My miracle baby

So far, I have posted about pretty heavy topics and fairly big events in my life.  I feel like I should post about something a little more day-to-day like the latest craft I have tried or recipe that I have experimented with.  It would actually help if I had actually done either of those things.  Major props to the women who spend hours doing both of those things and enjoy them to boot.  I don't know if it's a left-brained/right-brained thing, but whichever side love things culinary and creative, I wasn't born with it.  So instead, I look at the masterpieces other people have created and marvel at their patience and creativity.  But this post isn't going to be about anything day-to-day anyway.  It's going to be about the events that led up to the conception of my miracle baby, temporarily, yet affectionately known as Baby K.  This is an incredibly personal topic for me.  The reason I share all of these things is that in case someone is reading this who struggles with the same thing, they could be encouraged or comforted.  Also, the Lord did an amazing work in my life and He deserves to be praised. :)

First of all, I think that every baby is an absolute miracle.  Regardless of the circumstances under which they were conceived.  However, I consider my baby to be even more of a miracle because of the change that occurred in me leading up to my pregnancy.  It was shortly after we were married when I brought up to my husband about trying to have a baby.  And by shortly I mean I think we were still on our honeymoon.  He knew that I wanted children more than anything and at 25, my biological clock was starting to tick.  We had also talked before we even got married about not waiting a long time to start trying to have children.  He was hesitant to start trying right away because he assumed that it would happen shortly after we started trying.  But we started anyway.  The first three months were fun and full of anticipation.  Did it happen?  Was I pregnant?  The next three months weren't quite as exciting, but they were still manageable.  Once we hit the six month mark, I started to feel panic and fear creeping up through my entire being.  I tried to shove it away and ignore it, constantly telling myself that it can take even a normal, young, healthy couple up to a year to get pregnant. 

Then we hit the 9 month mark and still, no baby.  If you have ever been or are in a situation where you desperately want to have a baby, my heart goes out to you.  This was one of the hardest things I had ever dealt with in my life.  It was the reason that my first year of marriage was the best year and the hardest year of my life.  There were so many emotions going through me.  Fear, anger, confusion, despair, jealousy.  When you are trying to have a baby, isn't it just torture how everyone else seems to be pregnant or have a newborn?  The sight of their adorable round bellies or squirming babies make you want to curl up in a ball and cry.  It makes that ache deep inside of you burn hotter and feel even more raw.  By the time I had hit the year mark and still wasn't pregnant, I was certain that something was wrong with either me or Jeff.  There had to be some kind of fertility problem and that's why we were not conceiving.  That was something I deeply feared.  Jeff and I don't have a lot of money and of course my mind shot to the worst case scenario where we would be taking out another mortgage on our house to afford fertility treatments.  I was determined to figure out if their was a problem so I got a referral and put in a call to a reproductive endocrinologist.  Jeff and I were both going to get tested.


The couples that use these kinds of methods in order to have a baby have a special kind of strength.  The testing is invasive and painful and expensive.  The privacy of your marriage bed now becomes the business of a doctor.  I can't even imagine the courage it requires to pursue further treatments.  I felt so embarrassed and incompetent just being there.  Here I was, a young, healthy, happily married woman and I couldn't figure out how to make something happen that a couple of drunk teenagers seem perfectly capable of mastering.  The shame that I carried with me while I was pursuing treatment there was hard to bear.  But the Lord was killing my pride and thankfully so, it was just dying a slow, painful death.  Thankfully all of the tests came back showing that Jeff and I were both indeed healthy and fertile.  That was a huge load off of my shoulders and a relief on top of that.  The doctors advised me to start a treatment with fertility drugs.  I hesitantly agreed, after all, they were the experts and they assumed that I came to them wanting them to get me pregnant, rather than simply diagnose problems.  After one unsuccessful cycle, I felt a deep sense of unrest.  I just didn't feel a peace about what I was doing.

I went home one day and talked to my husband and asked him what he thought.  He in turn asked me what I thought.  He does that a lot.  I told him how I felt and how I thought we should stop going to this doctor.  I do not think there is anything wrong with people who choose to pursue that sort of treatment, it just wasn't right for me any more.  As soon as I stopped going, I instantly felt better.  While I still desperately wanted a baby, I felt a peace that I didn't have before.  Since I knew there were no physical problems with me or Jeff, I strongly felt that the Lord was telling me to simply wait on His timing.  That is a very simple thing to understand, but a very hard thing to do.  For those of you who really know me, you know that patience isn't my strong suit.  The hardest thing for me to ever do is just WAIT.  I hate waiting, for anything, ever.  It is something that I think the Lord delights in trying to teach me.  But I was determined to trust the Lord for His best in my life, even though I wasn't ready to face the fact that I might never be a mother.  After nearly a year and a half, my husband and I were both discouraged and disheartened, but we both trusted the Lord for the baby we so desperately wanted. 

Meanwhile, my husband had been searching for a better job since he got out of college.  He wanted something that would offer him health benefits, room for growth and advancement, and eventually a large enough salary so that I could quit working and stay home with our future children.  He had had a couple of interviews, but nothing had panned out so far.  We both were pretty convinced that God wanted Jeff to take care of his career first, so that it would better pave the way for us to have a family.  In the middle of August, he got a call back and interviewed with a company right down the street from his old job.  They offered him a chance to use more of the skills he cultivated in college and they had a health care plan.  Jeff accepted the job and was still able to work a couple hours at his old job to make some extra money.  We then went on our yearly family beach vacation and had a blast the way we always do.  Two weeks later and I was starting to lose my mind.  I knew I was expecting my period any day and I kept wracking my brain for any signs that it was coming.  I went through this every month.  The roller coaster ride of excitement and then the crash landing of disappointment that always ended in gut-wrenching sobs.  I set myself a date to take a test if I hadn't gotten my period by then.  I called my mom the night before and I told her that I thought I was pregnant but that I was probably just psyching myself out.  Needless to say, I couldn't sleep that night.

On Saturday August 25th, I jumped out of bed with a jolt and took my dollar store test.  I was displeased with the ambiguous result so I gently, yet urgently woke my husband and told him we needed to go out and get a more definite test.  We threw the dog in the car and went to Walgreens.  I grabbed a box of the digital ones, with the words pregnant or not pregnant, and we went home.  I went in the bathroom and sat waiting the three minutes with my eyes closed.  I was almost afraid to look.  I finally did, and what I saw took my breath away.  PREGNANT.  I couldn't believe it.  It couldn't be real.  I sat there for a full five minutes just letting it sink in.  I ran out to my husband and with tears in my eyes told him that we were finally going to have a baby.  He rocked me in his arms and I just let the tears fall.  Tears that spilled from happiness, relief, excitement, and thankfulness.  I was finally going to be a MOTHER.  I drove to my mom's house and barely got the words, "Mom, I'm gonna have a baby" out of my mouth before we both dissolved in tears.  I am so unbelievably excited and thrilled to finally be a mother and hold my baby in my arms.  Motherhood is an incredibly sacred job and I cannot wait to be a part of it. 

My husband and I were both blown away by the timing of the pregnancy in regards to his job situation.  Two weeks after he got his new job, we found out I was pregnant.  Is God amazing or what?  One thing I have learned in my life is that God's timing is always perfect, even if it doesn't make sense to us.  The Lord has blessed me so much, not just with the most amazing husband, but also with this unborn child who I am head over heels in love with already.  As far as I'm concerned, May 4th can't come soon enough. :)