“I will be
a mom someday” is the note I posted on my bathroom mirror the day I
decided to finally let God have control of my pain, despair and
emptiness. See, I’m a control freak; typical, type A, sometimes
bossy personality (just ask my 2 younger sisters and my hubby). But
this particular day, I had to let go.
When my
husband and I got married in 2000, we never imagined we would
struggle with infertility. After three failed attempts at
insemination and watching my sister and many of my cousins get
pregnant with ease, I found myself at the bottom of the barrel;
resenting every woman in the world who carried a baby. Heck, I’d
even stopped going to family functions because the anguish of seeing
all the new babies and growing bellies each holiday ripped more of my
heart into pieces. Resentment and self-pity weren’t very conducive
to family functions. The pain had become a physical one, deep inside
me, that heavily weighed me down.
Why was God
doing this to me? Why was He doing this to someone who wanted a baby
SO badly that it consumed every moment of my life; every breath. It
robbed me of sleep.
Some people
spend thousands of dollars and years of their lives dealing with
infertility (and believe me, I get it) but that just wasn’t for me.
I was emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained after only a
few months. I couldn’t endure more hormone shots, ultrasounds,
blood work, night sweats, uncontrollable outbursts or disappointment
when I got another negative pregnancy test. I was toast. I knew
adoption was what I wanted.
My husband
was not so sure, unfortunately. It is a huge leap of faith to take in
another person’s baby as your own. Will it feel like a real family?
Will I love it as much as a biological child? Is adoption just a
back-up plan and therefore giving up too soon? I’m sure all these
thoughts were running through his mind but not mine! I never
hesitated for a second after we got the last negative pregnancy test.
I often joked that I would’ve accepted a cyclops. It didn’t
matter. I just wanted a baby, any baby, in my arms. For me, it was
God’s will for building our family, no doubt. And it didn’t take
long for me to change my husband’s mind. Remember, I’m
controlling…I mean convincing.
So
fast-forward eighteen months or so. I’m in the baby’s nursery, as
I was every day. We were told that preparing the nursery could be
therapy for waiting parents. Not so much for me, though. The waiting
was killing me. Our adoption paperwork had been completed and
approved months ago! I was still so empty, just like this nursery. I
would hold all the gifts we’d received, stare at the empty crib and
flip through all the books I intended to read to my little one. But
this one day,
something different happened. All of a sudden, tears flooded my face
and I buried it into the nursery carpet. I submitted myself and my
pain to God. I told him, yelled at him actually, that I was so tired
– tired of being angry and empty. I couldn’t control this
situation any longer. Then I heard His voice in my head. “You WILL
be a mom someday.” The word, will, was the key. It was going to
happen, He’d just promised me. But only He knew when. I had to
trust Him! I had turned my angry back on Him. I had blamed Him.
So at that
moment, I handed Him the steering wheel that I had a death grip on. I
marched down to my bathroom where I displayed His personal message on
my mirror to read each morning. A huge peace filled me and His
comfort took the place where despair once resided.
Only a few,
short weeks later, we got the call from our case-worker that our baby
girl was ready. She had been chosen as ours long before the creation
of the world. But I had been too blinded by anger and blame to
realize that I couldn’t welcome a baby that hadn’t been born!
And then
twenty months later, we were suddenly gifted our second daughter. We
weren’t at all planning on another baby but once again, the Lord
already had it all planned. He knew my two beautiful girls, now nine
and ten, were the perfect fit for our family. He created them and
knit them together so perfectly inside another woman’s womb. How
could I have ever doubted Him? But that too, was part of His perfect
plan. What He wanted me to learn that unforgettable day, is that
everything is in His immaculate timing. All He wants is for us to
rely on our faith and trust Him no matter what our circumstances are.
April
Elder
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