Where to begin? I think Brad and I have a pretty neat story of how this little bean-in-the-belly came to be. For the last couple years, I've dreamed and hoped and prayed and taken pregnancy test-after-pregnancy-test, just hoping that God would surprise us with a little baby. Never mind the fact that there was one big wall standing in front of me: Brad just wasn't ready to have a baby. At all. He always said after two years of being married, that we could start trying then. Made sense to me, but let me tell you...those two years were a looong two years! Believe me, we had fun - did a fair amount of traveling and going out and spent tons of time together and with friends and family. But the whole while I secretly hoped we'd get an "Oops". We never did.
After about a year and a half of no "Oops" and no birth control (for me, at least), and factoring in that I have the longest, weirdest cycles ever, I was getting more and more convinced that I would have a hard time getting pregnant. I just knew it. Everyone I talked to would say, "Don't worry! You haven't even tried yet." But I knew way too many people who had "oops" babies for me to be reassured by that. Every few months Brad and I would have the "kids" discussion and it was the same thing -- me fighting for a baby, him bucking me on it. Well, August of 2011 - the Two Year Mark - finally rolled around, and I was ready to make a baby. Brad? Notsomuch. He said to me, "If you're ready to start trying then we can..." in the way that I knew meant he would only being doing it for me, and not because he was excited or ready to have a baby. I cried and yelled and eventually told him, "I will NOT have a baby that I'm the only one excited for." [Keep in mind...he would've been excited to have a baby if it would've happened. But the timing back then he would've never chosen.] So we - I - kept waiting.
At the end of November, something miraculous had happened. I finally realized that for the first time in my life, I was content where I was. I had a new job that I loved, Brad and I were super happy together and living a great life, I had a lot of things going for me and suddenly, I didn't feel that I needed to have a baby more than anything in this world. Yes, I still wanted a baby...but I was okay to wait for God to work it out.
I'll never forget the night Brad and I had The Conversation. Standing in our kitchen, we were talking about our life and possibly building a house, and how much I liked my job, and the topic of children came up. And Brad said, essentially, that he was ready to start trying to have a baby. Ready and excited. I almost fell over from the shock. When I least expected it, here was my husband telling me he was ready to finally have a baby!
I shook my head and marveled at God's timing...and that same week, I had the "smiley face" on the ovulation test, so we "made a go for it!" [sorry, how do you say that without alerting skeeves to your blog??]
About a week and a half later, to make a long story short, I found out that a friend of mine was pregnant. While I was very happy for her and her husband (one of Brad's best childhood friends), finding out her news absolutely gutted me. This girl was much younger than me and her being pregnant left me as the last married, non-pregnant/mom in the whole town, I swear. I got in the car after leaving their house and cried the whole way to a bar, where Brad and I did a shot of Jack Daniels [in honor of our trip the week before to Tennessee, ha] and I'm sure I cried some more the next few days.
I spent the next week immersing myself in prayer and worship music and begging God to please let me understand and accept His timing. And while it was a tough week, I slowly began to come out the depths and realize that His way is always the best, and I would do it His way, in His timing. I had happened to email a girlfriend at the end of that week and asked if we could get together to talk, I just felt like I needed to be around a woman more my age who, while having young kids, I've always found to be such a model of a strong woman and someone that understands God's timing. Here is part of her response to me:
But, you know what, Seanna...even after everything that I went through...God was testing my resolve, my faith, and teaching me truly what it means to have a peace that passeth all understanding. God longs to give us the desires of our hearts...He is faithful! Rest in Him...He is preparing you, so just REST!
I read this and start crying, even now! But when I read these words...and especially the part that He was preparing me, I sat at my desk at work and cried and cried. And then I cried on the way home. Not out of sadness, but out of that "God is SO good" gratefulness, and also with the bittersweet emotions that can come with truly letting your heart line up with His. It feels so good and right, and yet there's always that part of our human will that will fight it.
That email was on a Thursday...and Saturday was the day that my world was turned upside down!
Keep in mind, we had "tried" that month based off of the ovulation test, and I was also taking my temperatures to track my basal body temperature, which is a way of monitoring fertility. I was recording little symptoms here and there, but remember - I was still certain I would NEVER get pregnant on the 1st shot!
So Saturday I had went to WalMart to get a few things and I remember thinking when driving in to the parking lot that I wanted to buy a pregnancy test, but decided that I would wait cause I was only 9 days after ovulation (which is really early to get a positive pregnancy test). However, I got in there and decided, "What the heck," and bought a package of First Response tests. I drove home and was putting my groceries away and remembered that I had the tests. I ripped the box open and headed for the bathroom, shaking my head at myself the whole time.
So that's why when the 2nd pink line showed up right away, I almost DIED!
I ran out and showed it to Brad, and at that point, it wasn't as dark as the picture here (that was after about 5 min) and he kept telling me to "go test again"...until the line got really dark and he was like, "Wow, okay...that's a very definite line." We hugged, I was shaking and laughing and seriously, the best feeling was seeing the pure excitement in his eyes. He was ready.
At that point, I had figured I had ovulated 9 days prior, but looking at how dark the test was, I wasn't sure if it had happened sooner. However, that night I wanted to be absolutely sure, and they say that if you want to be absolutely sure then to test with a digital test. So I made Brad go to Walgreens with me and get the digi test (where he almost died at how expensive pregnancy tests are). We came home and I tested again, and sure enough, it came up "PREGNANT"!
The next week was a crazy whirlwind of emotions and emails with girlfriends and most of all, the deepest sense of amazement and gratitude at what God had done. I was sitting at work thinking about being pregnant and how it had all happened, and Ephesians 3:20 popped into my head:
"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us"
I so felt that getting pregnant right at this time was the most perfect example of what it meant for God to do "immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine" -- I know my faith is small, because I never would've dreamed to ask God to give me the blessing of pregnancy the first month of trying! But He did, and while I am still very early on this journey, I have already learned what it is to have more -- more of Him and His goodness, His peace, His will, His timing, and His blessing!
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