To be or not to be...

I feel like for the last 3 years I have been slowly trimming out a baby-shaped hole from my heart. Every month that goes by is another cut in the paper heart. To be or not to be...? That is the question.

Right before Thanksgiving, I felt like it was the next to last snip before the baby-shape falls out completely.

And I lost it.

A tragedy about finding out that you’re not pregnant each month is also finding this out during your most emotionally unstable time each month. How can you ever trust what you’re really feeling in those quiet, lonely hours and days?

So I waited.

I waited because part of me couldn’t handle processing the emotions that were attached to that final cut. I waited because I couldn’t trust them. I waited because I certainly couldn’t talk about them. I waited because I was surrounded by friends and family who were raising up beautiful children and learning new things about life and the Lord and family and I knew that was factoring somewhere into the equation of my sadness.

I waited because I had never felt more alone in my pain. Realistically, I had never actually felt this pain before.

This was the first month that I had felt pretty hopeless, a little like it actually wasn’t going to happen, a little like I needed to start living life without this possibility that children may someday be in our future. A little like I needed to make the final cut and be done with it, learning to live life with this baby-shaped hole forever in my heart. A little like I needed to mourn the loss of never knowing what it might be like to carry a child in pregnancy. A little like I needed to stop thinking about what sort of cute pregnancy announcement we would come up with to share with the world that a miracle had truly transpired.

I still haven’t known how to talk about it.

Not on a real gut-wrenching, this actually hurts my soul, type of talk about it. Maybe it’s because those moments are few and far between. Maybe it’s because I still sometimes don’t know if I want kids. And maybe because sometimes I do. And maybe because sometimes I’m scared that if I say I do and it never happens, where does that leave me?

I don’t know how to connect with others and I don’t know how to let them connect with me. Instead, I find myself keeping them at an arm’s length: they don’t/can’t/ won't understand. Because…how could they? One day I think I want kids. The next day I don't think I want kids. One day I really want kids. The next day I really don't want kids. My journey hasn't been one of constant longing or undeniable desire. In fact, most days, as this blog can attest, I am content and absolutely grateful for the way this life is going. 

But then there's that day.
A day where loss seems inevitable, where mourning seems necessary, where moving on and letting go seems most wise.

My husband scheduled an appointment at the fertility clinic.
I suppose some of you are thinking, finally.
And maybe that's true. I sometimes think it myself, while also a bit in denial that we're here at all. If nothing else, we're just looking for answers. We'll both get some tests done at the end of the month and figure out where we want to go from there, if there's anywhere to go from there.

And so here we are.
In place I didn't think we'd be, but trusting the Lord in it--no matter how it continues to go.

Would you pray for us?
For discernment?
For wisdom?
For us to continue trusting the Lord in where He has us in the possibility as parents (even if that looks like us not being parents, or adopting, or pursuing some other options with fertility treatments)?

I'd also love to hear more from any of you who have been on a similar journey. We're entering into unchartered territory and the unknown always feels a little...questionable. And I'd love to hear from those who haven't had children (whether by choice or not)...and how that process has been for you.

There's the latest with us when it comes to this infertility saga.

(I wish one blog post could also sum up the hundred of other things going on in our life that are also on our minds and hearts...but I'll save those for a rainy day).

Thanks for reading.
Thanks for caring.
Thanks for praying.

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