Microscopic

There is a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, miniscule, as-close-as-you-can-get-to-zero-without-being-zero kind of chance that I might be a little teensy bit pregnant. I'm totally not getting my hopes up, but here's the deal. I got this microscope a few weeks ago so that I could start doing at home saliva fern tests to see when I might be the most likely to conceive. They sell kits that you can get for $30 but thanks to Craigslist I got a $10 all inclusive microscope that does the job. Every morning, you're supposed to put a little bit of your saliva on the slide and once it dries you look at it through the microscope. If it looks like a bunch of little ferns then it's a good thing. Most days it just looks like blobs, but on February 2 it was definitely ferns. So, here we are eleven days later and I've psyched myself into the possibility that maybe it really worked. I actually took a pregnancy test this morning, but it was so old that nothing registered on it (not even the control part) so that was useless. I'm feeling different today than normal and it's either because I'm coming down with something, or because there's a little teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, miniscule person already growing inside of me. Yeah right, not getting my hopes up? C'mon. I guess we'll find out tomorrow. What a great Valentine's Day present for Dan to find out on a day that we celebrate love that in a few short months we'll have someone else in our lives to love. Still dreaming.

Mental block

There are a few different people at work who have had trouble getting pregnant and over the past couple weeks they've shared the info for their doctors who are currently helping them. It's so weird, because as much as I want to have a baby, I haven't gotten to the place where I want to talk to a doctor about it. I don't know if I just want it to happen when it happens and let God be in total control of the timing, or if I'm totally freaked out about going to a doctor who specializes in INFERTILITY. It's such a strange word. It makes me feel like, for some reason, I'm less of a woman, or a bad wife if I can't just get pregnant without the help of a doctor, even though those thoughts don't even cross my mind when hearing about other people's experiences. Maybe if I think of the doctor as a conception specialist or pregnancy facilitator I might be able to get over it. Even still, it's a big hill to climb. Maybe I'm really scared of finding out something that I don't want to know. That's why a lot of people don't go to the doctor even when they know something's wrong. Maybe I don't want to find out that we really do have a problem, or that we can't have babies at all.

Honestly, it doesn't feel fair or right or real to me that we can't just wham, bam, pop out a baby. We have so much love to give so why does it have to be so hard. It seems like no one can get pregnant on their own these days, and I just always envisioned it being so easy (at least that's what they make you think when you're in high school). Psychologically, I can't even say the word out loud when referring to myself (I definitely do not consider myself infertile). Mentally, I can't move myself to pick up the phone and make an appointment even though both people said that they love their doctors and one is even four months pregnant! I'm crazy. I want something, but won't take active steps to make it happen. I can't figure out if it's part of the surrender or part of the control. Either, I'm surrendering and just letting God take this situation and do with it what he will in his time, or I'm forcing His hand by not taking steps that could ultimately answer our prayers. It's so confusing and frustrating and disappointing all wrapped into one big question.

I think it's going to take me a little longer to process through the emotions and be able to talk about it. Dan and I don't even talk about it other than dreaming about when it actually happens. Honestly, it's scary and I feel like a disappointment every month when we find out, yet again, that I'm not pregnant. It's not that Dan makes me feel that way, but I just don't understand why it's not happening. I can only dream in terms of someday's, and maybe's, and when the time is right. I want to be saying twelve weeks along, two months to go, due in October. I want to talk about names and baby showers and car seats. I want to be decorating a nursery and hearing heartbeats and feeling little kicks.

For now, I just rely on hope.

Affirmations

Last July when I really started to get discouraged, I came up with a list of short affirmations that help me re-focus and remember all the things I already know about God and His faithfulness. Whenever I start to question things or stress out I just read through these, take a few deep breaths, and it totally helps calm me down. God is so good.

God has infinite power over my life
His timing is always perfect
He will always do what’s best for me and those around me
Out of this experience only good will come
God is orchestrating the world in my favor
Everything is working out for my highest good
I am safe
All is well
Now be still

At work right now there are six people who are currently pregnant (or whose wives are), and one whose wife had a baby a month ago. You'd think that with so many people who are pregnant it would be inevitable for us to get pregnant too. Something must be in the air or the water. Oh well...all in God's time.

Another month, come and gone

I must say, my heart longs to be a mom. People can say we haven't been trying for very long, and realistically ten months isn't that long, but I see people walking around with their babies and as much as I smile on the outside it makes me sad on the inside. The other day I asked Dan if he would totally freak out if I told him I was pregnant, and he said that he would just be excited (not scared at all). He said that he really wants a baby and is completely looking forward to it. He mentions it sometimes and I know how badly he wants to be a dad. Our little one will come at the right time, but sometimes I just feel like crying that it hasn't happened yet. I have friends in the same boat and I know that God uses all of our experiences to accomplish his will in all of our lives. I just get my hopes up sometimes that I might be pregnant and when I find out that I'm not it feels like another step back. I just have to keep trusting God.

This control thing

I've come to a big realization lately that has hit me square in the face. I am a control freak. Little did I know it until now when things aren't quite working out the way I thought (although I'm sure Dan would tell you that he's had my control-freakness pegged from the beginning). If it were up to me, I would be in the hospital right now giving birth to a beautiful baby. What I have learned is that it's not up to me. It's about allowing God to teach me something about myself and ultimately growing more like Him through what I learn.

I have never seen myself in a position to control anything, but at the same time when there is something I want I try to find a way to get it. I'd never considered that being controlling, just focused and determined. Through this experience of not getting pregnant on my timeline, and having absolutely no control over it (no one to convince of something, no calls to anybody to make it happen faster) I thought initially that God was teaching me patience. What I learned is that I'm already a fairly patient person with a pretty long fuse, but what I've been waiting for is ultimately what I WANT. It's like, "if I just sit here and wait long enough I'll get pregnant and I'll have what I want...it's just a matter of time." I can wait as long as it takes for people to come around to my way. What God is teaching me is that ultimately it's not about getting what I want, regardless of how long I can wait. It's truly about surrendering to what He wants. Not just His timing for my desires, but His perfect will for my life.

The patience thing is easy, but the control thing gets me. I start wondering when we're going to get pregnant and I start thinking about how we'll tell people, and decorating the nursery, and names. But, the most painful memories are of things that haven't happened yet (or never did, or never will), so I circle back to the place of wondering when it will happen, why it hasn't happened yet, is something wrong, etc. Truly surrendering means focusing on God entirely and learning what He has to teach me about Himself. God is actually the least control-freakish even though He has the whole world in His hands. He leaves us to do whatever we want. He might not be happy with our decisions (and sometimes neither are we), but He never stops loving us. Some people might ask why He continues loving us when we constantly turn our backs on Him, but it's actually the ultimate example of relinquishing control to someone who can love you more if you give them the choice rather than if you force it on them. True spiritual growth happens by letting go of things so that something new can be born.

Through this experience, I continue to grow more towards the person of surrender that I desire to be, but it is a growth process. It's like someone telling God, "I want patience NOW." Growing from control to surrender is like telling God "I need you to make me less controlling." It doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't happen without going through the experiences that challenge us into those places God is leading. While there have been some ups and downs along the way of my life, I have always had everything I need and quite a few "wants." We have food on the table, often with leftovers going bad in the fridge. We have closets overflowing with more clothes than we even want to wear, and we have a house (granted, still with blue carpet in the bedrooms) that we come home to every night complaining of not enough storage space. What I wrote a few days ago was that I don't want to let my focus on the one thing that's not going the way I want distract me from appreciating all the things that are going well. Thinking about it even more now, what I really don't want is to let the thing that's not going my way distract me from God. It's not about the fact that I have everything that I need (although I'm so grateful for God's provision), and it's not about my focus on not having a baby yet making me any less thankful for what I do have. It's about it not being about what I do or don't have at all. It's about God and His character revealing Himself to me and through me during this particular experience.

What an honor that God gives me the opportunity to grow more like him in the area of surrender. Some people are never faced with such a clear opportunity to grow more like Christ, and here I have it. I'm in the midst of it and I'm so grateful. Not just to learn more about me, but honestly to learn more about God and His character. The clearest lessons are often learned during the most vulnerable times in our lives and the desire to give life to another human being is certainly one of those times. It is not easy to give way to my desire to have a child and fully surrender to God's will, but everything happens to grow me more towards the person I was created to be. My nature is to try to control the situation with deadlines, calendars, and ovulation tests. My desire is to say, "God, my life is yours. Do with it what you will, when you will, and how you will so I can become more like you." So, that is what I say, and if I say it enough then one day I will say it and will realize that he HAS been doing those things, and then I'll be in the midst of another lesson that's teaching me something new and wonderful about the awesome God we serve.