Be Careful What You Pray for!

When I wrote my last blog post, only about a week ago, I was gearing up for our next embryo transfer. Little did I know, my world was about to be rocked.

We found out on Wednesday night of this week (July 15th) that I'm pregnant. For real. No joke.

I just keep asking myself, HOW? That might sound funny to you, especially since we have one surprise baby already, who is 10 months old. But, When you are told that there is no hope for you. When you are told that your ONLY chance of conception is through IVF, and that babies are made in labs, you have a very different thought process about the whole conception idea.

Yes, we got our little Charlie, and were shocked by him, but honestly, in our minds, he was a one-off miracle baby. He beat the statistics, and powered through and he was the exception.

We were wrong.

Apparently, we went from a grim infertility diagnosis of never ever having children naturally, and you should give up on that dream, to reproducing like rabbits. Literally, this pregnancy and the last were initiated AS soon as my body started ovulating again. Both were complete surprises.

I have had to do some soul searching and some major reflecting since finding out about this baby. If I am completely honest, I have not reached the place where I can say I am happy about this pregnancy. I have a lot of emotions about it, some good, some bad, but happy about it isn't one of them -yet. I know I will get there. The shock will wear off, and my heart will catch up with my brain.

I JUST got through cementing in my mind and publicly declaring how precious and valuable we feel life is. I talked about our three frozen embryo babies, and how they are still mine, and still loved and still a big part of our future, no matter how much our lives change or what's going on. Our promise to God, and what I feel is His promise to us does NOT change, based on our changing lives.

God and his promises remain the same and they are steadfast, and I will be steadfast as well.

What right do I have to say, "Well God, It's been a good run, but I didn't sign up for this. You blessed me FAR beyond what I could have imagined (on that note, can we slow down the blessings? They are awesome, but I'm tired!) and I am thankful for it, but I can't hold up my end of the bargain any more. I trusted you as long as it was easy, and preached about sticking with something, even if it was hard, but I didn't think it would be THIS hard."

No. I do not want to keep having babies until I am 40. I don't. That was not in my plan. None of this was. I wanted to be THROUGH having babies by the time I was 30, but our parenting didn't even begin until I was almost 28.

 NO. I did not want a half-dozen PLUS kids. Nope. Nada. Not in the plan. Not in MY plan.

I was so ready to prepare my body for this embryo transfer, and move on with that part of our lives. I was ready to stop worrying about them. Stop paying monthly for embryo storage. I had a plan, and even though it was still a long ways off, I could see how things would turn out. I could see the end of the very difficult baby stage.

We drive a vehicle that can hold six kids and two adults. IF all the embryos took, we were prepared to fill that thing up. We were prepared. Now, if they all take, we will have to buy some kind of van. Seven kids and two adults changes EVERYTHING!

With my plan, I would be through having babies by the time I was about 37. That's blown out of the water.

By my plan, we would have timed it out so that we would have a three year old, and 18 month old and a new born. This baby changes things, and I will have three babies under three for over two months. That thought alone terrifies and overwhelms me. I seriously just want to cry. It's not like those couple of months make that much difference, but MY PLAN made sense in my mind, and this surprise from left field has me reeling, even though it's not THAT far from what I thought it was going to be.

I have said that I feel kinda like a reverse Job. Instead of taking away everything I hold dear, I am being given SO MUCH of what I had prayed for, I literally can't handle it. I am having to, like Job, choose to praise through the storms, and the difficulties and say, "STILL I will praise you!"

Do I think I am being tested? I don't know. I can't say. Is my faith and my world a little rocked right now? For sure. But, I am choosing JOY. I am choosing faith over fear, and reaching out in blind FAITH to the one who holds the universe in the palm of His hand.

Have you seen the Heart & Brain comics? Look them up if you haven't. I truly enjoy them.

I picture myself as one of those comics. Brain is typing this, and listing out all the things, trying to logically make sense of things, and rationalizing everything out. He is making a new plan and trying to adjust schedules, etc. and even happy to do so because he sees the situation for what it is.

Heart is drawing abstract drawings in the sand and sighing. *I just can't* It takes a while for him to catch up.

That conflict is normal. I think that's why those comics resonate with so many people. It's ok to struggle and have inner conflict over things. It's ok to be NOT ok. It's ok to be sad, and have a time of adjustment and even mourning for your envisioned plans.

Then, Its ok to just let go, and move on.

I'm not there yet, but I will be. This is the phase of life when I say, and fully understand, "God, I believe! Help me with my unbelief!"

It's not easy, but EVERY DAY, I have to choose my mindset, and say that I choose JOY. When I'm tired, and my emotions are out of control, the joy of the LORD is my strength.

We are not promised a life without conflict and turmoil, but we are promised a friend and a guide as we navigate it. We are not promised that our every desire will be met, and in the WAY we wanted them to be. We aren't promised our plans, carefully strategized, will happen.

We are asked to step out in FAITH and believe in the promises we DO have, and learn to roll with the punches. God's timing and plan are always the best, even when we don't understand it. He is a big picture God, and we see through a dense fog.


I'm not ok yet. But, I will be.

Where God Guides, He Provides

Formulating thoughts and trying to condense them into a manageable post for others to read and understand is such a huge undertaking! So many times I sit to write, as it helps me to process the thoughts I am having, and I end up frustrated and overwhelmed. How am I supposed to communicate to others my message, if I am confused myself about my emotions and feelings?

As there is quite a bit to cover, I will do my best to NOT write a book on the topic, but bear with me, as it can't be written Reader's Digest style.

Despite being very open about our journey, and knowing SO many who also experience it, I only have a VERY small group - not a group actually,  three ladies, none of which have met each other - who I can talk with when I am struggling or overwhelmed about our infertility and IVF journey. All of them have very different experiences and know me in very different ways. Beyond this blog, as much as I talk about it, and try to advocate for families to have support and love through their infertility journey, I often feel alone.

I have a supportive and loving circle of friends and family who really do try to understand, and do such a great job at listening and making me feel loved, but having that connection of actually knowing the loss and the grief, and not having to explain things is so amazing.

This weekend, I was able to connect with one of my girls. She is an IVF mama who has struggled and we have prayed for each other and cried for each other for years now. I got to talk to her in person about some things. It was amazing. Getting to hash out some struggles we are having and talk about our fears and hopes, and know that she was feeling the same gave me a stronghold and a rope to hang on to.

I'm not saying I am glad that someone else is struggling. I wish no one ever had to deal with infertility and all that it entails. I'm thankful for the connection though. I'm thankful that someone can see my heart and feel my pain, as a mother and understand my hesitations and emotions. We talked with technical, medical terms that we would have to explain to anyone who had not experienced it. It was a free-flowing conversation without the pressure of trying to be understood.

Life is crazy and a little funny. After having that conversation on Saturday evening, I go to church on Sunday and the preacher uses infertility and several stories about it as an illustration in his sermon. I loved it. Although it's talked about in the bible, many times, in the case of Abraham and Sarah, it's focused on the male perspective. (Which, is a valid perspective, and daddies struggle because of infertility too.)

The pastor talked about God's timing and His promises. He talked about the stories of the person who did everything right, and prayed and did IVF and went through such an ordeal, and still had no children to show for it.

I appreciated that. So many times, when we pray, we expect a positive answer. We think that God isn't there, or He is not loving us correctly, or maybe He is punishing us because the prayer wasn't answered in the way we wanted it to me.

God isn't a genie in a bottle. He doesn't say, *Poof* "What do you want?" He is a loving Father, who sometimes say no. Even when it hurts. He also blesses us beyond our wildest dreams sometimes, but for some reason, we tend to remember the hurts far more than the blessings. And, sometimes the blessings are a double-edged sword. They can be painful in their own right, and have consequences we didn't imagine.

The sermon actually made other points, and I'm sure pastor was going for a different message, but this is what I got out of it, and I needed to hear it.

I have been struggling so much lately. I'm stressed and emotional. Along with the rest of the world, COVID has changed so many things for me. I grieve for the state of our world, on so many fronts.  I pray for my babies and the world they have to grow up in, which seems to be a foreign land. It's already so different than the world I grew up in.

I struggle with anxiety and a case of over thinking everything. I hash stuff out and plan until I am certain of the outcome, and then I take action. I would like to be spontaneous, but I really need plans and lists to operate off of to be at peace with situations.

Unfortunately, life doesn't have a playbook. It's messy, and constantly changing.

If you have followed our journey, you know that we did IVF for our first two children, and then we had a miracle baby. That baby is such a blessing in our lives, and was so healing to me in so many ways. However, he was not a part of my plan. His life and all it entailed was not factored in. My perfectly timed calendar of events was thrown out the window with the positive pregnancy test.

We have three embryos left. Three embryos that very well meaning people have suggested we don't need or have any use or responsibility toward, because we can now make babies the 'real' way.

The thing is, those are my babies. Those are my promise to God. When I struggled, and threw metaphorical rocks at the sky and cried and questioned God that He would give me NINE embryos, they were my babies. When I came to grips with our reality, and chose to see them as a blessing, shaken down, poured out and overflowing, they were my babies. When I promised God that I would love and care for each one and we would trust Him for their lives, they were my babies. When God gave us baby Charlie and rocked our world, they were STILL my babies.

I promised God I would raise them if He saw fit for them to live. I told Him that even though His yes answer didn't look like what I wanted, I was going to honor their lives. I thanked Him for our blessings, and told Him that if He would provide, we would step out in faith and do everything we could to give these babies life and raise them in OUR HOME. We are convicted and certain that we are called to raise them - not adopt them out.

None of those convictions change, none of our promises are made invalid, because suddenly our lives took a turn we didn't expect.

On that same vein, just because the world is scary to us, and we don't understand it all, that's not a get out of our responsibilities card. We were never promised that living by our convictions would be easy. Actually, I'd argue that we were told that it would be difficult.

I take comfort in my background in communications and go back to my mass media classes and lean on my love of history and all the reading about various periods. I would argue that the players have changed, and the circumstances are different, but there isn't a whole lot MORE scary stuff going on in the world. The difference is that we know about it. ALL of it.

Within seconds, we know about events taking place on the opposite side of the globe. With social media, live streaming and constant input from every electronic device, we can't help but know what's going on.

I would argue that if any given population in history had this same access to 'news,' they would also be living in fear and questioning things.

I read recently that the human brain was not designed to be able to deal with this much input. That having an almost omnipresent capability is causing damage to our bodies and the mental health of our society. I would probably agree.

This gives me comfort and allows me to see things through my logical sense.

Yes, times are scary. Yes, there is bad stuff going on.

There always has been.

Do I question intentionally bringing more babies into this world? Yes. Do I think it's the best idea? I really don't know. All I know is that God and I have a deal going. I am going to stick with my promise, and He is going to stick with His.

With that being said, I have struggled with telling people or not, but here goes. We go in at the end of the month for a consultation with the IVF Dr.

We are scheduled to participate in the August cycle. If everything works out, we will be doing a transfer in late August or early September.

I am questioning our sanity, but not our commitment. We already love those little lives that hold so much potential and are such a big unknown for us.

I'm honestly terrified. I's not going to be easy.

I honestly think that I have some PTSD around our IVF and infertility experiences. For sure, the thought of the hundreds of shots makes me want to be sick.

I am terrified I won't get pregnant and will be devastated if they don't work. I'm terrified they will all work and I'll end up with more babies. Babies are always a blessing, but I'm not going to pretend they are easy or that it's always fun.

At this point, the plan is to transfer two embryos for this cycle. I am both elated and terrified that we have the potential of having twins.

I'd appreciate your prayers and all the good thoughts you can send our way. While this is a very exciting and happy event for us, as stated above, it's very stressful on SO many levels.

We are putting our trust in God and leaning on His understanding and strength, bur cause we are seriously lacking in both for ourselves right now.