having another baby! I am not naturally a very patient person but I did okay through all that waiting, maybe our adoptions had taught me a bit of patience!
Looking back, I was so dang naive! Peter and I truly thought it was going to happen quickly. We didn't really know the state of our fertility because after a year of trying, we pursued adoption and then had Eli as a bit of a surprise and then Sabrina was soon to follow as another surprise. We both kind of thought that our days of infertility were behind us. 3 months pass, okay it has to happen soon. And it did! In March of 2018 I saw a line on a couple of tests. But within days it was over. The medical world has a nice term of trying to make you feel better calling it a "chemical pregnancy" but as anyone who has seen a line on a test knows the amount of dreaming your heart can do in a matter of days. I was pretty heartbroken but because the test was only positive for such a short amount of time I kept the sadness and grief to myself.
Okay so we had gotten a positive, it was bound to happen again right? 6 months pass and this is where I finally allowed myself to wonder if something was wrong. But I tried to keep up the faith. We approach 1 year and it finally had brought us down. It was a bit different than it was the first time we struggled because now I had a house filled with kids to distract me and keep me very busy and I understood how blessed I had been to be a mom 4 times over already. But it was still really hard to have a longing for something that just wouldn't happen. As I know so many women struggling to get pregnant with even their first, inside I felt selfish for my desire to have another. But it still hurt because when your heart is longing for something or someone who you feel is missing, it is still hard!
At a year we really started exploring our options. Before I go on, I must explain that I think fertility treatment is amazing and I am so glad that doctors can help women in this way. I have nothing at all against seeking fertility treatment and it was an option I spent a TON of time thinking about and really wanted to pursue. But there was a nagging inside of me that I just knew we needed to wait on God. I wanted soooo badly to find a way to take control of this situation when I knew full and well that there was no way for me to control this situation. We could go as far as to seek advanced medical help and still end up with no baby in our arms. Oh, I still struggled with control - I ordered fertility testing with no definitive of why it wasn't working, I ordered herbs and vitamins that I eventually stopped taking because I realized it was just me trying to take control. I almost picked up the phone so many different times to call my doctor but I just knew I was meant to wait. We felt helpless and the answer to just wait on God was not exactly my favorite answer!
In January of this year Peter and I felt compelled to Daniel Fast over many different areas of our lives. It wasn't all related to having a baby, but having a baby was part of it. I prayed so much, I read so much in my Bible, it was an amazing time of seeking God that we continued after the fast was over. I started reading a new book "God, Where Are You?" because just in general, God felt distant even though I had been pursuing a closer relationship with him for quite some time. It took me a LONG time to digest and get through this book but I truly felt a perspective change as I went through this book. As I finished the book I knew what I had to do and it wasn't going to be without pain. I had to surrender. I talked it over with Peter, we were both just so dang tired of this longing for a baby. I was in an unhealthy place with it emotionally and I told him that I had to surrender and let this dream go. If God wanted us to have a baby, he could make it happen but I couldn't let getting pregnant be such a huge focus on my life anymore. I had to move on.......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fA35Ved-Y
This isn't an easy place to get to and it isn't easy to let go of a dream that I had carried with me for 3 years. This wasn't a situation in which I was trying to surrender this to God to manipulate or try to get what I want. This was true, genuine surrender of something that broke my heart to let go of. It was painful! We began to pray and dream about what God might have for our family if it wasn't a 5th child. We started the process of moving on.
Now, I hate when people try to say things like "just relax" and it will happen. Let me just say, that's not how any of this works and it's just a dumb statement. I still sit in awe and don't understand the why. I never, ever expected that the very month that I surrendered and even let go of this dream, that it would happen. I couldn't even believe my eyes when 2 days after my 33rd birthday, 3 long years after this story began, I saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test! I still can't put that moment into words. I don't understand why we had to wait so long, I don't understand why God fulfilled this dream now, I don't know why we get this blessing while other women must still wait, but I am so sooo grateful for this little baby and am not taking this miracle for granted. We have been so abundantly blessed to get to be parents again!
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