Wandering through the mists...

I feel like that's what I've been doing the past week or so. Since I found out my bloodwork results and had the D&C, I feel like I've been standing behind a curtain of mist watching these events. I'm sure it's my head attempting to protect my heart; funny how the mind works sometimes.

(FYI the D&C went fine, I'll post more on that later).

I've talked at length with my Mom and husband about the "probable miscarriage" issue. We all agree it explains a lot in retrospect. I had several episodes of severe pain and bleeding after failed cycles. These were the times I truly believed I was pregnant. I had a very very faint BFP on one cycle...but it couldn't be confirmed because I started my period (or so I thought) before I could get a beta drawn. I always thought that it was a false positive because I tested again the next day and it was negative. I must have caught it at the tail end of dropping. I had called my doctor during these episodes, but they told me not to be concerned about it, that if I was testing negative and bleeding it was probably "just a heavy period". I could kick myself for not listening to my gut more.

I don't know 100% for sure that I did miscarry. I don't know 100% sure that I didn't. Truly, as my mom and husband both said, only God knows the truth at this point.

I was afraid to tell my husband about the probability of these miscarriages because he always said that he didn't want to try anymore if we got pregnant and lost it. He didn't want us going through that. We talked about the blood clotting issues and MTHFR, and he even said that the episodes make a lot more sense given this new information. I didn't know how he would react, but he surprised me. He took it extremely well. He was sad, and he said he wishes that it wouldn't have happened, but that he's glad we found out several years after the fact instead of when it was happening. I don't know if I agree with that or not. It makes sense in a way, because being removed from it by several years, it doesn't have the strong emotional trauma of knowing while it's occurring. However...it also makes it harder in a way. It's almost like trying to get someone to believe in a repressed memory that only I can remember. Although, in all honesty, I don't care if anyone other than my inner circle of family and friends believes it. I wish in a way I had known at the time. I wish I had the opportunity to know I was pregnant. I wish I would have been allowed to mourn them. I wish others could have shared in my grief. I wish there was a way I could acknowledge and honor them without feeling like a fraud. I feel like since I was never "confirmed" to be pregnant, I'm not "allowed" to claim losses. I have to be honest, knowing it's possible that I've miscarried brings a sense of closure to the intense questioning and grief and sense of emptiness I've felt for seven years. Almost as if I've received validation through a simple quick blood test. The reason I've felt so broken, so lost, the reason I've felt such a huge hole in my heart is because I have lost my children. I've always said I miss my children, but that they just hadn't been conceived yet.

I know now that they were. They existed.

I miss my babies. I will always miss my babies.

However, I know that God is watching over them for me until I can meet them in Heaven.

Reconciling Infertility and Faith, Part II: My Conclusions

I've been giving this topic a lot of thought since my last post.

I am finding it increasingly difficult to reconcile my feelings about my infertility with my still growing faith in God and my daily walk with Christ. There are so many negative feelings surrounding my infertility fight thus far, and I pray daily for God's guidance in this and many other arenas. I ask Him daily to lead me in the direction in which He wants me to proceed. I try to temper my own desires and wants, to surrender my dreams and follow the nudges, pokes, and sometimes shoves from my Heavenly Father. I still feel confident that my desire to be a mother is a desire given from God. There's no other explanation for it. I don't believe that He would have given me this desire if He didn't have a plan to fulfill it. I just wish, in the small sinful mistrusting secret places in my heart, I wish I knew when that plan was going to come to fruition. And what that plan is. Because also in that small secret place, I have the fear that this will be withheld from me forever. And I also fear that the ache will be there forever.

I pray for the ability to “delight in the Lord” (Ps 37:4), for the ability to relinquish my dream and “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him” (Ps 37:7).

Maybe I'm not supposed to understand. That's the hard part for my analytical part of my brain and heart to comprehend. It's hard for me to understand the logistics of NOT understanding. All my life I've endeavored to comprehend, to know WHY. To find out the who, what, where, when, why, and how. Especially when. And why. Such tiny words. Such a huge stumbling block.

I know that when I allow Him to, He can heal the ache in my heart. What I don't understand is why He won't allow my aching heart to be healed by filling my womb. (HUGE AHA MOMENT): maybe that's the lesson? That the two are not interdependent? That this is not a cause and effect situation? Well, for seven years of battling infertility, my womb has been barren. Empty. Unfilled. Unfulfilled. As has my heart. So to me, it stands to reason (in my humanly skewed perception) that the heartache will remain until I am able to conceive or we are able to adopt. Until I am a mother. Is it possible that my happiness and lightness of heart and dare I say JOY isn't and perhaps shouldn't be contingent upon my reproductive status? Perhaps God is waiting for me to realize that true happiness and joy come only from Him and that once I can experience that...then, and maybe only then, can the rest fall into place for child(ren) He has planned for us to be born?

Wow. Talk about HUGE. *(and honestly...I truly had that revelation only as I was typing this...it literally just smacked me in the head).

I know God is enough. I know this life I have is enough. (Why do I have to physically restrain myself from tacking “for now” on the end of those sentences???)

Perhaps this is what I'm supposed to be learning.

Patience.

Courage.

Acceptance.

To live for today, not worrying over yesterday, not trying to over-plan for tomorrow. Trying not to dwell on the tomorrows that I want...but embracing with open arms the tomorrows that God has PLANNED for me.

Maybe there is no reconciliation.

And I think I'm okay with that.

A Few Good Days...

Hey all! 

Been a while again, hasn't it? 

Yeah, sorry about that.  Life's been crazy around here lately...

But it's also been good.

I had a couple of big days this week...

Yesterday I spent most of the day shuttling between doctor's appointments.  My back has still been giving me trouble, and yesterday it dawned on me that it's been almost a YEAR that I've been dealing with this crap.  It was mid August I believe that it started last year, after I tweaked it when we moved into our apartment.  I've been going on and off to a chiropractor, who says I have an "easily movable pelvis" which is rotated and tilted.  We worked on getting it readjusted, which would help for a while, only to have the pain come back worse every time.  So I finally went to my regular MD about it.  She thought it could possibly be arthritis (which she still thinks it is) and put me on a series of several different muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatory pills, pain pills and ice/heat regimens.  Nothing helped ease the pain for more than a day at most.  I finally had enough.  Yesterday she finally agreed with me that the pills were not helping (really?) and gave me a cortisone shot.  In my back.  In my SI (sacroiliac) joint.  One might think that it would have been extremely painful, but surprisingly, it wasn't.  It hurt a little, but not as much as everyone was building it up to be.  I am SO thankful for this shot!  Amazingly, it took hold and started working by late last night.  Today was even better.  So much so that for the first time in nearly a year I was able to be up moving around for more than 5 minutes at a time!!!  You have no idea how big of a deal this is.  My pain had gotten so bad that walking from my front door to the car (all of about 250 feet at the most) would have me doubled over in pain.  Standing for any length of time (to cook dinner, standing in line at a movie, in a checkout line at the store) was sheer misery.  This wasn't just "oh, my back hurts" type of pain.  This was double me over, drop me to my knees, sweating and out of breath, please take the machete out of my lower back type of pain.  I had gotten to the point of nearly being immobile.  But I pushed through each day out of stubborn frustration.  I cried daily because the pain was so bad, because I was tired of feeling like a fat lump of uselessness, because I felt that nothing was ever going to help.  People just don't realize how seriously a person can be affected mentally and emotionally by severe chronic pain.  I've had moments in this past year that I don't even want to admit to.  Moments when I just wanted the pain to stop any way I could get it to.  The biggest frustration for me is that I know that my weight does not in anyway help my back problems.  They're not the entire cause, but they certainly don't help.  I know that I have to lose weight.  I WANT to lose weight.  I want to be active and not just sit at home like a bump on a log every day.  I need to lose weight in order for us to TTC again, because at this weight it is impossible.  I have every intention and desire to get back to an exercise program, but my back pain simply wasn't letting me.  Everyone kept telling me, "Just push through it. Work through the pain."  Well, when it drops you to your knees and takes your breath away, it's pretty impossible to "work through it".  It's a vicious cycle.  I'm in pain partially because of my weight, I need to move to lose weight, moving is nearly impossible because of the pain, but I'm in pain partially because of my weight...  I felt so hopeless.  Useless.  Worthless.  But, as of today I'm doing pretty well.  I was able to go grocery shopping for the first time in months without being in pain by the time I walked into the store.  I was getting sore by the time I was hitting the checkout line, but for me, that's amazing!

I felt so good that I actually went over to our storage shed and went through some of my books and took them to a local used book store!  Yes, ME.  I parted with some of my precious books!  I think I was still high from the shot, if you want to know the truth!  LOL  Nah, these were books that I knew I wasn't going to read again, ever.  They took the majority of them (I had taken 4 reusable shopping bags packed FULL, and I only had 1/2 a bag to take back), and I wound up getting $78 in store credit!!!  WOOHOO!!!  I bought 3 "new to me" books and my husband bought one, and we still have almost $65 credit left.  They have a lot of books my husband was interested in, so he will be going back to pick some out soon.  The only thing that bothered me about the whole thing was the condition of some of these books.  It almost made me cry.  One thing anyone knows about me is how OCD I am about my books.  I take insanely good care of my books.  I always have.  Books are treasures to me.  I don't dog-ear the pages, I am very gentle with them so the covers always stay in good shape, and for the love of Sweet Baby Jesus I cannot fathom breaking the spine!!!  I nearly cried when I saw shelf after shelf after shelf of spines so broken you could barely even tell what the name of the book was anymore.  Such a tragedy.  I know that most people don't treat their books like I do, but it almost seems a bit disrespectful.  I think it comes from the way I was raised.  We never had a lot of money, but books were one thing that my parents always made sure we had.  Reading was a family affair for us.  We used the library a lot, but when we were able to purchase new books, it was a treat.  We (my sister and I) were always well aware that my parents worked hard and sacrificed much to give us the few "extras" they were able to provide for us.  So we learned from an early age to appreciate our belongings.  And the value of hard work.  Which is why I get so frustrated when I see books not taken care of.  Someone worked hard to write that book...what would they think if they saw it all beat up and damaged?  Oy.  I guess you could say I'm a little too emotionally invested in my books, eh?

Matt and I also had a couple of really good discussions these past couple of days.  The kind that afterwards left me with a smile on my face AND in my heart.  But we'll talk about those another day. 

Love,
Rebecca



~"...choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve...as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."    Joshua 24:14-16

Answered Prayers

Today is definitely a day for thanksgiving. 

Join me in thanking God for answering our prayers regarding Matt's pending surgery.

We had an appointment with his hematologist today, and he told us that he does not think his condition warrants the splenectomy at this time!!!

Yes, his circulating levels of platelets are very low.  But...it's a "false low" according to the hematologist because his spleen is hoarding the remaining platelets.  He has no symptoms that they would normally look for when preparing a patient for a splenectomy.  He doesn't have spontaneous bleeding (internal, from any bodily orifice, gums, etc).  He hasn't had an inordinate number of infections that he hasn't been able to fight off.  (Of course, it takes him longer than usual to fight colds/flu because of being diabetic and having the blood issue, but nothing out of the ordinary.)  He hasn't lost a significant amount of weight, he hasn't developed intolerable pain in the splenic region.

For now, we are status quo. 

He will continue to be monitored closely by his regular physician and hematologist, with blood tests every month and CT scans every six months to monitor the levels and spleen size.  Any significant changes and they will proceed with surgery. 

But for now, THANK GOD, he does not have to have surgery!!!

Thank you to everyone who has kept us in your thoughts and prayers.  Your support and friendship means the world to me!!!

Take a few more steps with me...

A couple of  months ago I wrote this post chronicling the first few steps I had taken down the road I'm on.  The first steps of accepting the help of others, of finding my way back to God, of allowing God to work within me to heal my heart and of finding my purpose in life in the absence of my own desires. 

It hasn't all been a smooth, straight shot.  Life is still a little rough around the edges, and there are many things I need to release, some I need to accept, and more lessons I need to learn.  There have been setbacks, there has been denial and resistance. 

But there has also been peace.  Happiness.  Love.  Trust.  Things I didn't believe I could feel again. 

Because I allowed them a place to grow.

I asked God to help me release what was holding me back in my life, what I was holding on to that was darkening the very core of my soul. 

The seedlings of faith, healing, and complete surrender are taking root in my heart and in my life...and it's an amazing feeling. 

It's a little disconcerting sometimes to not have that death-grip of control over every little thing that happens.  It's hard to not want to hold on to the anger, the bitterness, the jealousy, the self-pity.  Because as much as I do want to hold on to them (because they are familiar, they are what I know, they are what I'm used to, they are as comfortable to me as a worn pair of pajamas) I know they are not healthy.  They are not conducive to the new life I have been given.  They are not what God wants in my heart.  And they are not what I want in my heart. 

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Matt and I had a meeting on Wednesday with the pastor of the church we have been attending to talk to him about becoming members there.  Pastor T is just awesome.  I love his ministering style, his sermons are always relevant, and he is just an all around nice guy.  Anyway, we talked at length about us joining and we learned that another couple are also interested in joining as well.  The four of us will be taking the instructional classes to become new members starting next Friday.  :)  I'm really excited about it.  I was raised in the Methodist church, so I am very interested in learning all I can about the Lutheran faith.  Matt will be taking the classes with me, even though he was confirmed as a teenager.  Pastor T recommends that anyway, to re-take the classes as an adult, because there is so much more one can get from them after they have some life experience under their belt.  Even if he didn't recommend it,  Matt was going to take them anyway, to support me through them.  Have I mentioned lately that my husband rocks?  :)

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I am still chugging along with my "Bible Cover to Cover" project.  I started in January reading straight through the Bible and am now starting 2 Chronicles.  It's been a true learning experience for me, because I've never read the Bible straight through cover to cover before.  I've read snippets and stories and learned verses as most people that were "raised in church" have.  But to dive in headfirst from "In the beginning...", it's a totally different thing.  I'm really enjoying it.  My best friend joined an online group in January that was reading the Bible in 90 Days.  There's another group starting in July, and I'm considering joining along, but I'm still not sure.  I need to do a little more thinking and praying about it.  One reason I'm hesitant is that we will be right in the middle of our instructional classes at church, and I'm not sure I want to take away from that or from the Bible by trying to do too much at once.  We'll see. 

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A couple of people have asked where we are on the TTC/adoption front, so I thought I would update that as well.  We're pretty much at a standstill with it all.  We've submitted our application for homestudy and review for the adoption through DFS, but we still haven't heard if we are going to be able to get into the foster/adopt class this fall.  Everything is up in the air.  I did also send off for an informational packet from an adoption agency I heard of and I received that the other day.  It seems promising, but it's still a long way off for us I'm afraid.  Their fees alone are $19,500.  That doesn't include homestudy fees, our lawyer to finalize the adoption, any other expenses that need to be paid.  That's just to match us and facilitate the adoption.  It all makes me want to cry honestly.  It's been such a long road, why does it have to be so expensive too?  I just don't know what our next step is.  We have a lot of praying to do there as well.  TTC is pretty much nonexistent right now as AF has been MIA for some time.  I have an appointment in June for my yearly exam at the gyno, and I will be discussing some options with him then.  For right now, I'm trying to focus on getting this blasted PCOS under control and losing some weight.  Both of them are enough to make me crazy.  I've been prescribed Metformin for my PCOS for years, but haven't taken it for quite a while.  I don't have a valid reason, I just haven't taken it.  So that is step #1 I guess, get started back on the Metformin and see what happens with that and some weight loss. 

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And there you have it.  The good, bad and indifferent of what's been going on with me. 

How are you?

Where I've been...

It's been a while since I've dusted off the ol' blog and written anything.  Not for lack of wanting to...more for lack of having anything to say.  Well, that's really not correct either.  I, as usual, have a lot of things rattling around in this noggin of mine, but they seem to get lost somewhere between the formation of the thought in my brain and this screen.  Sad, really, when you think about it.  So many good thoughts deprived of their proper articulation and delivery into the universe.  :)

I guess I could start with Project IF, and why I didn't submit a post.  I believe in  my heart that it's a beautiful and important project.  I had all intentions of writing a post to submit.  I just couldn't get it from there to here.  It just wouldn't cooperate.  I think a lot of it has to do with the real reason behind my blogger's block and my absence from the blogosphere lately.  There are just times when I can't be here, mentally and emotionally.  I know that everyone "gets it" and understands.  It pisses me off at myself to a degree sometimes though.  I have been reading blogs and commenting when I can, and I hope you all know that I am with you in my thoughts through all you are going through - the good the bad and the in-between.  You are all in my prayers daily.  There are just times when I have to step away.  It's a double edged sword, because in stepping away to protect my own interests, I hurt or alienate others in the process.  I don't mean to, I really don't.  It's just that I have been wavering in my emotional dealing with IF in general, especially with the recent passing of Mother's Day (more on that in a little while), and what seems to be a growing number of bloggers succeeding in their quests to become pregnant...I'm feeling a little left behind.  Please know that I'm happy for you, if you reading this are one of those bloggers.  I am happy in the only way I can be...that certain kind of happiness that is always tempered with a little tinge of jealousy and "why her and not me?" questioning.  For the most part I have been dealing OK with my own personal IF problems.  I am still angry and saddened that we don't have the opportunities that many of you out there do.  We are right now a one income family (me), and we simply can't afford treatments at this point.  My insurance doesn't cover infertility treatments like some of yours does.  I can't afford IVF like some of you can.  I can't even afford a medicated (or non medicated for that matter) IUI cycle.  I could probably afford to do Femara or Clomid, but what's the use of using them without monitoring, and I can't afford that.  We can't afford to adopt (and our adoption through DFS has stalled, we're waiting to see if we can get in the foster/adopt class this fall).  Please understand, I don't begrudge anyone their happiness and success...I'm not an evil person.  There are just times when I feel so left behind and hopeless that I can't bear to read a pregnancy post or announcement.  I'm 36 years old, and time is running short for the odds of us having a child...both conceiving and adopting.  It's a bitter pill to swallow, and one that I choke on sometimes.  It's so hard to have hope and not become totally mired down in the bog when the road ahead is so long...and has so many roadblocks thrown in the middle.  That being said...God has begun to work His healing in my heart, and for that I am grateful.  It's still a daily struggle though.  I consciously have to ask God daily to help me deal with this.  There are times the anger, jealousy, and hurt are more than I can bear.  Some days hurt more than others.  I am not angry/jealous/hurting 100% of every day anymore, which is good.  But there are times when that old "knee jerk bitter infertile" reaction pops to the surface, surprising me and everyone around me by taking me from Rebecca to BITCH in 0.2 seconds.  It sucks.  These are the times I make myself focus on God and try to open my heart just a little more to accept His healing.  Then there are the good days.  The days when I can allow myself to enjoy life.  I can laugh.  I can dream about the possibility of the future baby that we hope will be ours someday.  I can see children in public and look at them without my heart breaking.  I can allow myself to wish, to hope, and pray that God's Will will soon be made manifest in our lives.  That's why there are times that I can't submerse myself in all things infertility.  I can't allow myself to get sucked down into that bog again.  I was there for a long time, and through the Grace of God and the smack upside the head help of my best friend, I have been able to pull myself up enough to begin to breathe and live again.  It sucks, because I believe it is my calling from God to be a helper in peoples' lives.  I am here to serve others by helping them through what they need to be helped through.  That's why I love my job as a 9-1-1 dispatcher.  I can, on a daily basis, touch someone's life even if it means just talking to them and giving them an outlet.  I feel that way about my friends, both in real life and online.  I want to help.  I want to offer support and counsel.  I want to be there at any time they need me.  I hate that my own internal pain holds me back from performing what I feel are my "duties" as a friend.  For that, I am sorry and I apologize to anyone who has felt I have not been there for them.  I am working with God to both forgive myself for my own shortcomings and to rely on Him for the strength to put my own feelings aside and be a better servant to Him and others.

Mother's Day was both bitter and sweet for me this year.  I, of course, had the requisite infertile's dread of the impending barrage of "Happy Mother's Day" wishes on those certain social networking sites.  I allowed myself to acknowledge and feel the emptiness and pain for a while, and was very touched to have a lot of support from friends and family that day.  But I was also honored by my husband and stepson and reminded by many people that mean the world to me that I am a good Mom.  I might not be his "real" mom, but I am a good mom to him.  I do all the things that a mom should do for their child, and I was touched that my husband and stepson took time to acknowledge that for me on Mother's Day.  My husband even asked me (because he knows how the day affects me) if they could get me something because my stepson had asked if he could.  Of course I said yes.  What kind of evil person denys a 9 year old boy when he wants to get his stepmom a Mother's Day gift?  LOL  They bought me a beautiful card, a birdbath for my yard, and my stepson brought me a marigold plant they had grown from seeds in school.  It was so sweet.

So, that's where and how I've been lately.  I don't mean to make it sound like it's all been bad, because honestly, things haven't been.  Nothing is ever always all lollipops and daisies, but God never promised us that anyway.  He just promised it would be worth it in the end.    And that's what keeps me going.

A few steps down the path...

There has been so much going on around here lately for us. Some of it has been good, some challenging, but all of it has been a learning experience. Through the past few weeks I've learned more about myself, grown in my faith in God, and learned so much about the people I am blessed to call my family and friends.

We "came out" recently on a popular social networking site in regards to our infertility struggle and our adoption path. Well...I did anyway. My husband was "outed" by default in the process. I did this for several reasons. I've always been open and brutally honest here and on previous blogs about our infertility and the feelings and struggles we've faced because of it, both personally and within our marriage. I have kind of kept a lid on it in other places mostly because I'm tired of the well-meaning ass-vice that people love to give. It's a hard balance to keep sometimes. Well, I'm tired of hiding. If you can have five kids and post a zillion pictures and update everyone about the status of your "miserable pregnancy" then I can say "Hey, I'm infertile and if you don't like what I have to say or the way I respond, then there's the unfriend button, click away honey." I have nothing to be ashamed of because I'm infertile. It's not my fault. It's not my husband's fault, it's not anyone's fault. It's not even God's fault. It took me a long time to realize that. It's taken me a long time to get to the point of accepting that I might never conceive and give birth to a child that is biologically of me and my husband. It hurts to accept that. I'm not going to lie, it hurts bad. There will always be a hollowed out spot in my heart and in our family that I believe belongs to that child that might never be. I will always to long to look at our child and see my husband's eyes, my nose, his cute jutting chin and my chubby cheeks looking back at me. I believe I will always long to have that. But I've gotten to a place where I'm accepting that it just might not happen. I have learned in the past few months that God has a plan that is bigger than I could ever imagine. And I don't believe that God would have put the desire to be a mother in my heart if He didn't have a way in mind to make that happen.

I truly believe that God has plans for us to be parents together. For me to be a mother, for my husband to be a full-time father. However, and what has frustrated me for the past six years is that His plan is not always the same as MY plan. It has taken a lot of prayer, soul-searching, and humbling of myself before I realized that our goals are the same...just the paths are a little different. My path, the path I've been trudging along for five years and five months has been me wandering in the jungle, hacking away at the dense choking foliage with the machete of my iron will. It was dark, stifling, treacherous, claustrophobic, and filled with the scary sounds of jungle creatures and sometimes myself screaming in the night. Most of all it was lonely. Good grief was it fucking lonely. God's path however...how mightily different the few steps I've taken on it have been.

Wait.

Let me back up a bit.

I've already stated here before that several months ago I began to re-explore my relationship with God, or lack thereof. My husband and I sought out and found a church "home" we feel comfortable in and have been attending services regularly (well, as regularly as my nutty schedule will allow anyway). I began taking time daily to read my Bible, and have been reading several books geared toward "new believers" pertaining to establishing a relationship adn walk with God. My best friend and I have had several very interesting and fulfilling conversations about faith, religion and our personal walks and challenges in our faith. I look forward to spending time with her every week not only because we have fun together, but because we can talk faith and I know both of us enjoy that immensely.

One particular book that has totally changed the way I pray and view my relationship with God is called "Just Enough Light for the Step I'm On" by Stormie Omartian. I highly recommend it. She likens our walk with God to that of a child learning to walk. Instead of the goal of INdependence when teaching our children to walk (and in raising them altogether), we must learn that without total DEpendence on God, we are unable to take even the smallest of steps along the path He has laid out for us. I'll be the first to admit, it sounds a bit simplistic at first, but as I've delved further into this book I've found that it's a very comforting premise. I've also learned a lot about the concept of "God's will". For years I've had a knee jerk reaction to those words. My hackles raised, my eyes involuntarily rolled, and I could feel the bitterness bubbling up like acid in my stomach burning a hole right through my soul. Mostly because those words were always prefaced by some well-meaning idiot who decided that it would be comforting to tell me that my infertility or my friends' pregnancy losses were "God's will" and that it was "God's will" that I wasn't meant to have a child. I call bullshit on that one. I have learned that God does have a plan. That doesn't mean that He CAUSES bad things to happen. He doesn't want bad things to happen to His children any more than any loving parent does. He never promise there wouldn't be struggles or hard times. He just promised that He would be there to comfort us if we allow Him to. It is NOT God's plan for any child to die. It is NOT His plan for any of His children to experience loss and disappointment. Bad things happen. Sometimes there are no explanations, and that's hard to accept. It's hard for me to accept, I know that for a fact. But I believe it to be true. God has a plan for me, and there is no way for me with my human eyes, heart and mind to comprehend how awesome it is. I've glimpsed tiny visions of it, because He has allowed me to. He has shone a light just big enough on the path before my feet to let me know I'm going in the right direction.

I have recently changed the way I pray. In all my years growing up in the church, I never truly learned how to pray. I was taught to thank God for what you do have and ask for what you want. That was it. So, for years, that's what I did. I spent the last six years basically begging God to let me get pregnant and to give us a child. To cure me of my infertility and stop the pain of my breaking heart. I spent the last six years hacking my way through the jungle, forging my own path through the wilderness, believing that since God wasn't answering my prayers and giving me a child, that I was being punished. My punishment for whatever I had done in my past that was so heinous was walking the Hell of infertility. There were a few people who tried to get me to understand that this was simply not true. I didn't want to believe them. I believed that I was such an awful person, God decided to refuse the one thing I truly wanted in life. The Bible even says that children are a reward, that if I ask I shall receive. Apparently (in my mind) God had deemed me not worthy of that reward, of that blessing, and I certainly wasn't going to receive no matter how many times/how loud/in how many languages I asked.

It's ok. Go ahead and laugh. I laugh at myself just writing that.

My first step was to accept that my infertility was not and IS NOT a punishment. That was a hard step to take. I am not unworthy. Like a lot of people in this world, I seemed to enjoy playing the "victim card". Woe is me, the lonely bitter jaded misunderstood infertile woman. Granted, infertility is lonely; sometimes we do become bitter and jaded; and a lot of people don't understand it. I see now though, that I overplayed it a LOT.

My second step was to accept that there are things in this life and in this world that I am simply not meant to understand or have control over. As much as it frustrates me and hurts, my infertility and the possibility that I might never conceive a child is one of those things. I don't know why I might never know the joy of conceiving, carrying and birthing a child. And maybe I'm not meant to understand.

My third step was to admit that I am helpless to overcome this aching chasm in my heart without God's help.

My fourth step was to accept that God has a plan for all of us. Just because it doesn't look the way we imagine it SHOULD look or the way we WANT it to look, doesn't mean that it's not a fantabulously amazing plan. God wants us to dream. He puts dreams in our hearts. He put the desire to be a mother into my heart, that I know for a fact. But pursuing dreams that are not in line with His will for our lives will only bring misery, frustration and unfulfillment. I'm learning that more everyday.

My fifth step was to learn a new way of praying. And that was to declare my total and utter dependence on God, ask him to reveal to me his plan for my life, and for Him to show me the path that is in line with his plan for my life.

A few months ago, I said my prayer of "God, I admit that I have no control of this situation, but I do know that you placed the desire to be a mother into my heart for a reason. I trust that you have a way to make that happen, and I am fully dependent on you to lead me down that path. I am surrendering my life to Your will. Please make Your will known to us. If it is Your will for us to be parents, please show us the way and the path we should be moving on".

When I began praying in that manner, praying for God to reveal his plans for us and to make his will known, and when I consciously surrendered the grip of control I wanted to have on my life...things began to change. My relationship with my husband changed. We became softer and more open with each other. We began going to church together, reading our Bibles together, reading a couples' daily devotional together. My relationship with several of my friends began to change. My heart has opened and started to heal enough that I was able to spend an evening with my best friend and her two adorable sons without wanting to run from the room bursting into tears of jealousy and anger. I didn't even feel that when I was with them. I truly only felt blessed to get to witness my best friend, the little girl I've known since the day she was born, who used to sit in my bedroom and play Barbie's and trade secrets with me mothering her children. I didn't feel that old pang of "I can't be here, it's too painful". There was a moment of "yeah, I can't wait for that".

One of my biggest hindrances in my faith is being open to hearing the answers God has for me regarding my life rather than begging him for something and getting pissed off when He doesn't answer the way I think He should. Hmm. Pretentious much? I'm learning that I can't put limits on God. He works in His own way and His own time. Just because we don't get the answer we WANT, doesn't mean the answer is NO. Maybe the answer is "Well, maybe not now."

Soon after I changed my method of praying and truly opening myself up to the answers God was giving me, we heard about the adoption situation I discussed in my previous post. Even though that didn't pan out, we still feel that at this moment, we are being led to pursue adoption. I'm not saying we are giving up TTC. We will probably still keep trying as we move through the adoption process. We always wanted two anyway. The adoption process is going to be a while anyway, so anything can happen in that time.

All of that being said...we have started the process for adopting through our county Children's Division (DFS). I printed out and have begun completing the home assessment application. I contacted several of our friends to ask if we could use them as references. I have a list of items we need to gather to show that we are prepared (materially and physical space wise) for a child placement. A friend from work has donated a crib to us, and several people have offered us clothing from their children or relative's children.

I spoke to a case worker at the Children's Division today and even though I wasn't real encouraged by what she had to say, it was still a step in the right direction. She is mailing us out a homestudy packet and information on the adoption program, and I should get that next week. We have to go through the foster/adopt classes, and unfortunately they aren't having another one until September. We can take it in a different county as long as it's still in Missouri, and they might have one sooner. They will probably come do our homestudy in the next couple of months. As soon as we get the homestudy done and complete the classes and are approved, all we do then is wait for our child! She did say that we will probably have a longer wait because we specified that we are "adopt only" and that we prefer an infant up to 2-3 years old. There's a longer wait for that. But...one thing she did say is once we get the homestudy done, if we find out about a private adoption situation, we can use that homestudy for that and it's one less thing to go through.

Even though I was disappointed in the "hurry up and wait" aspect of everything, I'm relying on God to get me through it. One of the biggest lessons God has been trying to beat into me teach me for years is patience. September is only five months away. This gives us more time to get the projects done around the house that we have planned (remodeling the bathroom, rebuilding our front deck, painting inside and outside of the house).

Everyone we have told about this has been nothing but supportive and incredibly helpful. To be honest, I've been quite amazed at the outpouring of support we have received. I know I have amazing friends and family, but still. It's a little overwhelming when you receive text messages and emails for a full day from people offering help and support.

God is GOOD!!!

Oh yeah, Happy Birthday To Me! I'm 36 today, and although it's a little later than I wanted it to happen, I'm finally on my way to being a Mommy! That's the best present I could ever dream of!!!

(Stay tuned for a fun knitting update post this weekend!)