The other night I laid awake thinking about the fact that a blog entry was waiting to be written and praying for a topic to be placed upon my heart. A word. A brilliant thought. A meaningful verse or a recollection of a recent story that could be tied into significant writing. Instead I came up empty handed. In fact, instead of being bestowed with an entry that sparkled like Tierra (hehe, Bachelor joke), my brain instead simply kept rerunning the phrase, “I’m tired.”
It began to pluck what life has looked like for me that last year. The moments we have gone though.
The excitement. The joyous feeling of that first cycle. The highest highs of hope. The adrenaline.
The egg retrieval. Our beautiful 11 eggs.
The visit to the ER in the middle of the night. The overstimulation.
The transfer. That moment of seeing our two precious little babies for the first time, in their smallest cell-form. Knowing that everything up until this point was beautifully worth it.
The moment we saw the words “Pregnant” show up on the digital screen.
The moment of racing to the store to buy our first onsies. (My eyes still fill with tears when I remember those precious moments of being pregnant and so painfully unaware that anything could go wrong). The joy of picking out Mommy and Daddy outfits for one another.
The moments of telling our parents and my sister we were pregnant. The look of surprise on their faces. The tears shed. The hugs given. The dreams dreamt.
The weird cramping. The trip to the bathroom. The blood. The realization.
The call from the doctor, “I’m so sorry ….”
The days in bed, weeping from the deepest part of my soul. The pain.
The words of Meredith Andrews playing on repeat, “And every step, every breath You are there. Every tear, every cry, every breath. In my hurt, at my worst, when my world falls down. Not for a moment, will You forsake me…. After all, You are constant. After all, You are only good. After all, You are sovereign.”
The decision to try again. The leap of faith into the second cycle.
The egg retrieval. 14 God-given eggs this time.
The transfer. Our 2 little ones cozied up in Mommy’s tummy.
My first Mother’s Day as a real Mom.
The scared excitement of what this would bring.
The early bleeding. The cramping. Learning that it was over.
The confusion. The pain.
The decision that it was time to transfer our two frostie babies.
Learning that they made the thaw. Seeing them for the first time. Celebrating the moment.
The early bleeding again. The relief when it went away. The fear. Oh, the fear.
Seeing those two beautiful perfect lines pop up on a home pregnancy test. The words “Pregnant” shining on the digital again.
The terrified joy we felt.
Confirming we were expecting with the doctor. The news that they numbers weren’t as high as we had hoped.
The call a few days later to let us know the pregnancy was no longer viable.
The heartbreak.
The exhaustion.
The final blood work 3 weeks later.
The emergency ultrasound. The concern of an ectopic pregnancy.
The D&C surgery. The recovery.
The exhaustion.
And all these moments don’t include the shots. The pills. The patches. The suppositories. The juices drank and the oil rubbed on my tummy.
And as I laid in bed running through the memories of the last 10 months, I couldn’t help but validate my brains statement … ‘I’m tired.”
I would never imagine 10 months ago, that this is where my story would be. As I laid there thinking about all of this, I couldn’t help but feel this wave of frustration run over me. God, what’s the plan here? We have prayed faithfully this whole time that when we are meant to stop, that He would make it clear to us and despite the outcomes and surgery, I couldn’t feel stronger about that fact that we are supposed to march on in this journey. But I’m tired.
The funny thing is, when I woke up, my sister had sent me a message about a dream she had during the night. The details shared were exactly what I needed to hear and in a nutshell, the message was simple. God is using our story for His glory, even if I don’t see it. And Satan wants nothing more than to put my spirit, my hope, my joy, to death. He wants me to take his bitter pill and self obstruct. It was exactly the message I needed to hear to remind myself that I have to actively choose NOT to take that bitter pill each day. To look for the ways that God is using this for good. And when I take the time to look, I see them all around me.
So now the million dollar question everyone is asking … what’s next?
I have been transparently open to you all during our journey. Please know that when our hearts are ready, we will know and share what’s next. I promise. I appreciate in the meantime, your respect of not pressing us for details until that time. With all we have been through this last year, the questions “What’s next? When’s the next cycle? What’s the plan?” has become tiring. Part of me understands that you are all just excited for the future and what it may hold, the other part makes me feel like you don’t understand how exhausted I feel. Truly, I know your intentions are so good, but I have a little guard up on my heart protecting the little strength I have left. Simply talking about it drains me of that.
I promise you this: my desire for a baby remains strong. I still hope and pray that someday, that dream God has planted in our hearts becomes a reality. But for now, I will regather my strength. I will be intentional each day about rejecting the pity party pill. I will continue to look for the good in the story, because it’s there. And I will continue to be eternally grateful for each of you and the role you play in this story. You have no idea how much you mean.
“May our weary hearts be filled with hope…” –Gungor-
Trials Bring Joy 