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It is with great joy that I introduce the newest member of our “family.” Zulma is a beautiful ten year old girl who lives in Guatemala. She has two brothers and two sisters and lives with her mom and her dad. Her dad is an agriculture worker, and her mom stays home to take care of the family.
Recently our family took the step of sponsoring a child — Zulma — through World Vision. Those who have been following this blog know of our trouble to have more children and our struggles with should we or shouldn’t we adopt (me wanting to, my husband not ready yet). Zulma is one answer to our prayer! We will be supporting her financially each month, but more importantly, we’ll be establishing a relationship with her through emails, letters, photos, and prayers. My daughter has always wanted a sister; now she has one. My husband and daughter are already dreaming up a time when we can go visit her.
Why World Vision? Well, for starters, our church partners with them. For another, 87% of all donations go directly to the children. One of my dear friends, Holly, told me about child sponsorship over a year ago. I never forgot her shining eyes as she described the children she and her family support — and a little voice inside my head told me to get off my hind end and do something.
But what to do? When I mentioned it to my husband, he sort-of brushed off the idea. There are stories he’s heard of sponsorship companies that use most of their money to pay their executives and very little to the children. And then there are all the needy children in America. Wouldn’t it better to support “one of our own?”
In the end, it was our daughter’s curiosity and desire to help a child her age in need that turned the tide of our indecision. She and I looked at the website together. She picked Guatemala as the country because we have a dear friend who is originally from that country, and then we searched for a girl around ten years old. It was heartbreaking to see photos of so many children in need who fit our search criteria! I wished I could have selected every last one of them. But we prayed that God would show us the one girl he wanted us to love. As soon as we saw her picture, we both knew. Zulma is in our hearts forever. Just look at her smile!
It wasn’t until this weekend, however, that any of us understood the true need behind our sponsorship. Saturday there was a welcome packet from World Vision in our mailbox. Included in the packet was a DVD that did a great job explaining what it is exactly that World Vision does to support needy children and their communities.
Seeing the conditions in which others in our world live takes my breath away. Literally.
In Zulma’s part of the world, homes are made of clay bricks and tin sheets or with bamboo cane and straw roofs. Her entire house would probably fit inside one of the bedrooms of my house. The whole village shares a water faucet. Just yesterday at church I fussed at my daughter for drinking out of the water fountain at church. (My obsession with germs, you know. There’s a bug floating around at church that just won’t leave. I’m convinced it’s the kids putting their mouths around the fountains. But that’s another story.) My face burned last night as I watched a woman in Africa dipping water from a muddy seep hole in the ground into a large bucket. She came for water like this three times a day. Somehow, that tiny three-foot in diameter puddle provided water for six families…water that often gave them diarrhea, or worse. My germophobic tendencies are stopped in their tracks when I consider the way of life so many people across the world face every day. My standard of “clean” is something they would never even imagine.
So we began today with a different outlook on our lives and a new appreciation for what we have been given…and a new appreciation for the words in 1 John 3:
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
I will post updates as I hear from Zulma. If our story is touching your heart and you’d like to learn more about how you can help, visit World Vision for yourself.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude this day. Our country is unique in our graceful and peaceful transfer of power…as our leaders pass the baton according to the votes of the American people. There are no rioters in the streets on this day after the election. Those of us who supported McCain now turn our hearts to the good of our country and acknowledge that God’s plans are higher and loftier than anything we can possibly fathom.
President Bush’s speech this morning was one of the best examples of the beautiful American spirit that I have ever heard. Regardless of your personal feelings about him as a leader and about his legacy, I hope you will take a few moments to hear and see what he had to say this morning about passing on the office:
Now, I will be praying for President-Elect Obama and his family. It will not be an easy road by any means, and any person who choses to walk such a stressful life in service to his country must get some kudos from me. I am grateful to be living in such a country as this, where the transfer of political power is gracious, and for a short time at least, our leaders transcend their political parties and unite as Americans. What a privilege and honor it is to be living in times such as these!
I will thank you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done. I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High. Psalm 9
I spend a great deal of time glossing over hurts. I push them to the back burner of my heart. Life as a homeschool mom is crazy and busy enough to keep my mind occupied with the here and now. Math test? Check. Understanding direct objects? Check. Learning about forms of energy? Check.
But there is a hurt just beneath the surface, and there are times that it raises its scarred head and screams to be released. Often this hurt comes out in my dreams, as it did last night.
I dreamed a very vivid dream that I was having a baby. What I mean by that is not that I was just pregnant, but in my dream I was in a hospital room up on the table actually in labor. I experienced excruciating pain, and then, when the baby was born and placed in my arms, inexplicable joy filled my soul, and I felt complete. I nursed the baby in my dream…again, I experienced the tugging sensation of lactation. The love I felt for this child was overwhelming. I proudly showed her — the baby was a girl — to my husband and my daughter. I brought the baby home and bathed her and changed her diaper. We were settling into a routine when all of a sudden, in my dream, I realized that this couldn’t have really happened. The truth screamed out at me:
- I will never have another baby.
- I will never again experience the miracle of incubating life.
- There will never be another child created that is part of me and part of my husband.
The agony of this truth is compounded because it is a self-inflicted truth. Because of my past miscarriages, blood-clotting condition, difficult pregnancies, and extreme fear of throwing up, we made a medical decision that cannot be changed. I’ve lived and grieved with this decision for over a year now, but somehow it hasn’t gotten any easier.
When I step outside myself, I know that God is merciful and that he created me this way. He knows all about me and my anxieties. I think getting pregnant again — even if it had been possible — might have given me a nervous breakdown. It’s easy to talk and write about putting your faith in God, but it’s a much harder thing to actually follow through. I tried following that faith. I did get pregnant again, but again, I miscarried. It was too much. As I shed the blood of a little one, so early in its life, and felt wave after wave of cramping pain, it was as if a part of my soul bled out, too. I just didn’t have the courage to stand up to another crushing reality…to another bout of panic attacks brought on by severe nausea…to having my daughter have to watch me suffer. Many women keep trying, taking fertility drugs or progesterone or blood thinners…but I threw in the towel. I gave up.
For the most part, I’ve been okay with our decision….just not joyful. I avoid the baby aisle in the grocery stores. I avoid babies if I can. I tell myself that I am glad to be able to focus my love and attention on my only child…
Only to have my heart break when she asks why she doesn’t have any siblings. She has no one to share Christmas joy with…no one to fight over toys with…no one to be with her after we are long gone. I think I grieve about this as much as I do about anything else. I love my own brother fiercely. I love his children and his wife; she will never be an aunt. She will never be a sister-in-law. The pathetic thing is she looks at our dogs as her “siblings.” And now that the old one is entering his last days…the one who “taught” her how to crawl because he learned how to lie down just out of her reach…I fear for her. Many of my happiest childhood memories include antics with my brother…how he used to crawl into bed with me during thunderstorms because he was scared…how he cried at daycare for me, so they got me out of my class and let me help with the little ones…how I went to his baseball games and played on the playground while keeping an eye on the field, waiting for his turn at bat. How I cheered wildly when he hit a home run — his victory felt like my victory. How I cried and begged God to give ME the hearing loss and not him. My daughter has no brother or sister. She has no “built-in” cheering section apart from me and her dad.
And I feel like it’s all my fault. If I could have kept myself from panicking, perhaps I would not have miscarried. If I had been stronger, if I had forced myself to eat and drink more, perhaps I would not have miscarried. I sat in the hospital for eight hours on four different occasions receiving several bags of fluid because I was so dehydrated…not because of throwing up, but because I refused to drink. It was as if my throat wouldn’t work. If I had not been so afraid and had tried again sooner after the first miscarriage, perhaps we would have gotten pregnant again before the blood clotting condition arose.
I was so miserable in the second pregnancy — only seven weeks along — that I told the nurse I almost wished for a miscarriage. She shushed me and told me not to wish for such a thing…that wishing could make it come true. Five days later….I miscarried, even though my hormone levels were rising. That baby of mine would be seven years old, eight in January. Was the nurse right, and did I somehow cause my own baby’s death? Oh, Lord, let it not be so!
Adoption is a journey we could take. But my husband and I both have to be in agreement. At this point, neither of us is sure we want to take this path. We’ve been to a seminar. We’ve talked and prayed about it. What it comes down to, for him, is that he blames God — and himself — for our failure in growing our family. If God wanted us to have more children, he would have given them to us, he reasons. He blames himself (wrongly) for the miscarriage in my second pregnancy because he was very wrapped up in work those days. I’ve tried to tell him that it didn’t matter…he could have been home with me every single day and I still would have been miserable and depressed due to the severe and debilitating nausea. He tried to tempt me with all sorts of food. He made me slushes that I couldn’t drink and grilled cheese sandwiches that I couldn’t even look at, much less taste. For my part, I am thinking a new baby would upset the applecart. I am comfortable having one child. I am glad that we got rid of our car seat and high chair a long time ago.
And yet…I can still feel the baby in my dreams. I can smell her sweet baby scent and feel the weight of her head on my shoulder.
As I often do in my dreams when I realize they are wrong, I changed the dream around. All of a sudden this baby was a baby that we adopted. I distinctly remember the color of her eyes changed from blue to brown, and they were beautiful eyes.
So there are times that I still grieve. I miss my two babies who are with Jesus. I miss the ones that might have been created had I not given in to fear and made it medically impossible for our family to have them. I will never know what having a “little man” with my husband’s genes for mischief is like. We will not have a man to carry on my husband’s family name. I grieve for my husband who always wanted a big family, and when I am feeling blue, I wonder at God choosing a woman — a weakling like me — for such a strong man as he.
This truth hurts.
Today as my daughter sat eating her lunch, I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her. She’s getting to the age where hugs aren’t “all that.” I could tell she was a little annoyed, but I didn’t care. (Well, maybe I cared a little.) I hugged her and smelled her vanilla-scented shampoo and breathed in her still-little-girl scent with gratitude. How did I ever manage to help create such a beautiful, loving person? How did I ever manage to get through the pregnancy? I wish I could go back ten years in time and tell myself to S-L-O-W down. I wish I could go back and tell myself to grab hold of every moment because I wouldn’t get to have another.
Usually I try to make my entries uplifting. I just don’t have it in me today. The dream is so fresh in my mind, and tears are flowing as I write. I do hold on, however, to the truth — Jesus will never leave me or forsake me. I’m still grieving, but he’s catching my tears.
Psalm 56:
You keep track of all my sorrows.[a]
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
I just realized that the calendar on my wall is still turned to September. In a blink of an eye, everything changes, doesn’t it?
Blink. I was ten years old and couldn’t wait to grow up.
Blink. I was twenty years old and couldn’t wait to get married.
Blink. I was thirty years old and couldn’t wait for my four-year-old to be able to tie her own shoes.
Blink. Six years later, I watch and listen as my own nearly-ten-year-old child professes her desire to be all grown up.
Today I find myself wandering around in a depressing funk. I told my birthday-boy-husband (Happy Birthday, sweetheart!) that I felt as if a dark cloud had parked itself right over my head, shadowing my every thought and dampening my mood. The thrill I felt yesterday at the sight of a broad, blue, wind-swept Texas sky was replaced today with gloom at the sight of brown leaves falling to the ground, leaving bare branches stark against the sky.
Most of this gloomy outlook is just that: it is a furrow that my mind chases around and around again. I dislike the winter, and today I feel it coming. I feel it in the very middle of my bones. When I was eleven, I broke my ankle in such a bad way that surgeons had to piece it back together. Now I can tell anyone with about as much accuracy as the National Weather Service when a cold front is approaching the region because there is a distinctive aching sensation radiating from my joints. I can’t claim that this is what getting older feels like because I began experiencing it when I was eleven.
Back to the furrow in my mind. In my Dalmatian’s younger days, he ran and ran incessantly around the back yard. Eventually the grass right around the fence stopped growing due to the trail he made every day. That is what my mind feels like today. I have a dog trail going round and round.
Why? For every reason and for no reason. The election. The condition of my heart. The condition of Amercia’s hearts. A sweet friend of mine just lost a job. Some unmentionables. Depression because we can’t seem to make up our minds about adoption. And for some reason today, especially my sweet Dalmatian…I fear he won’t make it to Christmas this year. The winters are so hard on his old joints. With this marginally cooler weather, I can already tell a difference in him. He will no longer chase after the tennis ball. For those of you who know him, you must know this is a huge sadness. This was a dog who would forgo food (and he LOVES food) for the chance to chase after a tennis ball. Now if I throw it for him he looks at me as if to say, “YOU go get it!”
He barks at nothing. He howls at sirens he must be hearing in his mind. He wanders the house sometimes as if he is confused. He’s looking for something but isn’t quite sure what that something is. So I drag a blanket over to the floor and sit with him. He can’t climb on the couch most days anymore, so he settles down beside me and likes me to cover him with a soft blanket.
There’s another change in him. We used to joke about having to put all our drinks in the center of the coffee table because he wagged his tail so ferociously that it whacked any glass within reach, spilling whatever contents there may have been all over the floor. Now he holds his tail at an odd angle…just between his legs. The only time I see him wag it anymore is if someone comes to visit or right after I put food in his bowl. The old dog is growing more frail every day. It hurts to watch.
But today is hubby’s birthday! And that surely is a reason for praise, and I will dwell on the blessing he is in my life. Always ready with a goofy joke that cracks me up, he is the north to my south. We are as about as opposite as we can be. He’s very tall…I’m very short. He’s great at putting people at ease…I get panic attacks in some social situations. He loves to travel…I hate to travel. He’s very athletic…I’m athletically challenged. But we love each other more than life itself. I know he’s got my back, and I’ve got his, and today of all days I thank God for bringing us together and for being the glue that holds our marriage strong. Yes, time is flying by so fast…but when you get right down to it, that must mean that we’re having fun!
As always when I feel troubled, I look to the Psalms, and I find much comfort there…especially today, as I sit here troubled by the passing of time. Sometimes I wish I could just grab my hubby, my little girl and my old doggy friend and keep them right where they are in this moment of time. Of course that isn’t possible, so I take snapshots with my camera and with my heart. I wonder if God looks at time the same way we do? I found some comforting verses in Psalm 90…I share them with you today.
Lord, through all the generations
you have been our home!
Before the mountains were born,
before you gave birth to the earth and the world,
from beginning to end, you are God.For you, a thousand years are as a passing day,
as brief as a few night hours.Teach us to realize the brevity of life,
so that we may grow in wisdom.O Lord, come back to us!
How long will you delay?
Take pity on your servants!
Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love,
so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.Let us, your servants, see you work again;
let our children see your glory.
And may the Lord our God show us his approval
and make our efforts successful.
Yes, make our efforts successful!
That is my prayer this day, Lord…that you will make our nation’s…our church’s…our family’s…our individual…efforts successful, and that they will be pleasing to your sight.
First, for the journey. We have this next week to pray and deliberate and make a decision — or not — about whether we want to move forward with adoption. I am confident that the Lord leads us onward. Perhaps the answer is Yes, perhaps it is No, and maybe it is Not Yet. But our daughter is leaving today for a week-long church camp. This is her very first camp, and I feel a strange mixture of joy and sadness. I’m so glad she has this opportunity to grow closer to the Lord. Some of my closest times with God occurred at church camps or retreats, and I praise God for that opportunity and pray that she will experience the same, even as young as she is. I feel sad because my little girl is growing up. Times moves so swiftly, and the older I get, the faster time flies. If only I could grab ahold of it and stop time for a moment so I could fully enjoy it!
Since we will be without our daughter, we’ll have some time to devote to our careful study into whether or not we decide to adopt.
I have another post to write with another issue brought to the surface this week, so I’ll end this asking for your prayers that we will put aside SELF, fears, anxieties and seek HIS PLANS for our family. For I know without a doubt that if adoption is in His plans for us, and we follow those plans, He will make our paths straight.
There are strongholds in my life. I feel fortunate that the Lord has opened my eyes enough to see them. I know in my head that He has overcome the world and everything the enemy decides to throw at me. It’s something else, though, to transform the deepest parts of myself that cry out for the light.
“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” -Phil 1:6
God isn’t finished with me yet!
It is interesting to sit back sometimes and watch the way the enemy tries to steal away our joy, especially if we press closer to the Lord and draw from his strength.
One of my major obstacles to adoption has to do with childhood in general. Specifically, with childhood illnesses. I freely confess that I am what my daughter terms a “germaphobe.” I carry hand sanitizer in my car and in my purse. Upon leaving a store or other public place, I pull it out when we first get in the car. I have a tendency to panic attacks that occur whenever there is a danger of me or anyone in my family coming down with stomach flu. This means that when my daughter was younger, a couple times a year I went into full fledged panic attack mode, complete with uncontrollable shaking and anxiety so elevated that I would go a day or two being unable to eat. The entire time I was able to function and care for my daughter — but at an expense of not taking care of myself. And I hated myself every time she wanted a hug and I did so reluctantly for fear of the sickness spreading to me. Talk about selfish!
My mother asked me today if I was ready to go through that kind of anxiety again knowing how I react to those kinds of situations. It’s not as if I can reasonably ask the birth parents if they themselves are prone to stomach illnesses.
My honest answer is that I am not sure if I am ready or if I will ever be ready. It’s when I am in the middle of a panic attack that I am glad I only have one child. More children mean a higher likelihood of “sharing the love.”
And that is exactly what the enemy wants to hear, isn’t it? Doesn’t he find ways to throw curveballs at us when we are closest to following God’s will?
This week my husband and I have been more focused on adoption than we’ve ever been. Suddenly my daughter’s sweet friend who she has played with very recently has come down with…you guessed it…stomach flu.
Today I felt the Lord working in me. At first my legs got that “fight or flight” adrenaline rush, and I felt an unpleasant panic attack coming on. But for today, I refused to go there. I refused to let my mind obsess over whether or not my child will get sick. I prayed harder for the Lord’s hedge of protection around us, and I offer up praises this evening no matter what. The Lord’s will be done!
So I sense that the enemy is mounting an attack. I will not be afraid. The Lord is my shield. The Lord is my light. The Lord is my rock. The Lord takes me by the hand and leads me beside still waters. My legs might shake. My lungs might squeeze the air out of me to the point of pain. My head might ache, my neck might tighten up into a crick, but the Lord is with me, and I am letting go so I can let Him.
In 2004, 139 lives were lost each and every minute in the United States. What claimed those 1,222,100 lives? Was it cancer? Diabetes? Heart disease? Well, not heart disease in the traditional, clogged arteries sense, but it was due to a heart disease of a different sort. Over a million women in the U.S. chose to end their children’s lives through abortion. A heart disease that can’t be fixed through legislation, or through legalization, or through any government agency…but only through the love of Christ.
Christ’s love is endless and abundant and covers over every one of our failings.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. Matthew 23:37
How many of those aborted would have been prophets or messengers? or the inventors of alternative energy sources? or scientists who find the cure for cancer? Christ knew that we would be resistant to him and to his message, and he loves us anyway. He loves the mothers who made the choice to abort and he loves those babies whose lives were snuffed out before they had the chance to experience life abundantly.
I do not condemn the mothers of those 1.2 million babies. I ache for them because they thought there was no other way to deal with the unexpected and unwanted miracle happening inside their wombs. But there is another way: adoption.
As my husband and I consider adoption, the Lord has been pressing into my thoughts the idea of adoption as a ministry. After all, as Christians we have been adopted into God’s chosen family:
And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus. Ephesians 3:6
If we decide to adopt a child, we will do everything we can as parents to pass on this Good News, and not just to the child. The adoption agency we are considering has a ministry to birth parents, and we will be given an opportunity to establish a relationship with them as well. What better way to show Christ’s love than to take someone else’s child — perhaps a child that may have otherwise been aborted — love him, and raise him as our own? Isn’t that what the Lord has done with me? He took me and lives in me and is “raising” me still. As I tell my friends, the Lord’s not finished with me yet!
So rather than looking into adoption in terms of what it would add to or take away from our family, God is nudging me to consider what it would mean to the child. If our decision to adopt impacts even one woman and causes her to choose life, then our decision would be worth it — for the child, for the woman, and for our family. And then, for one minute in time, the number of children lost to abortion would be 138 instead of 139.
Perhaps it is time to put our faith into action and show true love and sacrifice.
My husband and I attended an adoption workshop on Friday. So much information was discussed that we are still processing and thinking.
The sticking point for us isn’t whether or not we think a new child would be good for our family; it is that we already have a good family. We like the fact that our daughter has reached a level of self sufficiency. We are comfortable with our one-child family.
And therein lies the rub. As Beth Moore taught during a Life Today taping, we are a society that is addicted to comfort. But following the Lord often means stepping out of our comfort zones. When we are just gliding along through life cocooned in comfort derived from the sameness of our days, how are we stretching our faith? If we never place ourselves in uncomfortable situations, how will we rely on God to be our Comforter?
So in that sense, adopting a child would be our ministry to that child and the birth parents. We would step out of our comfort zones and back into a life of sleep deprivation and dirty diapers and spit up…and also joy and first smiles and that indescribable new baby smell. We would acknowledge that instead of being 45 when our daughter graduates, we’ll be 55 when the new baby graduates…that’s ten more years of direct parenting. We would be blessing that child with parental love as well as the love that comes from Jesus. We will be obeying God’s Word from James:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27
On the other hand, we can look after orphans and widows through financial means. Having a heart for orphans doesn’t necessarily mean the Lord wants us to run out and adopt. Some might say that our little family is small because that’s the way our Sovereign Lord intended it to be and that pursuing adoption would be trying to put our family in our own control rather than the Lord’s. Others could argue that the Lord allowed me to have health issues so that we WOULD adopt a child as our own. There are times I confess that I tend to feel that we have only one child because having more just “wasn’t meant to be.”
We are in prayer about this decision and are also in God’s word. After the workshop during my quiet time, I asked the Holy Spirit to lead me to scripture that would help me know what the Lord wants me to do. I want God’s will for my life! Imagine the goosebumps I felt when my Bible fell open to these words:
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
God already knows the plan! My husband and I may have jumbled up thoughts, leaning first one way and then the next. But God knows, and the Bible tells us that he will make our paths straight if we trust in him with all our hearts.
So that’s the next step of this journey: trusting God to make his will known, and praying that I will have the wisdom to SEE without any of my own personal filters making me twist things to my own will.
There have already been some interesting things happening since we attended the workshop:
The overarching verse of the adoption agency is Jeremiah 29:11, the very one I opened my Bible to after praying for guidance.
At the workshop and today at church, I was struck by the notion of adoption as a ministry to the child rather than as a means to “complete” our family.
The worship pastor, in praising God for his majesty and glory, listed several images of God’s greatness…mountains, hurricanes, thunder, lightening, a newborn’s face.
God’s not finished with me yet! He’s working on me even now as we (me, my husband, and God) work through this together. Even if the answer is NO on adoption, this journey is already bringing glory to God because it is causing us to press even closer to Him.
This journey about adoption is in its infancy. My husband and I haven’t even yet decided for sure that we want to adopt, but I do believe the Lord has a hand in our considering the option.
We have a beautiful daughter who is really our miracle child. Born nearly five weeks early, she was as healthy as a preemie could be. It’s been nearly ten years since her birth, and in that time we have tried unsuccessfully to have another child.
The problem was never my husband — it was me. Unable to cope with debilitating nausea, I retreated to my bedroom full of depression and despondency. Sleep deprivation got the best of me; I’d fall into a light sleep only to be awakened by another wave of severe nausea. And on and on it went from the day I conceived until the day the Lord took that baby up to heaven. I remember thinking at the time that the Lord must have looked upon my pitiful condition — at that point, I was hospitalized because I’d lost too much weight — and decided that he needed me around a bit longer. The miscarriage felt like a miscarriage of justice, and I felt a mixture of relief and rage…relief that I could eat again, and rage that I’d been through so much agony…for a baby I never got to hold in my arms.
But the Lord holds him today.
Looking back, I can see that I lived through a definite refining process, but not all of my impurities came out through that fire. I lived in fear of the same thing happening again. For four years I determined I would not get pregnant again. I turned my back on my husband’s desire for a bigger family because I was so hurt and traumatized from the experience.
But then the desire to hold a baby once again took hold of me, and we tried to have another baby. Several years later when we did conceive, we once again experienced extreme loss. This time, the Lord was merciful to my body and swept that baby up into heaven before extreme nausea set in. But the loss felt more profound this time around…my little girl was eight, and I wasn’t getting any younger.
The doctors told me I have a blood clotting condition that probably contributed to the miscarriages. The presence of anticardiolipin antibodies in my system means that a future pregnancy would put me at risk for dangerous blood clots and/or strokes and would require me to get daily shots of a blood thinner to prevent miscarriage and blood clots.
So then my thoughts and prayers turned towards a different door, one that I’d often pondered but never thought would happen…adoption.
In some ways I feel that I’ve turned the corner on motherhood. My child is nearly ten and is extremely self sufficient. We left diapers and bibs behind a long time ago. And yet…I can see myself walking through that door again. First words, first teeth, first steps, first haircut, first everything, all over again. How would my only-child adjust to suddenly having to share me? Would the age difference be a widening gulf, one so wide that it would prevent her and her sister or brother from ever becoming close? Would a new baby drive a wedge in our marriage if we aren’t both 100% on board?
I don’t know the answers to my questions, but God does. In a little over a week my husband and I will attend a workshop about adoption, and it is my prayer that the Lord will show us a glaring sign or at least an unmistakable whisper in our hearts, telling us the way to go.
