Long before we decided we wanted to start trying to have kids we dreamed about them. I have been dreaming about having kids for my whole life. I have been called the baby whisperer for as long as I can remember. It was/is a term that fills my bucket in away that very few things ever have, and in a way that is hard to explain. A lot of young girls picture their wedding days, or who their husbands one day might be. ALL I ever dreamed about was holding a baby in my arms, feeling life grow inside me, experiencing the pain of child birth... yes I have always LONGED to know what it was like to give birth to a child. For as long as I can remember I have thought about this passage
Genesis 3:16New American Standard Bible (NASB)
16 To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain [a]in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain [a]in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
and I have desired to one day experience this consequence of sin in its entirety. It is a desire that has always been in me.
So consider this, if I have been this person, this person who has always wanted to be a mom more than anything else I have ever wanted to be. A longing from the depths of my soul, do you not then think it is likely that I have researched and looked into ANY possibility of making this happen?
I have been asked/ questioned/confronted so many times during this journey about our choices, our decisions, told I'm seeing the wrong doctor or the wrong type of doctor. Told I need to try this or that. People share stories of their friend getting pregnant after so many years of trying, tell me to "just relax it will happen", tell me "God knows who will make good parents and who wont", tell me "have you tried acupuncture it worked for my friend"... I could go on and on and on.
If you don't agree with our choice to adopt, where we are adopting from, questioning why we haven't done a certain fertility treatment, think you know more than I do about my own body and my health and have the "cure" to fix me-- take a deep breath think very carefully before you confront me with these things because it is painful! I understand you might have the best of intentions, or that you might be curious about why we have made the decisions we have. I am more than happy to talk to you about ANY part of our journey, I have always been open about it but don't come at me like I am doing something wrong, like I should be doing something differently, or like you have the answers (because only God has those).
TRUST ME we have been to every type of doctor you can think of, we have tried a ton of different things from acupuncture, natural paths, eastern medicine, traditional medicine, ect. I've been told by doc after doc professional after professional, after they build me up and get my hopes up that they will find an answer, that its impossible without an act of God for me to get pregnant. We have painfully dealt with this information over the last 10 years we have weighed every option that is even a remote possibility, we have researched fostering, adoption through private agency or through the state, surrogacy, ect. When looking through agencies we have researched agency after agency, international verses domestic. We have prayed, seconded guessed, questioned, debated everything you can possibly imagine. Nothing about this journey has been easy. NOTHING about this process has been done without careful thought, and prayer.
IF you don't know what to say, or even if you think you do... PLEASE PLEASE just think it through very carefully, or don't say anything... If you want to know what to say.. all we have ever asked for is your prayers.
Someone asked me once, how I come to terms with the fact that EVERY women in the bible who was barren God heard their prayers and they became pregnant... In truth, I haven't come to terms with this. I still wrestle with God, I still debate and question. Sometimes, my soul just has to cry out.. but I am learning and try to remind myself that GOD has a plan. I may not understand it, it may not be what I want, but ultimately I have only one thing to rely on.
Jesus prayer in the garden has become my prayer.
