Baby Day #3

Did I just write that title?

I woke up at 5am and couldn’t go back to sleep. It didn’t surprise me so I got up to journal and spend some time with God. Of course I had to check Facebook first (big mistake always for me before spending time with God) but I guess I’ll just do some journaling here instead of in my notebook. God hears my thoughts, including when I write them on Casadelmundo. This is just a steady stream of my thoughts today. Join me if you want to.

What did I ever do to deserve this? I am measuring the time right now in Mothers’ Days.  5 years ago, we started trying to get pregnant. 4 years ago we were deep in the depths of infertility and God was asking me to let go of my expectations and hopes for children in my life, would I trust him to do whatever He wanted? 3 years ago we were in Guatemala visiting Jadon, waiting to adopt him, falling MADLY in love with the country and the little boy who was destined to be our son. 2 years ago we were planning on building our family solely through the miracle of adoption. I had just started medication for arthritis that would end up in getting pregnant a few weeks later. Last year, we had a 2 year old and a 3 month old and were content with that until the next time to adopt. But this year, we are hours away from having our third child to add to our 3 year old and our 15 month old. WOW!

The biggest question I had turned around to me during our struggles to have children was, “Why God? Why me?” I remember letting go when I realized, “Why NOT me?” We are not exempt from any kind of pain. There are millions of women who go through horribly painful things, millions and millions of them face things tougher than I will ever face. Because of infertility I was given the opportunity to turn my children over to God. Trust him with what he wanted to do. What an opportunity!

Now don’t get me wrong. I am staunchly against the belief that “once someone turns over a struggle (namely infertility) truly over to God, then he can really get to work and bless that person.” I firmly believe that’s not what it was all about at all. He was about claiming my struggles for HIS glory. He wanted to do something with my heart.

I am here today, so busy with 2.5 children that I can’t type this and give the impression that I spend loads of time with God and that we are tighter than we have ever been. We most definitely are not. I am saddened by my lack of passion to infuse my daily time with my family into more inspiring time to love Jesus together.

But, I am amazed and in awe at what he has allowed to happen in my life. I would not take back my years of infertility, my years of struggle, my years of pain. I am blessed now with the hindsight to say that. I don’t expect anyone in the midst of pain to echo my words. But for me, now I know that if I had not spent that time questioning what I expected from God, what I expected from life, what I expected from myself, I would be a completely different person now. In a way that otherwise I wouldn’t, I now desire God’s will only.

We probably would have adopted later in our family life, even if we had been blessed with biological children first. But through infertility, God brought adoption earlier. God brought JADON into our lives! He is such an incredible big brother. I tear up as I say that. He loves Eliza in a way I never pictured before. It truly is amazing. We were also blessed with Guatemala before we expected to be. We traveled to a much less fortunate country as a family and brought that culture into our homes. Our prayer is that God will use our lives in mighty was AS we raise our children to love the world and other people. That is a time line we wouldn’t have ever expected if we had sat down to write our own time line.

This morning I am reflecting on our pregnancies more than anything, for obvious reasons. In my 3 years of trying to get pregnant, I realized my DEEP DEEP longing to experience life within me, to experience a little person who reflected me. I remember crying and crying after my friend Amanda left after visiting Atlanta and feeling her 3rd child on the outside of her stomach. I was so wrecked with I thought I would never experience that, that I was not Jadon’s birthmother, that I probably would never have that place in someone’s life.

Surprisingly I was wrong. Then surprisingly again, 6 months later I was wrong again. I have now been pregnant 1 1/2 years out of the last 2, exactly. As I lay in bed at 5 am this morning I marveled at my big, big baby moving simultaneously in 3 places in my big belly. I am so ready to care for Jadon and Eliza without being pregnant and hold them close again. I am so ready to have “my” body back so I can try to return it to “normal.” I have all the aches and pains that can go with a pregnancy. Actually it seems like more since I have 2 pregnancy weights now to carry around along with the stuff that comes with that.

I have gestational diabetes, anemia, arthritis pains, nerve pain in my legs and pelvis, stretch marks, C-Section scar about to be cut again, I lost the ability to bend down to the floor at least a month ago, I turn over in the bed like a beached whale, but turning over isn’t happening since I really can only sleep on one side of my body due to this weird sore spot that feels like a numb burn with shooting pain just above my stomach on my right side. All of these things will mainly go away today, in a few hours when my doctor pulls the baby out and Josh gets to say, “It’s a . . . . “

But with them will also go away my connection with another person within my body. The kicks and turns from my child. The feeling of a small limb moving across my belly. My ability physically to give someone everything they need physically to survive. The knowledge that my body can give life. The wonder of carrying a “small” being inside my womb. The quietness of just wondering why this baby jumps at everything, from a pop in my back, a flip of a blind cord on my stomach, to a bathtub toy dropped by it’s siblings. The excitement of not knowing what is around the corner, a little boy or a little girl. The cuteness of a pregnant belly, instead of a was-pregnant one.

It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t close with my thoughts about my friends who have lost babies. With my friends who are still longing for children, or even that double line on a stick. With my friends who will never experience pregnancy and/or the biological connection. With my friends who may never even enter into those thoughts because they may not even met someone to think about it with. My thought about that to God now is, “Why me?”

I can’t believe this chapter in my life will close today. Since I spent 3 years longing so much for it, I didn’t want it to go by without reflection. Thank you for reading and caring for me. I am hoping that the next 3 years will find me falling more deeply in love with Jesus and I learn how to rely on HIM more to get me through successfully as a mother of 3 young children. May I never ask, “Why me” about that. May I never take for granted what I have been given. May I never overlook anything we have been blessed with over the past 5 years. Now that I have walked it, I wouldn’t change a single thing.

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