30 Weeks

As of Thursday this past week, I'm officially 30 weeks pregnant.

Taken at 29 weeks.

On many days I still can't believe this is happening for me. How can such a wonderful blessing really be mine? How is it possible that two months from now I could be holding my daughter in my arms? How can God be so good and loving and gracious to me?

I feel her move regularly now, often throughout the day. I don't know if it's just my perception or not, but I feel like she's already developing so much personality! Sometimes I think I feel her foot (or some appendage) pressed up against my side, but when I feel it she immediately pulls it away. She's so sneaky! Every move she makes in there feels adorable to me. I don't know how to describe it, but I already know she's cute because her little movements feel so precious and sweet!

I already love her so much and I just wish there was more I could do for her right now. I know that she's just in there growing, and there's not a lot I can do for her beyond eating well, resting, and waiting for her to be ready to come out, but I just feel like that isn't enough. I feel the need to get everything ready and have it all together before she gets here. Hopefully I can do that! But there is still so much that needs to be done. I need to pick a pediatrician, we need to get her furniture and get the rooms rearranged. There just feels like there's so much to do!

And yet I'm sitting here on a Saturday and I can't call pediatricians because they're all closed on weekends, and we don't have any furniture yet so I can't arrange that... I'm just sitting here, waiting. I definitely feel the urge to nest, but there's nothing I can do today. So I'm just sitting here, feeling her move around in there, waiting...

But as I sit here waiting, I feel so very blessed. God has been so incredibly good to me. I know how much I struggled to understand why before I got pregnant. And I know that I didn't always trust God to answer my prayers. I didn't know if he would give me this incredible gift or not. And I still don't know why. I don't know why we struggled, and I don't know why our prayers were answered. I don't know why I have been blessed in this way while others continue to wait. I know that life is never fair. But today, I am so happy. Today I feel my daughter moving, kicking, poking and prodding at me, and I can't stop thinking of this verse:

"For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me the desires of my heart." ~ 1 Samuel 1:27

Words fail me. How can I ever express how grateful I am, or how incredibly blessed I feel?

Ask, Seek, Knock

This Sunday in church the gospel reading was Luke 11:1-13. As we read it in church, and during the sermon, I got to thinking a lot about this passage, especially the verses about "Ask and it will be given to you." I feel like this passage has always been hard for me to understand, so I thought I'd take a minute to explore it here.

 Luke 11:1-13

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” ² And he said to them,“When you pray, say:“Father, hallowed be your name.Your kingdom come.³ Give us each day our daily bread,⁴ and forgive us our sins,    for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.And lead us not into temptation.”⁵ And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; ⁷ and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? ⁸ I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. ⁹ And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ¹¹ What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; ¹² or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

This passage is all about prayer and persistence in prayer.  I know that during our journey through infertility (and even before that in other areas of life) I have been absolutely perplexed by passages like this. I feel like I grew up just hearing verses 9 and 10 in isolation from the rest of the passage and they never made any sense. It sure sounded to me like God would give me anything I asked for. If you add in verses 5-8, it makes it sound like you can wear God down by persistent prayer. Like if you annoy Him enough He will give you whatever you want just to get you to shut up. I never really understood that.

Everyone has heard some variation of this concept - "God always answers prayer one way or another. He either says 'yes,' 'no,' or 'later.'" I never really understood why people said this. Is that supposed to be reassuring? I suppose the intent is to communicate that God always hears every prayer, regardless of whether or not He gives you specifically what you prayed for. And it is important to trust that God knows best and not try to determine for yourself exactly what way in which you expect God to answer your prayer. But the really hard thing about prayer, especially when you feel that your prayers are not being answered, is that at the time and in the moment, there is no way to tell the difference between God saying "no" and God saying "later." How are we supposed to know that? All too often we pray and we pray and we pray for the one thing that we want more than anything else, and all we hear is the absence of that yes that we are waiting for. If we knew for sure that God was saying, "later" it would be much easier to wait! But then we wouldn't have to trust Him.

I think this passage is easier to understand when taken in context. If we look at the beginning, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him to teach them to pray. Jesus proceeded with the Lord's Prayer, which we all know so well that we sometimes forget to look at it and what Jesus is really teaching here. Jesus doesn't say that we should start with the thing we want most and repeatedly ask God for it over and over and over until we get it (or until we give up and decide that God isn't listening and doesn't care about us). There is so much packed into this prayer that we could really dig in all day, but just looking at two things for now, Jesus prays, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (I realize that this isn't in this particular recounting, but it is in Matthew's account.) And then He goes on, "Give us this day our daily bread." This is praying for just our bare needs - not what we want more than anything, but what we need. Not "Give us this day cake, ice cream, and all things delicious."

In verse 8 this is reiterated, "Because of his impudence, he will rise up and give him whatever he needs." Not whatever he desires. Whatever he needs. Now we get to, "And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened." And look at the end of the passage - this is the best part. "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" This is wonderfully reassuring. It speaks of God's love for us. If we know how to give good things to our earthly children, how very much more God must love us! And the Holy Spirit, which creates saving faith in our hearts, is the ultimate gift that God can give. Surely God loves us very much indeed, and does wish to answer our prayers and give us good gifts. But what He really wants is to give us the greatest gift of all - the gift that Christ died so that we could have - faith in Him and eternal life with Him forever.

I think that's the context for this passage. And in that light "ask and it shall be given to you" and all that makes sense. If God is talking about his Holy Spirit, of course He desires and promises to give it to all of us. But I think that we can also take reassurance from this passage that God desires to give us good things. James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above."

This baby that I am carrying is a wonderful gift and a miracle from God. She is also a beautiful and long-awaited answer to prayer. When I was praying every day for God to give me a child, I felt confused at why God would not answer my prayer. Wasn't God the one that told us to have children? Doesn't the Bible only ever talk about children as the greatest blessing? I felt sure that God's will was that I would have children because children and families are God's idea, and part of His design. So I couldn't figure out why God would answer "no" to my prayer. As it turned out God didn't answer "no" forever. But I did need to trust God that even if I didn't ever have my own children, that God would answer my prayer and longing in one way or another. I know that God does love me, I know that He does desire to give me good things, and I know that God loves families. This world we live in isn't perfect, but that isn't God's fault. We did that. It doesn't always make sense, especially when we are in the thick of one struggle or another. But we can count on God's promise that He will be there and He will answer our prayers.

And instead of praying for exactly what we think we need and nothing else, let's echo the disciples and say, "Lord, teach us to pray."

Blessings and Paradoxes

Pregnancy is full of paradoxes.

On one hand I cannot remember ever being happier than I am these days. I love our little one more every day, and I feel closer to her with every little kick and movement and with each ultrasound. She is such a sweetheart already! On the other hand I feel uncomfortable all the time. I understand now why women complain about pregnancy. It's just not always fun!

On one hand I want it to be October NOW! I want her to be born and to get to hold her and see her. But on the other hand I feel like there's no way we'll be ready by October. There's so many things we need and so many things to do.

Whenever I feel the urge to complain I try to remember how much I wanted her and what a wonderful blessing she is. And whenever I start feeling impatient I think about how four months is a very definite and short period of time to wait compared to how indefinite and hopeless waiting to conceive can feel. I know I've heard several women say that they didn't like how with pregnancy you never know when the baby is going to come and it makes it so hard to wait. I'm sure there's truth to that, but compared to never knowing if you're even going to have a baby, waiting for a baby to come is nothing. I mean, she will come eventually! I may not know a day, but I can say with confidence, "She'll be here before November." That is not indefinite at all! (I know I may regret saying that when I'm 30-some weeks pregnant and much more uncomfortable than I am now, but it's still true.)

I may not be in a place quite yet where I can honestly thank God for our struggles with infertility. I may get there someday - I don't know. But I am definitely thankful for the perspective our journey has given me and how much it helps me to not take this blessing for granted. I'm not saying that I've been perfect at this, or that I've never in a moment of weakness complained to Jonathan. I have. But I do know that every single discomfort and every day of waiting is 100% worth it, and I am so blessed to have the opportunity to go through this experience.

This is how I know it will all be worth it:

Look at how beautiful she is! I am so in love already!

Despite every discomfort, I am feeling incredibly joyful and incredibly blessed these days. God has been very good to us!

Half Way There!

This past Thursday marked 20 weeks, which I realize isn't technically the half-way point of pregnancy, but it still counts as the honorary half-way mark. I can't believe how fast time flies! I'm sure that this is just the beginning of feeling this way and time will continue to go by faster and faster, but I am so excited to meet our Little One in October. Words cannot describe my excitement and impatience, and I'm sure it will just get worse!

Also this week, we had our 20 week ultrasound on Tuesday, and discovered that Baby is a little GIRL!!! We are both so thrilled! Of course, we would have been very happy either way, but I think just knowing boy or girl makes me feel closer to her. I love being able to say "she" and "her" and I feel like I know her a little bit better now. It was so exciting to see her on the ultrasound too!

Everything is looking great so far, which is so comforting to hear. She was hiding a bit, though, and the ultrasound tech was not able to see everything she needed to see. Her head was deep down in my pelvis and the tech couldn't see her face or brain and only got a limited view of her heart. So I get another ultrasound in three weeks when I go back for my next appointment. But I'm not worried - there was no indication that anything was abnormal; they just couldn't get a look at everything they like to see. So hopefully Little Girl will show us her beautiful  face at the next appointment. I wonder if she's stubborn, or just shy!

Obviously we weren't able to get great pictures with her hiding like that, but here is the best one we got:

She was measuring on schedule - they couldn't get a length but she was approximately 10 ounces and her heartbeat was 144 bpm. I know she may just look like a baby to the rest of the world, but I think she's absolutely adorable, and I can't wait to meet her! 

Jonathan and I went out today to buy her something cute and pink. It turns out that I am very picky when it comes to shopping for my daughter. (Anyone who has shopped with me shouldn't be surprised - I'm really picky about my own clothes, too!) There are so many tacky, ugly, or just not cute enough clothes out there. All I want is for my daughter to have adorable, comfortable, classy clothes with no tacky messages or cartoon characters. I know I'll find enough clothes for her eventually, though. I just have to keep looking! Here are some cute onesies we did find:

Aren't they sweet? I can't wait to meet my daughter in about 4.5 months! I am feeling incredibly blessed today.

Mother's Day

Today on Mother's Day I just want to take a minute to acknowledge all the women out there for whom this day is especially difficult. I know last year Mother's Day was a very hard day for me, and I know that for many others, Mother's Day can be much, much harder.

Last year Mother's Day came right after the 1 year of TTC mark. It was a hard time, because I knew that having a baby was not happening for us the way it was supposed to, but at that point I had no answers and no idea if it would ever happen, how it would happen, or how long I would have to wait. I know that this year would have been even harder for me if it weren't for our miracle little one that we are expecting.

But some women have been through so much more than I have, and I know my experience is only a taste of what they have been through. Some have lost babies, before or after their birth, and some have been trying or struggling with infertility for many years. There are many reasons why Mother's Day can be a hard day for many women, and I just want to acknowledge that. There is very little that we can do to make this day easier, but for those of us who have been blessed with children, just acknowledging how blessed we are to be mothers does help somewhat. Never take the gift of parenthood for granted.



Since it is Mother's Day today, I also want to acknowledge and thank God for my wonderful mother, who has been an immeasurable blessing in my life. I think about what a wonderful example she has set for me, how much time and energy she poured into raising me, and how she is still to this day always there for me, even when we are hundreds of miles apart. I remember when I was a pre-teen and young teenager living in the fear that I would turn into my mother. Now, I pray that I do. I hope that I can be even close to as good of a mother as my mom is. Mom, I love you!