The Plot Twist

I was even more of an emotional wreck in the first week of December 2017.

December 5th is Rob's birthday and I decided to make 3 batches of cinnamon rolls from scratch for his requested game night party. I got so stressed out with the first batch because my yeast wasn't activating and the house looked like a disaster! I texted Rob and told him I wanted to throw the dough out the window and cancel his party! I remember frantically sweeping while sobbing hysterically. Then when I pulled myself together, I started crying because I yelled at Rob on his birthday!

The next day I felt like crying because I hated the red and white lights on our house. They were too bright red and didn't match my maroon wreath ribbons. I couldn't believe how upset I was getting over the smallest things! I assumed it was PMS or maybe even some Clomid left in my system because that's exactly what it felt like!

That night I couldn't sleep. My body and mind were so restlessly excited despite my negative feelings. It felt like the night before Christmas, except with positive pregnancy tests dancing above my head instead of sugar plums. After all, my mom said she had a feeling I was pregnant last time she saw me and she is often freakishly right when she has these feelings!

.

That morning I tested.

I didn't want to watch the test fade from pink to white, revealing the answer to the question that kept me up all night. Rob watched it while I squinted and watched his face droop into that familiar frown.

"Nope.", he said sadly. 

I sulked for a minute and then looked at it myself.
I swore I saw a ghost of a second line. Rob didn't believe me until he started to see it too!

Those 3 minutes were such an emotional roller coaster. I felt so excited but SO afraid to be so! 

It didn't feel official since I knew I would have to do a blood test too, and it looked just like the faintly positive tests I had before my 2 miscarriages.

.

But STILL, that day I saw that second little faint line, and despite what I knew could happen for the third time, I fell in love all over again. 

That night was the first snow of the year. It was the perfect ending to the day.

The IUI Chapter

In October, we started this new chapter!

This became the new norm:

Cycle day 1: Period

Cycle day 3: Bloodwork/ultrasound/start Clomid

Cycle day 3-7: Clomid

Cycle day 12: Bloodwork/ultrasound/self-administered Ovidrel shot!

Cycle day 14: IUI

Cycle day 21: Progesterone bloodwork

Cycle day 28: Can I test yet?

Up until this cycle, the specialist administered my Ovidrel trigger shots at my cycle day 11, 12, or 14 appointments. With an IUI, the Ovidrel shot has to be administered at 9PM a full day before the IUI. This means I had to administer my own shot! I shot myself next to my belly button and felt shocked at how far I'd come in conquering my fear of needles since fertility treatment began!

On October 26th, we had our first IUI! 

We got up before the sun did, Rob produced his specimen, and off we went! New levels of intimacy were reached as I kept Rob's cup o' sperm warm in my shirt on our way to the specialist. 

We dropped it off and waited an hour before the IUI.

The procedure itself was pretty quick and painless. It felt similar to a pap smear, except with a lot more anxiety (oh the anxiety in the moment when they bring the specimen in and ask you to confirm that it belongs to your husband and not some stranger! Also, will this work?) and I wasn't allowed to get up right away. I had to lay there for 15 minutes and let the magic happen! (Well, hopefully!)

There was a cheesy little wind chime above my head that the doctor rang after the IUI. I know it's silly, but it made me smile! We told her we were going to be celebrating our anniversary that weekend and she said that it meant that we had good karma! 

We went to Ihop for breakfast and kept holding hands across the table saying "Ihop we get pregnant". Then when I got home I saw that Etsy featured my work for a third time! I felt excited and positive for the first time in a while. All of these events felt like good luck.

But our first IUI cycle didn't end with a pregnancy.

Next was the memorable Thanksgiving 2017 cycle.

Thanksgiving had become a more and more difficult holiday to get through.
Don't let the festive head bopper fool you!

We were so excited to announce our first pregnancy to my grandparents for Thanksgiving 2015, but by that Thanksgiving, that gift was taken away from us.

Thanksgiving 2016, we had 1 less Mommom to share our news with, and our news was taken away from us before Thanksgiving again.

Thanksgiving 2017 came with no happy news to share, and I had no Mommoms to celebrate with. I never felt so much grief at once. My family was dwindling, and although it seemed like it was up to us to help it grow and we were trying SO hard, it wasn't happening.

I always intentionally skip leaving the house on black Friday and plan to sleep in and decorate, but we had to get up bright and early for our second trip to the fertility specialist in a week because my follicles weren't ready to be triggered after the previous appointment. I felt uneasy because the doctor wasn't sure what day to schedule the IUI. Saturday looked like it could be too early, and Monday looked like it could be too late. We went with Saturday and were asked to have relations following the IUI for the next 2 nights or so to be safe. I just felt like the timing was off. I administered my trigger shot as soon as I got home in hopes that it could do its job in time for an IUI on the next day.

For the second day in a row (and for the third time in a week!), we got up before the sun did for a trip to the specialists. Rob was sick and it was sad to not have him at my side for this IUI.
At least the timing was kind of hilarious and seasonable. I felt like a big fat turkey getting basted for Thanksgiving dinner.

Then it was time to wait...

The Clomid Chapter

My picture perfect dream of finding out I was pregnant just before Mother's Day (with a due date just before my 30th birthday) didn't come true. 

In fact, I had missed my period and had high flying hopes that quickly crashed at the sight of that all too familiar negative pregnancy test. 

I'm guessing that the new medication had thrown my cycle off. I'll never forget the hours I sobbed in bed that morning, feeling so broken and hopeless because even though I knew I wasn't pregnant, my period was nowhere in sight. I no longer had a way of calculating when we could try again, and this felt like a new level of defeat and loss of control. The prolonged agony of the worst PMS I've ever had didn't help either! While looking for solidarity on the infertility subreddits a while back, I learned that for many women, this is the norm for every cycle!

Of course, I got my period on Mother's Day (Really, uterus?). It sounds cruel, but it was the happiest I was to see a period come in over 2 years!

Crippling nausea, I guess another symptom from getting used to the new medication, made it easier for me to stay home some nights, but church continued to become one of the hardest places for me to be. I felt like I had to lie every time someone asked me how I was doing. I didn't know how to answer that question anymore, and I was pretty sure I didn't put on a convincing show.

When I looked around the sanctuary, it was way too easy for me to feel alone in this struggle. ALL around me were sweet hints of baby bumps and arms cradling their blessings, while I pursed my lips to keep from choking on the (overly rosy) lyrics to some of the worship songs I'd grown to hate...

"You split the sea so I can walk right through it"

Really?

"You're never gonna let, You're never gonna let me down"

Worship leaders: We're going to sing this very triggering line repetitively for 10 minutes straight!

NOPE.

*Kristin exits the sanctuary with dagger eyes*

After the failure of June 2017's cycle, I started Clomid!

I had seen countless memes about it: 

So, this is what a typical Clomid cycle looked like for me:

1. The negative test. 

It sounds simple, but it hurt every time whether I expected it or not!

Usually, I would test if my period didn't come when I thought it would. Of course, it was always negative and I would get my period almost immediately after. (Again. Really, uterus?)

Then came the part of the day where I had to stop crying long enough to call the fertility specialist and get in line for the next roller coaster ride! I learned how to move things around in my schedule to make room for all of the appointments. I have the whole schedule memorized now! 

It goes a bit like this:
Cycle day 1: Period
Cycle day 3: Bloodwork/ultrasound/start Clomid

Cycle day 3-7: Clomid
Cycle day 12: Bloodwork/ultrasound/Ovidrel shot
Cycle day 21: Progesterone bloodwork
Cycle day 28: Can I test? Oh look it's negative

Cycle day 1... repeat endlessly.

My phone call time includes ordering a prefilled syringe called Ovidrel that somehow magically triggers ovulation when I inject it into my stomach. It arrives at our doorstep in a thick cooler (it has to be kept refrigerated), which Rob finds really useful for making turtle egg incubators and seed starters. We have enough ice packs in the freezer to keep all next Summer's beach trip snacks cool. Win/win/win/win?

2. The first blood work and ultrasound appointment of the month, usually on day 3 of my cycle. 

Yay for bloody, crampy, babyless trans-vaginal ultrasounds! 

As an added bonus, I would start taking the Clomid afterward.

I used to think it was cute to take selfies every time I got bloodwork done. 

That got old after a couple of failed cycles! I still plan to use the ones I did take as leverage on our future children. ("Look what I went through to give you life?")

Cycle days 3-7: Time to pop the Clomid pills. I started on 50mg and the symptoms were mild, although I felt more like distancing myself away from people and got more easily agitated! I remember silencing all of my text notifications and retreating away from people and loud places during my first 2 cycles with it. 

The WORST cycle with Clomid (so far) was cycle 2 when they doubled the prescription to 100mg. Rob and I were on family vacation and I had so many emotional breakdowns between feeling like the infertile minority, being constantly reminded of my year-ago pregnancy and the loss that followed, and being on the highest dose of fertility drugs yet! I remember shaking so bad and feeling so anxious and irritable that I had to lie down and sleep it off throughout the week. It probably looked like I was relaxing, but I wasn't!

3. The second bloodwork and ultrasound appointment of the month, usually around cycle day 12.

We would awkwardly carry the big fat Ovidrel cooler into the office, I would give my blood, and then get an ultrasound. The doctor would count the follicles on each ovary and measure them. We want at least one of them to be at least 20x20. The Clomid helped them grow. After the first cycle with 150mg the doctors were happy with the size of my follicles, so that was the dosage I got used to.

If my follicles were mature enough, the nurse would then give me the Ovidrel "trigger shot" to trigger ovulation.

Here I am after my first trigger shot. My belly is too white to make out the band-aid on it, but it's there. Haha. I was never so happy to be such a human pin cushion! I was certain it was going to bring success right away. Isn't that funny?

Sometimes my follicles weren't ready on cycle day 12, which meant we had to come back either the next day or in 2 days for another scan before I would be ready for the trigger shot, which meant taking another day off of work unexpectantly, driving an extra the hour and a half, paying the extra co-pay, and getting and stabbed and wanded one more time for each extra visit! At one point, both of my arms were bruised from all of the bloodwork!

4.  The dreaded 2 week wait. 
This was the impressionable time where a number on a thermometer had the ability to crush my spirits or send my hopes soaring. I would take my basal body temperature upon awakening. I would be completely consumed by what I was about to see before I even opened my eyes.

5. Blood work for progesterone, usually on cycle day 21.

I believe it was during the first Progesterone blood test on Clomid when it hit me that I wasn't afraid of getting my blood taken anymore! (I've always had a bloodwork phobia.) 

We wanted my Progesterone level to be at least 10ng/ml in order for my body to be able to support a pregnancy. On my first rounds of Clomid, it was a measly 8.something, but with the 150mg rounds of Clomid, it increased to 17.something! Yay monster hormone pills!

6. The heartbreaking basal body temperature dip, usually on cycle day 26.

From what I understand, I want my basal body temperature to keep rising after ovulation because that's a sign of pregnancy. I never saw my basal body temperature do that and I always kind of knew on this day that it was going to be another failed cycle. Permelia cuddles cheered me up on those mornings where I was crying over a number on my thermometer.

7. The "but I still haven't tested!" glimmer of false hope

8. The "Should I test?" stage, usually on cycle day 28.

This was the day the specialist wanted me to call in if I missed my period, but usually, my cycles are longer. On this day I was always wondering if it's too early to test.
I'd do it anyway. It was always negative.

9. The "maybe I tested too early!" glimmer of false hope
I needed to actually get a period before I gave up all hope!

10. My scumbag period started, and I started all over again with it!

In September, the specialists recommended we consider an IUI since we hadn't been successful with just Levothyroxine, Clomid, and Ovidrel. We didn't realize that was an option for us, but I was excited at the thought! It seemed to me that sperm-meeting-egg was our trouble and that an IUI would surely get me pregnant!

We got up before the sun did for our specialist appointment, drove 2 hours to and from the only office open on Saturdays (because cycle day 12 fell on a Sunday. Ugh.), and waited for over an hour even though I had an appointment. We weren't sure if IUI was covered by our insurance, but assumed that because I was getting my scan a day earlier than usual, and that I wasn't ready to be triggered until cycle day 14 in the past, that we would have time before the trigger day to figure out if it was covered in time to ask for one that cycle. 

I got my blood work and ultrasound done and of course, my follicles were totally ready and I got my trigger shot. 

I wanted to cry because I was so hopeful about the IUI and thought that just trying our best the old fashioned way was not going to work. Once again, I had so much hope and it was taken away in a second! Rob cheered me up with this homemade meme:



I can't help but crack a smile when I see those little kitty feet tufts!


You guessed it, that cycle ended without a pregnancy.

With every cycle, it felt incredibly foolish to try and be positive. It felt stupid to believe that the next cycle could be the one that ends in a pregnancy. It felt naive to hold on to hope when life had taught me over and over again that I shouldn’t get my hopes up because things never turn out like they did in the pretty pictures I painted in my head.

I also felt an enormous amount of pressure. All of the weight of us not being able to have a baby fell on me and on my body, and no matter what strides I took, it was never ever enough.

It was exhausting to be in a continual space of grief, to try to plan everything around my unpredictable menstrual cycle, to try to pull myself together enough at the end of the week to go to church, be with people and hold a regular conversation, only to find that my heart was too broken and that nobody seems to understand, and to repeat it all month after month with the same disappointing result.

 After this failed cycle, we were off to the next adventure.

Infertility Awareness Week

It’s the excitement that came over us when we learned we were expecting, 

followed by pain and loss when it was all ripped away from us.

It’s yearning for the honor of growing a life, carrying to term, 

the ability to adequately care for our babies, and tangibly love them. 

It’s feeling like a failure as a woman and a mother, 

because my body couldn’t do what it was designed to do.

It's obsessing over each cycle, our timing, every symptom, our diets, and our bodies, 

only to find that it's never enough.

It's appointment after appointment for blood work, empty ultrasounds, invasive tests and procedures, 

drug prescriptions, and anything we can do to move forward.

It’s seeing the world through a darker lens. 

Instead of being carefree and optimistic, I stress, strive, and feel the need to expect the worst. 

Bitterness and anger wage a war against my heart and my joy. I don't feel like myself.

I struggle to find the balance between remaining hopeful
and not setting myself up for disappointment.

It’s an emotional roller coaster,

on which I climb to high heights and plummet to low lows,
sometimes in a matter of moments.

It's falling apart, pulling myself back together,
and setting myself up to fall apart all over again,

month after month, after month, after month, after month, after month...

It’s missing our babies, despite the fact that I only carried them for weeks,

and longing to embrace them just like every other parent I see!

It’s the isolation of invisible motherhood.

It’s the unrelenting battle for my faith. 

I wonder why God would intentionally begin a life, only to let it dissipate. 

It's easy to distrust him and distance myself. 

Thankfully, he doesn’t let go.

It’s continually fighting off the lies that God doesn’t see us, 

doesn’t honor our marriage, or doesn’t see us as capable parents.

It’s stepping into social situations and wondering 

if the full arms and expectant bellies all around me will trigger me into tears. 

It's feeling like death incarnate 

while being caught up in a parade of fertility, bursting with life and music. 

It’s having to fight for my relationshipsbecause I feel the sting of loss and struggle when I see my pregnant friends
and friends who are young parents. 

It’s asking God “WHY ME?” 

and then feeling stupid when I end up asking myself 

“Why not me?”

It’s a battle that I’m kind of glad we’re fighting, 

because I know it's doing something aside from adding depth and beauty to our story.

1 in 8 couples deal with infertility. 

We aren't alone. 

It's someone else you know.

The Golden Uterus has Spoken! Seeing a Specialist

The same day I buried our April baby, my best friend told me that she thought she was miscarrying as well. She lost her baby, and we were able to be broken-hearted together. When we were ready, we started to try again and we kept each other updated on our cycles. It was a strange gift, and I think we both felt less alone when all of the Fall pregnancy announcements were made.

By February 2017, my best friend had texted me with her happy news! I felt excited, and I had hope that even though it wasn't a successful cycle for us, that we would be pregnant together very soon, just like we'd always dreamed!

Despite all my hope, church started to get really hard. One of my friends who made their pregnancy announcement in the Fall was growing a sweet little bump. As soon as I noticed, I cried (like, embarrassing out loud sobbing that couldn't stop) through an entire service. More and more, the painful reminders of what we had lost were everywhere. It felt like wherever we went, we were the only childless or not pregnant couple in the room. 

As 2 more months of unsuccessful trying went by, hope felt a lot less like consistent comfort, perspective, and peace, and felt more like the thing that consistently strung me along and left me to bleed. 

Even though at the beginning of each cycle I was convinced I shouldn't get my hopes up, they were back up and soaring by the end of each cycle! I was so sure that each one was "the one". 

When my dreams of having our "little turkey" or "little butterball" around Thanksgiving 2017 were gobbled up by reality (See what I did there?), I finally felt desperate enough to call a doctor and get some help. We started seeing a fertility specialist on March 23rd.

Despite knowing that it meant I would have to do some of my least favorite things, (make phone calls, see doctors, get blood work and invasive tests done, etc.) I felt at ease knowing that they would check my hormone and progesterone levels and Rob's swimmers, make sure my uterus was in good shape, find out if I was ovulating properly, and that they would want to know ASAP if I got pregnant so that they could monitor everything! It felt like a big step in the right direction.

That Monday, it was time for the blood work to test my hormone levels. Being someone who HATES giving blood, this was a memorable experience.

Rob, being the sweet husband that he is, drove me to the Quest office. When it was my time, the nurse took me back, saying "We've got a lot to draw, honey!". She started grabbing hand fulls of viles. Right as I thought she HAD to be done, she said she had to get some more from another room! Another nurse walked by, saw all of the viles and gasped.

The nurse came back with the rest of the viles and asked me if I would pass out. Before I could finish the word "Probably!", she got me out of the little desk and asked me to lay down on a bed in the room. She prepped my arm and talked to me through the whole draw. I talked about my fondant job, my husband, my ring, how my bedroom used to be the same lime green color as the interior of the room, and who knows what else! I really ran my mouth, which is not something that I do normally. It wasn't so bad and it seemed to be over relatively quickly. I felt like a rock star when I walked out of there without passing out! They took 15 VILES!

Over the last year, we had lost both of my Mommoms. One of the thoughts that got me through the blood work was wanting to make my Mom into a Mommom, since a life without Mommoms just felt wrong. Our family was way overdue for some good news, and I dreamed of bringing joy to my grieving parents, siblings, and Poppop at the Easter table that year. Success at this cycle meant a December baby, which I joked I would lovingly refer to as "Baby Bertha Jessie Smith" in memory of my Mommoms, who were both born in December! 

Despite these joyful thoughts, I felt the weight of all of the sorrow. My life seemed to have turned into a perfect pattern of miscarriage, struggle to conceive, loss in the family, and more struggle to conceive. It was hard not to look around me and compare this season of grief and struggle to the lively and effortlessly happy seasons all of my friends seemed to be in.

Instead of making a pregnancy announcement that Easter, I made appointments for more blood work and another uncomfortable and bloody babyless ultrasound. The specialist talked me through the whole ultrasound and found plentiful eggs! On the day after Easter, Rob made love to a plastic cup and I had dye shot through my uterus. 

Egg hunts and uterus dying - A little too hilariously appropriate for Easter.

The HSG test was uncomfortable, but I have to admit it was pretty neat to watch the x-ray screen and watch the golden yellow colored dye flow through my (wonky looking) uterus! I'm guessing that many women don't get to see what their uterus looks like, nor have such an opportunity to go by the name of "the golden uterus". 

Take that, fertile Myrtles!

The specialist told us to make sure we definitely try after the HSG test, because it's common to get pregnant after it since it can "clean out" a uterus. I did some premature calculating on the pregnancy app (like I always do!) and discovered that success for that cycle meant that I would not only know I was pregnant by Mother's Day, but I would be due just a few days before my 30th birthday! Hopes and dreams danced in my head!

When the test results came in, everything looked pretty good. Rob's swimmers were healthy, and I had plenty of eggs. The problem? It seems I put the "late" in "ovulate". While my eggs were maturing, they weren't releasing as they should, from what I gathered. The specialist told us that I had a mild case of PCOS and a hypoactive thyroid. 

The hypoactive thyroid thing made total sense to me since the thyroid produces the hormones that are needed for ovulation and for supporting a pregnancy. It felt a little sad to know that my body could have been the thing that failed our babies.

I felt at ease as the specialist went through the possible future steps with us. He prescribed Levothyroxine to replace the hormones my thyroid wasn't producing enough of, as well as Clomid to help me ovulate. I started the Levothyroxine right away, and kept the Clomid prescription for a rainy day, knowing that it would mean more frequent visits to the specialist once I started it.

April 24th 2017

Expectancy, pain, and the sense of love and pride that come with motherhood were things I imagined I would feel on April 24th, 2017. 

It may not be in the way I wanted, but I still feel all of those things today. 

To my April baby,

I sat beside your grave today.
I arranged a little bouquet of flowers (and probably some weeds.. Only the prettiest though!) and placed them there.

Today was our estimated due date. At about this time, we would have held you in our arms and fallen deeper in love with you. You were our rainbow baby. Friends and family would have flocked to our sides to meet you and hold you and celebrate you. 

But instead, I sat under the tulip tree grieving your loss all alone. I think about the love and pride I have for you, and can only imagine how it would multiply if I got to see your sweet face and hold you in my arms, just like every other mommy I know. Our story is painfully different, and even though I know I'm not the only mommy with empty arms, it sure feels like it.

It's so hard to grieve your loss. It's my best guess that God intentionally and lovingly knit you together in my womb. That he gave you to us, but let you slip away from us for reasons I don't understand and struggle with on a regular basis.
Maybe you're with your big brother or sister, Poppop, Grampy, and both of my Mommoms.
I'm sure that if that's the case, you're getting plenty of loving attention and that you're in the best place you can be. 

I won't ever forget you and the short time we had together. I'm so proud of the fact that you existed. Even though I won't know you in this lifetime, I'm happy to carry you in my heart.

Somehow as I sat beside your grave today, I felt more thankfulness instead of sadness and anger. I know friends are praying for my hardened heart and believe that God is doing something through you. You have taught me to fight. You have given me the opportunity to fall in love with God all over again.

Rob came home with a surprise for us today.

You are still my pride and joy, although in a different way than I expected. 

Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet

A friend of mine lent me this book by Sara Hagerty. I wanted to remember the things that stuck out to me.


REMEMBER:

"Grief's tide can't be predicted."

Don't naively assume that those proclaiming the truths of God in song can more easily do so because they have what you want.

"Fear makes life small."

"You can't eat yesterday's bread today."

Your struggle is not on your circumstance. It is about your perspective on God.
You can get a lot of ideas about God that aren't actually God's ideas about God. 
Your prayers can feel rote because of how you see the one to whom you're praying. Then with each successive layer of circumstantial pain, new false ideas of God that you carry become unearthed.

When you are caught in a mind trap, this is your time to hold his word up against the "truth" you've contrived. 

Relief will be found while you hold your toxic thoughts up to his beauty day after day.

To know God as healer is a relationship, not a moment.

God never intends for us to ask, "who are you in this pain?" only once. He wants us to make a habit out of coming near. Think of a child who runs to their parent after being stung by a bee, and how a parent longs for that. He wants us to run toward him, in expectation, when we are stung. 

Hope requires a true view of God, and that true view of God is not natural. It is from him.

Your life isn't a series of rewards for doing things "right". They are strung-together surprises that continue to speak more of who he is.

You can grow comfortable bracing yourself for the worst. It feels safe. Negativity can have a hold on your soul.

WAYS TO FIGHT:

Hope when it doesn't make sense. 

Seek God with your heart when your flesh wants to run.

Pray "There has to be more of you, God, than what I'm understanding."

Sit before him when you're waiting or dissappointed. Ask the questions that a little girl would ask her daddy when life isn't what she expected. It will make it all the more easy to go there again if another month passes and your womb is still empty.

Adore him! Adoration calls the circumstances no matter how high or low, into proper submission in our hearts. It steadies us. It repatterns our thinking. It centers our lives around a God-man through the lenses of our circumstances. Adoration aligns us under him. This is the place where life is found.

Pray "show me yourself as healer" 

instead of "why haven't you healed me?"

Pray "show me the daddy side of you" 

instead of "why aren't you daddy to me?"

Pray "show me yourself as comforter of those in pain" 

instead of "why all the pain?"

Respond with trust. Lean. Rest peacefully in what God COULD do but hasn't done.

When your flesh is telling you that God is toying with you, ask "could there be yet more of him to know?"

Be set on finding the sweetness of him waiting inside what the world calls bitter.

GIFTS AND PROMISES:

Without the bittnerness, we would never appreciate the sweetness.

He gave you a story to tell.
Your mess won't forever be a curse. One day it would be your crown. One day it would tell the story that he is good... to you.

You'll dance on this. This isn't your darkest hour, but your best.

These moments aren't stolen. They are purposed for a different kind of receiving.

Hope, and how it draws me to him, means that not one of those minutes curled up in pain was lost and not one of those negative pregnancy tests (or in my case, even the 16 positive ones that didn't end with a full term pregnancy) was wasted.

He shares with you the reproach you carry. He knows that it will one day be a crown, not through new circumstances but through a new heart. In your barrennes you will know God as the give of good gifts. Before your body ever holds another's heartbeat inside of it, he will give you life.

You are a different woman than the one you had been before your life unraveled, because God had become to you a different God than the one you'd contrived him to be when it was working as it should.

Winter and Spring: He is healer in both.

Unseasonable Warmth

I was actually dreading the coming of Spring this year.

I pictured nature bursting into life and feeling trolled, since our baby was supposed to be born in this season as well!

Today on February 23rd it was sunny and about 70 degrees outside, but instead of feeling the sense of dread and resentfulness I thought I would feel, I felt like nature was preaching to me and offering me hope.



It's still Winter. It has been a darker season than usual. The air has been bitter and cold, and the hardened earth doesn't seem capable of receiving and nurturing new life.

But we didn't have to wait for Winter to be over before we felt the warmth of Spring.

I don't want to wait until God "seems" good to me to believe that he IS good to me.

Before I feel the joy of expectancy in my body again, I want to praise him.

The time for light, for warmth, and for growth is now.
Right now, in the Winter.