Make Them Know It Was You, Lord

My prayer through it all had been "Lord, make them know that this was you and not us."

When we miraculously bought a house in one of the hottest cities in the U.S. this summer, that was my prayer. And He did. He let everyone know it was Him and not us by giving us the house for $15,000 under the listing price with zero closing costs on our behalf.

Then with my constant fertility battle, that was my prayer too. From the very beginning of us finding out it might not be possible to have more children, I knew I didn't want to do IVF. I have convictions about it that I won't get into here, but I also just knew, that for us, because we already have one biological child, we weren't going down that road. I figured if we were going to spend that many thousands of dollars, we might as well spend them on adoption, which is something we've always wanted anyway.

Two months ago, I got to a breaking point, or rather a point of acceptance. I finally sought out a fertility doctor via a friend and made an appointment. I thought that by meeting with her, we could find more answers and see what kind of options we had for moving forward. I really thought I was ready to move forward. (Although, I still had no idea how far down the fertility road we wanted to walk.)

On September 27th, we met with her. She was amazing--so knowledgeable (as most doctors are), incredibly sensitive, and perfectly professional and personal at the same time. After my history of doctors talking over me and around me and giving me no answers, this was so refreshing. She told Andrew and me that my ovaries and uterus looked just fine, but she was unsure about my tubes. She basically affirmed everything I had thought these past two years--my tubes were damaged from my past infection and were most likely not repairable. She told us that we had three options: HSG, Laparoscopic surgery, or IVF. We obviously ruled out IVF right away. Then she said the HSG would be somewhat pointless because it would only tell me if my tubes were open or blocked, it wouldn't reveal the state of my cilia in my tubes or the fimbria (finger-like structures at the end of my fallopian tubes). So, at the end of the meeting, Andrew and I walked away with two days to discuss the lap option and get back to the doctor.

I think I cried every minute of those two days. I felt like suddenly there was this clock ticking on an issue I had been struggling with freely for so long. I felt so much pressure for some reason. I called two dear friends who both walked down the fertility road (surgeries, tests, hormones, IUI's, etc) and now have children. They both had so much wisdom to offer. They basically said the same thing: "less is more," and "Linds, once you start down this road, it's hard to know when to stop."

After buying a house, getting used to a new city, trying to get our Airbnb up and running, and the normal stress of daily life with a four year old, I felt like I couldn't willingly enter into more stress with this fertility thing. If we were going to do something, we were going to do the lap for diagnostic purposes. But that meant spending our full deductible and maybe still walking away with nothing fixed. So, Andrew and I both felt so strongly that we needed to wait on this. Wait.

Wait? Isn't that what we had been doing these past two years? Hadn't we been waiting for a child naturally, as I'd tried everything in my own power to help (charting, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, dietary restrictions, etc.)? And then we were just going to wait more. Although waiting made no logical sense for a woman in her thirties trying to get pregnant, I just knew we were supposed to wait. The moment I told our doctor that we were going to wait on the surgery, I felt peace--so much peace--and the tears stopped for a bit.

Here's the thing though, my heart didn't really change. I still begged God every day to meet me in this struggle and give me contentment and take away sadness. I still longed for another child, but I heard him calling me to wait more. Isn't most of life spent waiting anyway? Waiting to finish school. Waiting for a job, a husband, a child. Waiting for a change. Waiting for a Savior. We wait. That's what we do. So I waited.

And then, I waited for my period. And then apparently, I waited a little bit more. And then, I started to wonder..."am I waiting for the wrong thing? Is this wait over?" And then, for the first time in probably over two years and a dozen pregnancy tests, I saw a plus sign. It turned positive within literally one second of me peeing on that stick. And all I could do was laugh.

I thought, "Are you serious, God?" I literally don't know how this happened. I had stopped charting, stopped acupuncture, stopped Chinese herbs, stopped ovulating (or so I thought), and stopped trying. I had been rebelling against it all. I have no idea when we conceived--none whatsoever. And so once again, He answered my prayer: "Lord, make them know that this was you and not us." Clearly, He wanted all the glory on this one.

To be continued...