In the Waiting

This has been a tough week for me. I have come full-circle on one of the most difficult years of my life. This time last year, I was pregnant for the second time...and in a few days we would lose that baby too. We had lost our first baby just 9 months earlier. We would try again several times with the help of fertility drugs and IUI (artificial insemination) before deciding to take a break at the end of November last year. We were emotionally and physically spent. I had nothing left in me to keep trying, and felt God telling us to rest a while and regain some strength. Our fertility doctor wanted us to consider IVF (in-vitro fertilization), but after much prayer and discussion decided that wasn't right for us. We looked into adoption agencies and talked to adoptive parents...but that wasn't right for us at the time either. And so we waited...and waited...and waited some more. Still, God told us to rest. This winter, I felt myself slipping into depression. The deadness and darkness of winter overcame me. I withdrew from everything...from people, from my music, from my career...and sat day after day crying out "why??" I didn't want to face my problems. I didn't want to face my fears. I would much rather sit in the dark and not deal with anything. I certainly didn't want to hear what God had to say. I was angry, I was depressed, I wanted Him to solve all my problems NOW or leave me alone.

When spring came, I felt the fog start to lift and, like the buds on the trees beginning to emerge, I felt myself start to come back to life. I could feel my lungs breathing in a new kind of air. It was fresh, full of life and possibilities. I began to eat right and exercise again. I got a new haircut and a pedicure.  I was starting to feel small glimpses of my former self come back to life. I was starting to feel good about myself again.

As I was pulling out of the funk that I had been in for months, I started listening to God more. I always thought I had listened, but I realized I had been listening like a teenager listens to her parents. My answers were more like "sure, ok God. Whatever you say," as I ran out the door to do something completely different. It wasn't so much that I was being defiant, it was more that I only heard what I wanted to hear. My mother calls it "selective hearing" (she claims my father has had this since the day they married. haha!). I have recently started listening more...really listening. I realized that I was doing things that God didn't intend for me to do. I was on a career path that He had not intended for me, at least not at this time in my life. And so I did a complete 180 and am now on a completely different path...but the right path. And it feels so good, so right. THIS is what God has intended for me!

This winter, my husband and I decided to give ourselves until June to make any further decisions about having a baby. We needed to focus on ourselves for awhile. I needed to focus on my health, specifically. June has come, and God is still saying WAIT. I don't know why, but He is. I know I'm getting older, and in 6 months I'll be at that magic age of 35 when the fertility world starts to panic. I'll have all sorts of labels plastered on me that make me high risk (but after two miscarriages, I probably have that label anyway). But, God wants us to wait just a little while longer. I'm not gonna lie - it is HARD! But I know that we are getting there. We are doing things now that will give us a better chance of having a baby later. My spontaneous personality is having a lot of trouble with that. I want all my wants and needs fulfilled NOW, not later! But we will get there. We still have hope. We know God always fulfills his promises, and we know that, in some way or another, we will be parents.

God is starting to reveal little things to us, and we know we have many decisions to make over the summer about many things. Not only do we have baby-making decisions to make, but we have career, house, financial, and other decisions to make. We have been in a period of waiting for a very long time...but we feel the time for action drawing nearer. Little by little, God is revealing to us our next course of action. We are trying to be obedient and do what He has called us to do. We know we won't have to wait forever, even when sometimes it feels that way.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. -Romans 8:28