Part 1 of this series of our journey to parenthood was all about my heart and lack of desire for motherhood, but also how that changed after a whole lot of prayer and petition to the Lord.
This second part is completely different! As the Lord changed my heart to desire to be a mom and we started trying, we found out that it wasn’t so easy. Over our years as newlyweds, we met a lot of awesome couples and created many deep friendships. And naturally, fertility or infertility was a topic we all discussed. We had many friends who struggled with fertility and were looking into all kinds of options from medicines to IVFs to adoption. We walked alongside our friends through these difficult seasons, but I never really gave much thought to what our journey would be like when that time came.
I had an idea it might take us some time because of my own personal experience with my body (i.e. irregular cycles), but I wasn’t sure. How can you ever be unless you try? Quickly, the month after month of “nos” got depressing.
At the end of the summer and fall of 2017 when Matt and I had closed on our house and began all our renovations, I started seeing lots of friends post about pregnancies and second pregnancies and third pregnancies and I felt my emotions get the best of me. Instead of being excited and delighted at the blessing of a new child for my friends, I started harboring bitterness in my heart. Why them? Why not us? And I really had to lay my heart before the Lord again and trust my life to His perfect timing.
I finally saw a new obgyn in the fall of 2017 and chatted with her about fertility. Her words were “these things take time” and that we’d chat again after the first of the year if things hadn’t changed. I felt kind of defeated, again, because I just wanted an answer. Was it just not possible? Did we need to pursue other options? I just wanted a direction and was tired of waiting.
Thankfully the end of our 2017 was a whirlwind. I had weddings, was second shooting, traveling, moving and doing house projects. I barely had time to sleep, let alone preoccupy my mind too much with thinking of why I wasn’t pregnant yet. We spent the holidays traveling to see our families joking about how there was no way a baby would fit in our little car with all our Christmas gifts. And I was kind of feeling better about our next steps, kind of assuming I’d need to go back to the obgyn in a few months and start looking into other options.
Well, another two week wait came (and for anyone who has ever tried to get pregnant that waiting is painfully slow), but this time, I just had a peace about it. I wasn’t in any hurry to take a test. I just kept waiting. A few weeks went by and I started to get curious, but this was nothing new and had happened before, so I didn’t get my hopes up. Matt’s birthday approached and I thought that maybe, just for kicks, I should take the test that day. If it was negative, no harm no foul, but if it was positive… what a great birthday gift!
Matt’s birthday came. It was a Monday and one of those random winter holidays, so Matt was off work. We woke up to no alarms and laid in bed talking and messing with our phones. It was really nice and relaxing. To add to the magic, it had snowed for the first time since we had moved in and the light reflecting off the snow into our room made waking up slowly that much more enjoyable. Matt decided to shower and I decided it was time to test. For these type of things, I follow the directions closely. I knew the directions said to wait 3 minutes so I sat there with my phone just waiting and trying so hard to be patient. At the minute mark, I let myself glance over just to see what was happening… and to my surprise, the result was already displayed! “Pregnant”. I cried right there in the bathroom, as I’m sure many women do, and then ran to tell Matt. He knew right away when he saw me crying what had happened even though I had wanted it to be a surprise, haha. And after much excitement and hugging and tears, we laid back down and just talked and dreamed and reminisced together. We spent that Monday enjoying the snow, eating the yummy meals I had planned for Matt’s birthday, and thinking of all the exciting things 2018 held for us. It was going to be such a different, but great year.
Different, though, doesn’t even begin to describe pregnancy for me and more of that will come in Part 3!
It took us a year to get the result we wanted, and I know many couples try for much longer than that. The pain and frustration of constantly waiting is a strain I wish on no one. It breaks my heart to know so many couples who would be amazing parents struggle with this. We just have to keep trying and know that the Lord is in control. His timing and will are good and perfect and submitting to Him is the only way to have peace and to get through any trial. How that trial ends is unknown to all of us, but trusting in Him makes the waiting game slightly more bearable. I’m praying for all you couples and parents-to-be that if this is your story, that you’ll receive the outcome your heart desires! <3
