The story of my journey to become pregnant has become more beautiful than I could have hoped for. This will forever be a moment in my life that I can turn to look back on and be reminded of God's faithfulness. I was going to start this back at the beginning of this year but as I sat down to write this I realized that it goes further back. We knew that before we could even begin to try to get pregnant we wanted to have a house.
Our House
So in the middle of a pandemic in mid-April, we began looking seriously. While I know the market is even worse now, it was still pretty bad. Things were off the market within a day or two. Houses were getting multiple offers and prices started high. You had to be prepared with your best offer in hopes of out-bidding other offers. It was very stressful. By the second week of searching, we found a house that had gone back on the market after an offer fell through. With the house listed as on the market for 30 days, others might have overlooked it assuming there were big issues since it wasn't already snatched up. After looking at the house we felt pretty good about it and later that night we put in an offer. We found out the next day that another offer was put in after ours. We increased our offer slightly and then just had to wait. Ultimately they chose our offer. Despite it being slightly less than the other offer we had a more stable and larger down-payment. Since the last offer fell through they didn't want to have any more issues selling the house.
This also meant they wanted a quick closing date. Exactly 30 days later we signed the final papers and were given the keys to our house. And here again, we saw how good God's timing was. We still had 2 months left on our apartment lease. So for the next month and a half, we painted and fixed up the house to get everything ready to move in. The week leading up to our move I was able to take time off and move smaller items first so that we had less to do for the big move that weekend.
We had a house. Now discussions of when we were ready for a baby had a much more realistic timeline to work with. We had initially decided that we wanted to be in the house a year before having a baby. Now we had to look more at if that meant trying in a year or trying when the due date would put us in the house for a year. And of course, there was still a pandemic going on, making the future medical journey of being pregnant entirely unpredictable.
Planning
We eventually decided that I would go off birth control at the start of 2021. I was looking forward to the end of the year with much anticipation. Then as the end of the year came closer, a vaccine for covid was actually done and in the early stages of distribution. But there was no way to know for sure when I could get it and of course the big question: is it safe for pregnancy? In that first week of December, I reached out to my OBGYN and asked their recommendation about getting pregnant and getting the vaccine. My heart sank when I got a reply. The advice that my provider was giving at the time was to not try until after having the vaccine because there was no evidence at the time of it being safe to get it while pregnant.
I felt that for me that getting the vaccine as soon as possible was the right call. And had looked into what information was available and felt that it had been well researched and developed. But at the time, I was not expecting to be able to get the vaccine until possibly spring 2021 at the earliest. I had to make a choice about which option was best for my health and for my future child. I cried a lot during those conversations about what we would do. At the time we decided we would wait. It would be agonizing but surely it was the right thing to do. December was a hard month and I cried a lot. I clung to any updates on vaccine production that could result in getting it sooner. I asked my supervisor if our job qualified us to get it sooner. At the time the answer was no.
Then I went to a Christmas Eve service with my family. The message wasn't overly focused on Mary as a mother or on Jesus as a baby. I don't think even the songs focused much on it either. I just remember that the feelings I experienced were not prompted by what was taught but came from a personal wrestling with God. I was in tears the entire sermon, grieving the baby I didn't have and had decided that I couldn't have until it was safe. I had emotionally not been in a good place after making the decision to wait. The toll on my mental health would have been too much when deep in my heart I knew it was time. After talking with Kyle we chose to return to the original plan. I would go off birth control in January. We were going to trust God and His timing. Maybe I would get the vaccine before getting pregnant or maybe I would have to wait and go through my pregnancy unvaccinated. Whatever was going to happen was going to be in God's control, but it was time to open the door to that next chapter in life.
Then God again was faithful and provided. I got a call in early January that it had been decided that the place I worked was counted among health care and would receive the vaccine in phase 1A. My appointment was scheduled for the next week and by February 11th I had my final dose. I had my vaccine during the time that my body was likely still adjusting to being off birth control and would have had a lower chance of getting pregnant. Now we could try to conceive without concern. I was exactly where I wanted to be.
TTC (Trying to Conceive)
So now we were trying. And trying. And trying. Each month passed as I tracked my cycle, took a test, saw the single strip on the test, and then watched my body start the next cycle. It was an emotional rollercoaster with of course all the lovely additional side effects of going off birth control. I knew it would be hard and I knew it would take time. But that didn't stop the disappointment that came each month when I found myself still not pregnant. Still not a mother.
My Calling to Motherhood
Perhaps now is the time to pause and talk about why being a mother is so important to me personally. I know this is something many women desire and pregnancy is a common way people pursue growing their family. But I have a deeply rooted desire to be a mother that I know has only come from God. From the age of around 7, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would answer that I wanted to be a mom. But what may be presumed by some as a sweet, silly child's answer was very genuine. As I grew, it didn't waver. I wanted to be a mom, hopefully, a stay-at-home mom if I could. I eventually found careers and majors I would be interested in pursuing and did feel called to. However, this didn't change the certainty that being a mom was my primary calling. I knew that God had gifted me when it came to working with babies and kids. It came so naturally and people around me would point it out as well. I was presented with many opportunities to learn even more about working with kids, learning how they develop, and learning how to best guide and love them. Before I graduated college I had been to 3 separate parenting conferences that also came from a trauma-informed perspective. I was exposed to so much information while still young and I took advantage of every opportunity I had.
But I also grew in my spiritual understanding of God and how He fulfills our desires. Psalm 37:4 reads, "Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." While I don't know if I can describe this as clearly as it was taught to me, here's my attempt. As we grow closer to God and grow in our love of Him we will desire to follow His plans and live according to His will. A desire will be placed in us that will align with His will. When this happens He will of course delight in giving us what we are desiring because it will further bring glory to Him and His kingdom.
I believe that this strong desire to be a mother came from God. I believe that this aligns with His will for my life. I believe He has given me spiritual gifts that will help me as a mother. So the hope that I have tried to hold onto is this: that the God who placed this desire in me will not leave me wanting.
Mother's Day
So then Mother's Day came. We had been trying and had not yet been rewarded with that positive test. At the time I should have been just shy of a week away from being able to take a test or having my next cycle start. So I came into Mother's day already feeling defeated but still trying to hang on to hope. This Sunday also happened to fall on a week that Kyle was serving on the tech team at church, which meant he wouldn't be sitting with me in church or leave the house when I did. So that morning I got ready for church at home alone. I drove myself to church alone. I then walked into church and chose a seat in the back alone.
I worshiped, listened to the sermon, and followed along by taking notes, but once again, God and I were having our own conversation as I sat in church that day. I prayed. I prayed inspired by the prayers of Hannah in 1 Samuel. And in truth, this prayer was a prayer of lament. I called out to God in my sorrow. I did not hide my frustration at still having the answer be not yet.
This was what you said God. This is the desire you placed in me. I am at a place in life where I can now be a mother. I am no longer the teenage girl who longed for the day that she was married and could start a family. I am ready to follow that path and desire that you gave me.
But even in my frustration, I prayed Psalm 37:4 back to God and I prayed those words and what I was taught to help anchor my hope in Him. That the God who had placed the desire of motherhood in me and had prepared me for it would not leave me wanting and would give me the desires of my heart.
And while all of what I have shared so far is only an approximation of the words I know I prayed that morning, I did write down a small section of my prayer in my notes that morning.
"Lord, I pray that this is the last Mother's Day that I am not a mother."
Then church was over. I went home. I told Kyle what had happened that morning and what I had prayed to God. In all of my prayers and grief, I had reached a small moment of peace or maybe just pure exhaustion when I chose to stop trying to push my timing and let God work.
I then tried to move on with the day and leave the emotions behind me and focus on what still needed to be done that day (including some relaxing). But as I got ready for bed that night, I found that my next cycle had come early and received confirmation that I was still not a mother and still no closer to holding my baby in my arms. I cried. I cried hard that night. Kyle sat with me and held me while I cried. That was all we could do that night.
That next month I still tracked my cycle and potential fertility like I had been but I didn't make many changes based on the info. I assumed my body was still working on regulating itself after coming off birth control. And clearly, the very short cycle from the previous month was evidence of that. I had already decided that I would lay it all at the feet of God. I was so weary from trying to control and make it happen in my timing.
God's Timing
As the start of my next cycle approached I wasn't planning to take a pregnancy test. I just had things on hand for the next cycle. Each day that week I was so sure it was going to finally start that day. But as the week went by and it still hadn't started I knew that I needed to check. So Friday night I decided that I would take a test that next morning but I was honestly expecting another negative test. To my astonishment that next morning the test very quickly began to show that second line. And it wasn't a faint line that could leave some doubt. It was a bold, dark line that stood out more clearly than the control line.
Telling Kyle was a bit humorous. I assumed that in his half-awake state he remembered that I said I would take a test. So he surely had to be waiting for the result if he was awake at all. I was wrong and I took a bit for him to get his bearings on what was happening but once he did we were celebrating together.
While all of this is wonderful, it wasn't until later that I was able to reflect on all the ways God had answered my prayer in ways I hadn't anticipated. The first layer was that I was pregnant obviously but then also realizing that I got pregnant at the next possible time. This meant He had answered my prayer as soon as it was physically possible. But it goes deeper. When tracking the gestational age of a baby, you go back to the first day of your last cycle. For me, that day was mother's day. So even without knowing it at the time, God was preparing me on that mother's day to be a mother and I can always look back to that day as the "start" of my journey to motherhood. But it gets even better. My prayer for the baby came before my cycle started that day and my cycle shouldn't have started for another week. God answered my prayer from that morning by having my cycle start later that day. He answered my prayer by making my ability to get pregnant come sooner.
God showed me that He can answer yes to prayer and begin the process of fulfilling it immediately, but it may still take time for the results to be visible in my life. That's why it's so important to look back at how God has answered your prayers and been faithful. While I had prayed for this baby throughout my journey, it wasn't until I reached a point of desperation that resulted in full dependence on God that He showed me He was still there. Through the ups and downs of life to come this child will be a constant reminder of God's love and faithfulness.
I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. 1 Samuel 1:27
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