Second Birthday

If I'm reading a book and I get nervous about the possible outcome, I flip to the end, breathe a sigh of relief because I know what's going to happen, and keep reading. I do the same thing with movie plots. It drives Carson a little crazy, but it relieves the pressure since I know what will happen and we just have to get there in the story. I can rest easily even if I know that something bad happens, because I know what's in the future.

Unfortunately, life doesn't offer the same comfort.

Had he or she arrived on the due date, our third baby would be two years old today.

Two years ago today, instead of sitting anywhere near a hospital delivery room, we took a little getaway to Destin to think and pray and to be sad about things that might have been. It was a good weekend in a beautiful place and it was good to get away from our regular life for a few days and clear our heads.

I am thankful that I didn't have a window into the future, because I don't think I could have handled knowing that over two and a half years after my last pregnancy (which ended in March of 2014), there would be no progress on that front. We have a bunch of doctor's appointments and countless vials of blood saying everything is great, looks great, should be perfect, and at the same time, every month tells me that things are not great.

How do you deal with this? How do you live in what doctors are calling a healthy body, and yet that body just doesn't do what it's supposed to do?

It seems clear to me that for right now, waiting is the name of the game. Sometimes I am very okay with this, and sometimes I am very NOT okay with this. Is it hard to have a friend announce a pregnancy that's seemed to happen rather easily? Yes. Is it hard to have friends announce subsequent pregnancies? Yes. Is it hard feeling really really left out of what it's like to be a parent when nearly all my friends are parents? Yes. But in the day to day, it's sometimes not very hard. I wonder about our future family every day, and I ache to know if and how our dreams of becoming parents might be a reality. We've prayed about a number of different avenues to parenthood, and I really have no idea what's best.

So we wait. 

If I could, I'd love to pull the golden string and skip ahead to the "good part". I think there's a reason that isn't an option though, and I think that's because the journey matters. The pain and the heartache and the prayers and the tears? Those aren't pointless; they are shaping us. I pray that if one day we are blessed with a child, this time of life will not be forgotten. I pray that it has shaped us and changed us and made us grateful and thankful. If one day we are not blessed with a child, I pray that we are grateful and thankful with that, as hard as that would be.

Will there be a day where I give birth? Will there be a day when we adopt? Will there be a day when we look at each other and come to the realization that the waiting has ended and that it will be the two of us forever? It's too much. I am glad that a window to the future didn't exist two years ago, and although perhaps a hint would be nice, part of me is a little glad I have no idea what things will be like in two more years. 

I am not a brave person, and this journey overwhelms me. It is hard, but I don't think it's impossible, and I know that despite the hard parts, it is good. 

We wait tearfully, and hopefully, maybe, we will wait well. 

Taken on that trip to Destin, two years ago