Our Miracle

I realize it has been a long time since my last post. But it is finally time to share our news. The Clomid and HCG we tried in January worked, and by the grace of God, I feel so incredibly blessed to say these words that I had all but given up hope of saying: I AM PREGNANT!

If you look at my recent posts, you can see that we really did not think this Clomid plan would work. I don't know if the doctor was right or wrong when he gave us an 8% chance, but even if he was off, our baby is nothing short of a miracle. We were absolutely shocked but absolutely delighted when I finally got that positive pregnancy test in February. To tell the truth, we were not sure if we would try this again the next month. We had discussed adoption, thought through strategies for financing adoption, and I had filled out the preliminary application for the adoption agency. We agreed that after this cycle we would mail in the application. I can't believe how amazing God's timing is!

I have just been overwhelmed these past two months by how good, loving, and amazing is our God! I want to say I trusted Him every step of the way, but that would be a lie. Despite my imperfect faith and my imperfect trust, God has chosen to bless us with this incredible gift of a baby. God really is good. Even when we give up, He never does. Words cannot express what I'm feeling, but this I know for sure. God is good. All the time. Regardless of how crazy, dark, or uncertain our lives may seem, God always loves us, and He is always good. This may sound easy to say now, when God has answered my prayers, but honestly, this would be true and is true whether God answers my prayers today, tomorrow, or never. He is good. And He loves us so much! And Jonathan and I are incredibly blessed by His goodness to be expecting our miracle baby in October.

My Prayer

This probably goes without saying, but my husband and I have been praying that God would allow us to start a family for years now. My prayers have evolved, though, over that time-frame. In the beginning the prayer was always that I would be pregnant. Today I pray for a child. I used to pray that my husband and I would make a baby together. Now I pray that we would have a baby to hold and love and raise. I can honestly say in all seriousness that I do not care if I get pregnant or if we adopt. I do not care. I would love any baby that was mine to love, and whether or not we're genetically related doesn't matter. Does this mean that I don't want to be pregnant or that I wouldn't be absolutely ecstatic to be pregnant? No, of course not! I would LOVE to be pregnant more than almost anything! But what I would love even more would be to have a baby. One way or another. However God sees fit to give one.

This month I took Clomid, my doctor did some monitoring, and a few days ago I took an HCG trigger shot to help me ovulate. It's a lot more than we've ever been able to try before. And although it still doesn't give us good odds, I have been more hopeful than I've been any month in a year. I am so excited at just the possibility that this might happen for us and we might have a baby. And getting to be pregnant - that would be a bonus!

But as I've prayed for a baby this month, I find myself asking not "Please let this work and let me get pregnant" but rather "Please help us start our family soon, in whatever way you have planned for us." We have talked about adoption and are going to an information meeting with Bethany Christian Services next week, just to start to educate ourselves and explore possibilities. I have started to get really excited about adopting, and I truly mean it when I say that at this point, any way God sees fit to expand our family is fine with me! Jonathan and I have already decided that no matter what happens in the short term, we really do want to adopt some day. Only God knows what He has in store for us, but I am excited for whatever it is and my prayer is that it will happen soon.

I do appreciate the thoughts and prayers of all my family and friends. If you read this, please pray for us that God would expand our family, that His plan for us would be greater than our plans for ourselves, that we would have some direction and idea of how we will grow our family soon, and of course, that we would be able to be patient in the meantime.

A Plan?

Well, we kind of have a plan. For now we will be trying Clomid. It isn't overly expensive, and it might work, so really there is no good reason not to try the medication route. It does involve a little more than I originally thought it would, but if this ends up being it for us, it will be so very worth it.

You would think that it would feel good to have a game plan, but honestly my heart isn't in it. I still want a baby so much, but I am so tired of trying. It is just so discouraging every single month. Even when I work really hard at not being hopeful, I can't help but get my hopes up a little bit, and it always leads to disappointment. After over 18 months of disappointment after disappointment, I am really feeling done. I just don't want to try any more. I realize that this sounds like I'm depressed - I'm really not. I just don't feel like putting the emotional effort into trying this new Clomid plan. Because statistically speaking, it will probably fail, and I will just have to survive through more months of disappointment.

But on the positive side, I really believe that we will have a baby soon one way or another. We have talked a lot about what we are going to do if this doesn't work, and we have decided for sure that we will not do IVF. This means that there really isn't a lot left to try - since IUI is not going to be productive and IVF is off the table, this medication route is really the last option. Once we have tried this we are going to move on to considering adoption. And really, I am very, very excited about that idea!