So I have been avoiding blogging for the past year or so. But for a few reasons:
The first reason is that with this very long and exhausting season I'm in, it feels rather Debbie downer and drab if you will. You get tired of giving the same old answer and sad story of how the expensive fertility treatments are not working and how it's just adding to the stress, frustration and heart break. You start to feel like a sad broken record.
Another reason to avoid blogging was that I felt like I was admitting defeat with blogging again before getting pregnant. It felt like or rather feels like I'm admitting to the world or even myself that I'm still in this season of waiting and not understanding. It's a refining season filled with hardships, unknowns and waiting. Lots of waiting. Too much waiting.
Obviously in a season like this you feel more sensitive and perceptive to what's going on around you. You see some other people going through their own struggles, and also lots of people NOT struggling. Like at all... Like freaks of nature. Waiting AND feeling like an outsider are not my jam.
One thing I've had to come to grips with is how ugly and broken my own heart can be. I've been so judgmental of so many people, I've said things I never thought I would say about people and I've said them out loud (I need Jesus for real). I've seen just how selfish I am in an entirely new light. Yuck. Like who wants to be that girl?! But here I am... That girl. I cringe at the anticipation of pregnancy announcements from EVERYONE. (To be fair, and give myself some credit here, I get over the sting after a little bit of time and can be just as excited for them as I would have been before all this). I've learned to just move on, because what else am I going to do? None of it is in my control anyways, so why sit around and mope about it?
One thing I had said over and over (before this became such a long drawn out process) was that I didn't want to be jealous or upset when others got pregnant. I didn't want to hold back tears at others excitement. I didn't want to feel any other emotion but excitement. I definitely didn't want to feel jealousy, devastation or anger...
And it's hard not to be mad at God for this. To say that I'm not or haven't been would be such a lie. I very specifically prayed and asked for this not to happen. But I'm here in the present emotion no matter how hard I try.
BUT please know that if you're my friend, acquaintance, friend of a friend or whatever that I truly am, from the bottom of my heart, happy and excited for you. The emotion that has come before was, and is, never a reflection of you but rather of where I'm at in this journey. I pray for friends to have babies. I pray for healthy pregnancies and births. I pray because I am not a hateful, angry and sad person. But my heart is broken from this world so when I pray for you and your babies I pray for my broken heart to heal through you. Sounds so churchy and cheesy but so far so good, so I will stick to Jesus.
As awful as this season has been for me it's also been a season for God showing up when I least deserved or expected it. I've seen God provide for us through people in the most extravagant and mind blowing ways. His love and provision are so abundant in my life. But if I'm being honest which is the point of this right? I've been struggling with feeling His presence lately, which just makes me feel really guilty (and sound a little off my rocker, right?) Like how can I say that I don't feel His presence when we've had friends, family, our employers and strangers give their time, money and support? I've seen God move in these mysteriously beautiful ways but I feel like He's avoiding me? That doesn't make sense!!! Even writing that, it sounds a little off and instantly the guilt takes over. I feel like I can't say that, or at the very least shouldn't say it out loud.
I'm constantly begging, and crying out loud asking God for a very specific miracle and instead He gives me all these other unexplainable gifts. Like ok Lord, I hear you. Your time and your plan not mine. I get it. I hear you loud and clear. BUT... Can we just be on the same page now? Can I get pregnant already?! Do I have to wait any longer? Spend any more money?
Oh wait I know the answer to that one... You've got it covered. Remember that whole "He's given us unexplainable gifts through people" thing Mollie? Yeah... About that.
So we are about to do IVF. The $30,000 procedure we wouldn't go in debt for and I said we(aka me), would NEVER EVER do (because deep down I'm selfish and I put limitations on a limitless God). Ha!
Funny thing about putting God in a box is He shows up in out of the box ways. Not only were we gifted an all-expenses paid round of IVF but we had all of our personal moral questions about IVF explained and taken care of. Is this real life? My life?!
We started with a new doctor, which was exciting and scary. We LOVED our old doctor and miss him but this new guy is seriously amazing. He simply looked at all my medical and genetic history and questioned everything I've ever been told. He is testing to be sure but believes I have endometriosis (advanced stages of course because it was misdiagnosed for pcos years ago).
But with that new diagnosis comes relief. Finally we have an answer as to why all those expensive medications and treatments didn't work, despite the timing of those treatments and meds all looking literally perfect but not working. Of course the downside is, that this diagnosis comes with more questions as to what is going on with my body, what will my future look like outside of trying to have children, and what's next.
So We are currently running tests to make sure IVF will not only work but, if so, then what's next. This week I had my Fallopian tubes tested, blood work, and baseline ultrasound (which is just making sure my uterus is doing what it's suppose to do at the beginnings of my cycle).
So far so good.
But on to a few more tests for both Stefan and I, and eventually medications to start harvesting eggs, fertilizing said eggs, freezing used eggs and implanting in the hopes of finally becoming pregnant.
Timing for us is a little crazy, not that it was less crazy before necessarily. But with Stefan in school, a new side job for me, AND having a teenager who wants to drive, it's a little overwhelming. As of now our plan is to wait until the fall to start the IVF treatments, but let's be real here no part of our two year four month journey has been on our timing or within our plan so who knows exactly when or how this will go.
I feel really optimistic about it all, but also very nervous. Through this whole journey I've had a lot of anxiety, some of it is fairly normal or rational but some of it is just bizarre and hard to explain. Like baby names, Stefan and I can only agree on a very select few names and I've been super anxious about people (all 100,000 of my friends or Acquaintances who are pregnant or just had babies) will "take" one of those precious few names. Well it happened.. So there's that! One more fear come to the light, but also out of the way.
I'm surprised it's taken this long to happened and honestly a small part of me is relieved because I'm not nearly as worried that the next pregnant person will love that name as much as I do. And It's whatever! but just know that when the day finally comes and I can name my own baby that if it's your kids name I promise I didn't "steal" the name, or copy you, it just took me much longer than expected to finally be able to name a sweet baby the name I've been dreaming of.
So onto the next part of our journey. With great hope placed in the God who knows my selfish judgmental heart but chose me anyway. I plan to spend more energy focusing on His love and plan for us and less on my anxiety and fears.
Also friends please just pray for us. Stefan has been such a trooper putting up with and helping me through all of this. Physically I'm not the woman he married, or emotionally. Sometimes for the better but most of the time not. This man deserves a damn medal for staying married to this tornado of a woman. But even more so now, between hormone highs and lows, that Phifs (he loves when I call him that) has loved me through thick and thin, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. And praise Jesus for that.
I couldn't have survived as long as I have without Jesus, Stefan, family and our community. So let me hold your babies and feed you dinner friends! Love you.
