Another plan

I'm not the best planner. Most of my life has happened despite of me, not due to my extraordinary efforts. But as a child and young adult, I did have an image of what I expected my life to be.



I planned to meet my husband in college. I planned to get married right after graduation. I planned to have a nice job in the city and a nice house in the suburbs. I planned to get pregnant exactly when I was ready and to have two or three kids before I was 30.



Oh yeah, I planned.



Of course, this plan was not the same one that God had in mind. No, I didn't find a husband in college. I found him 6 years later (or maybe he found me!). No, I didn't get married right after graduation. But Fred and I did decide to get engaged after dating for 3 weeks...and were married 13 months later. No, I didn't find a job in the city and the aforementioned house. I found a job in a small town where I've now made a life with my family.



And I most certainly did not get pregnant when planned.



We were open to children right away after we were married. I mean, we weren't spring chickens or anything (I was 28, Fred was 39) so we figured there was no reason to wait. After a couple of years I had some preliminary blood work and was told there was nothing wrong. I guess maybe I was just afraid of what we would find out, but I didn't pursue any additional medical help for several years. When we finally did meet with a reproductive endocrinologist, they signed us up for the usual round of tests. We were officially fertility challenged.



Some of the tests came back OK. Others came back with the worst possible news for that point in our treatment. We spent the next 18 months waiting, medicating, testing, and praying. It was not a barrel of monkeys. It was emotional, lonely, heartbreaking. We were surrounded by pregnancy - friends, family, coworkers, heck it even seemed that every person I saw at the grocery store was pregnant. As much as I wanted to be joyful for them, I struggled to be anything but selfishly sorrowful. I feared that my dream of a family was not meant to be.



I was barren. Not just in my womb, but also in my heart.



We knew we were nearing the end of our options, and started to think more seriously about adoption. After a lot of discussion and research, we decided to try just one more test. If that one didn't go well, that was our sign. It would be time to stop.



And time to stop it was. Pick an agency. Do the home study. Take the classes. Wait for the license. Bite nails off while waiting for responses from presentations. Cry. Wait. Butterflies. Pray. Cry some more.



Less than a year after stopping treatment, we got "the call." Two weeks later we had Alec in our arms.



I will never forget that moment.



I often tell Alec his adoption story. I tell him how he was placed in my arms for the very first time, and how I cried happy tears and whispered in his ear "Alec, I've waited so long for you...I'm your Mommy. And I love you." It was so wonderful. Words cannot do it justice, truly. Granted, I did think I was going to throw up from nervousness. I also realized when we brought him home two days later that I had never actually given a baby a bath. Alec noticed. He cried through the whole thing. He also pooped in the middle of the night, and we couldn't locate a diaper. Yes, we were a regular comedy of errors! None the less, we found our way over the next days and weeks.



That moment did not cure our infertility. But it did cure our childlessness. It cured my pain. Sometimes I wish that I could have gone through the pregnancy experience...but what I now know is that I would only have wanted to give birth to MY children. Alec and Cece. They are the children that God made Fred and I to parent.



And I couldn't be more blessed.