I'm pregnant!

As I was packing for our trip to Texas, I was pretty sure I was not pregnant. I had some typical signs of a looming period--being emotional the weekend prior, skin breakouts, etc. However, I knew I would be sure towards the end of the trip when my period was supposed to start. I threw some feminine products in my suitcase. And then I also grabbed a pregnancy test and something I had tucked in the back of our closet over a year ago. Just in case. That special item, I told myself, would probably just remain at the bottom of my suitcase for the entire trip, only to be returned to the box in the closet when we got home.
A few years ago, we were in a church small group with a couple who had two little girls. The dad is a huge Detroit Lions fan and had his own diaper bag, which had the Lions' logo on it. Nathan remarked one time that he thought that was so cool and that one day, he'd like to have his own diaper bag. I filed that away until October 2015, when my period was a few weeks late, just after we had decided we were both ready to have a baby. I knew when the time came, I wanted to tell The Mister I was pregnant by giving him his own diaper bag. A Portugal one. So late one night, I ordered it and had it rush delivered so I wouldn't have to delay what I thought could be an impending pregnancy announcement to him. Funnily enough, it sat in its box in our closet for over a year before I pulled it out and tossed it into my suitcase.
While in Texas, I felt like all the signs continued to point to my body prepping for a period. We spent a few days in Abilene with The Mister's fam, celebrating Christmas, then headed to San Antonio to spend the second half of our trip, including Christmas Eve and Day, with my fam. According to my tracker, I was set to start my period on that travel day, the 23rd, but my body never really followed the schedule in my tracker to a T, so I didn't concern myself with it too much.
The next day, Christmas Eve, we had plans to see Star Wars: Rogue One in the theater before going to the Christmas Eve service at church. We would then come home, eat dinner, and open presents. Early that afternoon, as I was curling my hair in the bathroom, I began thinking maybe I should go ahead and take the pregnancy test I had hidden away in my suitcase since my period hadn't started. Just in case. That way I would just know for sure that I wasn't pregnant and could continue waiting for my period to show up. I kept going back and forth on whether to take it though. Just the small act of taking the test indicated I had the teeniest, tiniest, almost undetectable amount of hope that I could be pregnant, and even though I already thought pretty strongly I wasn't, I would inevitably have a moment of disappointment when the test confirmed that I wasn't pregnant. I had gone through this a few times already, usually shedding more tears before taking a test than I did after. I wasn't sure it was the wisest decision to throw in a small emotional breakdown while I was supposed to be getting ready to leave the house. I tried hard to put it all out of my mind, but I couldn't let it go. I finally put down the curling iron, made sure there was no one upstairs, and grabbed the test. Once back in the bathroom, I prayed shortly and told myself over and over that I was just taking the test to confirm that I was not pregnant so I didn't have to think about it anymore. I took the test and it immediately showed positive. No waiting a couple of minutes or anything. I was in shock. It was surreal to see the two lines where I had always seen one, where I had wished and willed for it to show two. I kept doing mental checks. "Is that a positive result?" "Yes, that matches the picture on the end of the stick." "Yes, that says Pregnant next to it." I stood in front of the mirror for the longest time, just freaking out on the inside. My brain was going nuts and had no capacity for anything else. I always thought I would cry upon finding out I was pregnant, even before we had a difficult journey, but my emotions were unable to engage while my brain was so thoroughly occupied. I kept telling myself, "You're pregnant!" but it seemed so strange. I realized I needed to tell The Mister. And then doubt crept in. "What if it's a false positive somehow?" I grabbed my phone and started googling. Everything was saying a false positive is always highly unlikely, but I wasn't 100% convinced. There was no way I was going to announce the news, only for us to be disappointed later that it somehow wasn't real. What a completely ruined moment that would be. I decided I needed a second test. There wasn't any time to go out and get one before we needed to leave for the movie and I still wasn't done getting ready. I calmed my mind enough to finish my hair and makeup and grab a quick bite to eat before heading out the door with The Mister and my fam. I decided to text my naturopath and ask her about the possibility of receiving a false positive while in the car. She responded as we were in the theater parking lot, so I was trying to be very keen on keeping my phone screen away from anyone's eyes as I read her message saying it was very unlikely and congratulating me. I was so distracted, trying to be secretive, trying to read and respond to her text, trying to follow everyone into the theater and respond to their questions about whether I wanted ice cream and if I had a ticket and who I was texting. I got a little snappy because I couldn't handle it all and was so afraid I was going to give everything away. I had always thought, in addition to crying, I wouldn't be able to hold in news of a positive test. But I sat in that dark movie theater for over two hours, cherishing the secret I held, still in disbelief. Focusing on watching the movie was a good break for my brain, though I never completely stopped thinking about the two words "I'm" and "pregnant."

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Reinforcements

These are some things I have read multiple times or listened to on repeat that have resonated with me and reinforced my resolve to trust God.

What to Do If You Wake Up Feeling Fragile

My 3-Yr-Old Asked “You Know Why God Took So Long to Give You a Baby?”

—Then She Said “I Know Why”

Time in Between by Francesca Battistelli

"Don't take much for this crazy world

To rob me of my peace
And the enemy of my soul
Says You're holding out on me
So I stand here lifting empty hands
For You to fill me up again"

Trust In You by Lauren Daigle

Thy Will Be Done by Hillary Scott

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A Great Blessing

Through all of this, I have been so grateful for one thing in particular. One thing that I can only attribute to God's grace. I have never once been bitter towards women who have easily gotten pregnant. Who have had children as they desired. Or even when they didn't desire it. It hasn't been difficult for me to "rejoice with those who rejoice" or to "mourn with those who mourn." That may not sound like much, but from what I hear, for any woman who struggles to get pregnant or finds out she cannot have a biological child, this is one of the great struggles. I am thankful my heart has not had one more thing to wrestle with in this season. I hope it remains so.

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From Egypt to The Promise Land

Years ago, as The Mister struggled with some personal issues, I would remind him that God doesn't deliver us from Egypt and then leave us in the wilderness. He does not save us and then abandon us. He never begins something in us just to leave it undone. It was hard for The Mister to believe this at the time; it still is some days. But today, as we completed a day's work in our Bible study and I was in tears, frustrated with where we're at, he repeated these words back to me. The significance of that was not lost on me, even as I found it hard to firmly grasp hold of the truth he was telling me. I was overcome with gratefulness for my husband, who struggled with so much doubt over so many things, and who was now standing firm in his faith for me. Our wise mentors in Germany had told us that there are rarely two strong people in a marriage at any given time. For quite a few years, I was the strong one. Lately, Nathan has been the strong one.

Edited to add: Unbeknownst to us, I was two weeks pregnant at the time.

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Really "Trying"

In June, while Nathan was in France at Euro 2016, I had another appointment with Dr. Greta. In that appointment, she told me she thought I could be ok being pregnant with lots of support. I was elated. The six months she had originally suggested became three months that had already passed! I have since started charting my basal temperature daily, examining my saliva on a tiny microscope, taking note of other cyclical changes, and on and on. We have begun really "trying." I naively thought we'd never be in this place. I have an appointment in January, where we will look at all the data I have been collecting in hopes of pinpointing a hormone issue that would be preventing pregnancy.
Currently, another six months are gone and we're still not pregnant. Over a year has passed since we decided we were ready.
As it gets harder, it also gets easier. Time causes me to panic, as days, weeks and months go by. But the shock of things not working out like we thought has mostly worn off.

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The Beginning: Adoption

Within the first year of our marriage, I remember talking about adoption with The Mister. At the time, I thought it was a beautiful concept and thought maybe, in with our biological children, we could adopt a child or two. Maybe. At this point, everything was still just hypothetical. We had a five-year plan, remember, and this was just year one. The Mister replied that he thought it would be too difficult to love someone who wasn't his flesh and blood. I was slightly offended, as I'm not his flesh and blood. I don't think the subject came up again between the two of us.
Fast forward to last March, a few weeks after Dr. Greta advised me to not get pregnant for six more months. We were on a rare early morning outing to eat breakfast in a nearby town. I believe we were talking about our friends who were going to become parents through adoption. The Mister asked me what I thought about adoption and we ended up having a conversation about how we both knew God was doing something, even though we didn't know what, and how we were both open to adoption. I was a little surprised at how differently The Mister spoke of it and was grateful God was moving us to be on the same page.
The next month, we had a guest preacher at church. He talked about sharing your story, and then he shared his. He shared how he and his wife got married and planned to have kids one year later. Instead, they had years of infertility, in which doctors told them there was no reason they shouldn't be able to get pregnant. Then, miraculously, she was pregnant! How amazing. And then, the miscarriage. So devastating. Throughout the whole story, I kept hearing echoes of our life, our conversations, my fears. The preacher then shared that they adopted three kids at one time. Siblings. He shared how wonderful it all was. How the pain of the miscarriage still touches him today. We got home and The Mister and I talked for a long time. I told him I was scared. That I felt like God was telling me over and over again to have hope. But for what? A child through pregnancy in my thirties (an ancient, old woman)? Through adoption? I cared less about what the path would be and so much more about just knowing which path we were to face. The Mister, because he is amazing, reminded me we needed to trust God. He reminded me of his knee issues and all the faith and struggle it has required. And yet God used that knee to heal parts of The Mister he didn't know needed healing. He told me that day we needed to remember to want whatever God has for us. Come what may.
At this point, we still don't know what path God has for us. But adoption has a corner of our hearts.

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The Beginning: My Health

My health took a huge plummet starting November 14, 2015. I was supposed to go to a women's ministry event at church that evening, but instead ended up in bed, barely able to get up. The Mister had to cook dinner because I couldn't stand long enough to do it. In the months leading up to that day, I knew things weren't quite right in my body, as I was waking in the middle of every night for long stretches (something that has literally never happened to me, not even to go to the bathroom) and was often an emotional mess and could never figure out why. That November day I began researching adrenal fatigue. My mom has suffered with it and my symptoms sounded familiar to hers. My self-diagnosis with adrenal fatigue seemed pretty sound, so I began self-treating as well. I started taking supplements and started eating foods that were supposed to be kind to my adrenals. No miraculous changes occurred, but I was able to be up and about. For the most part. I worried that with everything I assumed to be going on in my body, that it might not be a good thing for me to get pregnant. In fact, I worried it would be a very bad thing.
The Mister kept encouraging me to see a doctor. Namely my primary care physician on base. I had already read over and over again that mainstream doctors do not recognize adrenal fatigue and had looked up some doctors in our area who claimed to treat adrenal fatigue. And without going into an extra long rant about how much I haaaaate seeing the doctor on base (my doctor changes every year or so, so "they" are a few I am lumping together into one person), I will say that I have story upon story that demonstrate nothing but incompetence. I obliged The Mister though and set up an appointment for Monday, December 7th. Just over a year ago today. The time came for my appointment and I asked The Mister to accompany me because I feared the nonsense I would have to deal with. I needed moral support. I explained my symptoms (lack of sleep, crazy emotions, some anxious feelings, etc) and told the nurse I was pretty sure I had adrenal fatigue. Her first course of action was to screen me for anxiety and depression. Like mental health screen me. I was so frustrated, sitting there in the room with just The Mister, circling numbers on scales about how often I felt like hurting myself, hurting others, etc. (Before I get any backlash, I get it. They have to do it. They're covering their behinds. Doesn't make it any less frustrating.) I finished the screening below the threshold for a referral to mental health and then the doctor came in. She went over everything I had told the nurse and still seemed to want to diagnose me with anxiety. She ended my appointment with an offer to test my thyroid and iron levels and do a blood cell count before handing me a pamphlet on getting good sleep. Eye roll. After having blood drawn, I left base for Walmart to grab some groceries. In the parking lot I called up Four Rivers Naturopath in Auburn and set an appointment for that Thursday. I knew the base doctor wasn't going to be able to help me. Thursday came and while in the car, driving to my naturopath appointment, the base clinic called to let me know all of my levels were "just fine." Yeah. I obviously was not "just fine." Thanks. Bye.
In my one and a half hour appointment with Dr. Greta, the naturopath, we covered my entire medical history, my marriage and its ups and downs, and my spiritual beliefs. She noted how much stress I had been under since since the time of The Mister's deployment, which only carried on in assuming the role as President of PWOC (women's ministry on base) shortly after he returned. Part of my coping mechanism for dealing with all of the stress and my to-do list, was to knock eating off of my list of priorities. I was constantly running all day off of one large cup of coffee for breakfast and then eating only dinner. Typing that now causes me to shake my head. How in the world could I have thought that was ever going to be ok? At the end, she said she wanted to do testing, but that she was pretty sure I had adrenal fatigue and hypoglycemia, which were feeding each other, and a few other minor, but chronic issues. I went home that day with some supplements and a new diet plan to address my assumed issues.
With all of the testing I needed to have done, I didn't have a follow-up until mid-March. At that appointment, we reviewed my test results. My adrenals were, in fact, very low. I was high in dopamine but low in norepinephrine, meaning my body wasn't converting dopamine into norepinephrine. I had low cholesterol, which your body uses to build hormones, and all of my hormones were also low. My white blood cell count indicated an infection somewhere in my body and my liver wasn't operating at an optimum level. We talked about diet and sleeping habit changes, and I left with another slew of supplements, these more specific to what we now knew was going on in my body.
I was so relieved to have answers about what was going on in my body, but I was crushed at the same time. In that appointment, Dr. Greta advised me to avoid getting pregnant for at least six months. She explained I was probably at a very high risk of having a miscarriage, even if I did get pregnant. Despite me being worried back in the fall about getting pregnant, The Mister and I continued being open to getting pregnant and not preventing it. It had been six months already and I had assumed something would have happened by then, but it hadn't. I couldn't fathom going back to actively avoiding for yet another six months. But I also couldn't fathom losing a baby either. Here I will recall to you watching my friend grieve her stillborn, precious baby boy. I cried on the drive home that evening, feeling extremely hopeless.

( I have to make a note here about this Scripture image. Every one I have posted so far, even in the group on Facebook, has held significance in my life over the past few years. None were chosen willy nilly and I decided to coordinate each with a post it seemed to go with. The first half of today's was a verse that was used at the PWOC retreat back in April 2015, which I attended while The Mister was still deployed. There was a sticker with that verse printed on it that I hung on our fridge. It's been there ever since. In dealing with adrenal fatigue and trying to minimize stress, I know God was telling me this over and over. So I went into the Bible app, where I've been creating these pics, found the verse and told it to put it on the image I had selected. My immediate thought when it popped up was "Ugh. I didn't realize the parentheses part was in there. Wonder if I can delete it." And then, not a second later, as I actually read the words in between the parentheses, "Wow! How have I missed this for a year and a half now! This is PERFECT!!" God is still speaking to me. )

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The Beginning: "Trying"

It was summer of 2015 and I had been on birth control since late spring of 2009. Before he left for his deployment the fall prior, The Mister and I had talked about maybe starting to try to have a baby when he returned home. I was ready, but he was much more hesitant. Either way, I stopped taking the pill right after he left and was off until right before he returned home. By then, he and I were on the same page. At least about me starting the pill again. With it being our first deployment, we weren't sure how reintegration would go for us and we didn't want to throw getting pregnant into that mix as well. Plus, we were going to Bora Bora a few weeks after his return and I was very interested in making sure I didn't need to worry about taking feminine products with me. The pill puts you in control of such things : ) Anyways, I got back on the pill and our Bora Bora trip came and went. It was fabulous, by the way. I teared up on the boat back to the airport. It was just that good. Go if you ever possibly can!
I'll interject here and say The Mister returned home from deployment a very changed person. God used something we thought could only bring detriment to bring healing instead. Because of that, our relationship changed a lot. I type this, unable to stop the tears from flowing, grateful for the man that returned home to me. The one who stands beside me now, helping me through so much turmoil. Even if I never get anything else I want, I have more than I deserve in him.
Just another couple of short weeks after Bora Bora trip, The Mister went to Alabama for a five-week training course, necessary to keep him in the Air Force, and I flew out for a week towards the end. While there, I started having some major sinus congestion and flew home with what ended up becoming a sinus infection. I dread taking antibiotics, but the pain in my face was killing me. I finally capitulated and went in to see the base doctor. In that conversation, she assured me my pill would still be effective. That the study done actually only showed that subjects weren't successful in remembering to take the pill while on antibiotics, aka not feeling well, not that antibiotics actually rendered the pill ineffective. It made sense, but based on prior encounters, I didn't trust her. Around this time, I was feeling like the pill was wreaking havoc on my complexion and emotions anyway. So The Mister and I talked and agreed I would get off the pill, but we would still try to prevent getting pregnant. The other part of that "conversation" though was really an argument about whether we should start "trying" or not. I was beginning to fear how long we had waited and still might wait. Our sixth wedding anniversary had came and went, and my 30th birthday was a few short months away. The Mister still felt like it wasn't the right time, and I ended up choosing to honor that.
In September, as I entered some data into a fertility tracker I was using to avoid pregnancy, my fertile window shifted and I realized we had unknowingly had sex on what was supposedly my most fertile day! I panicked and called The Mister right away. A few days later, in a discussion about me possibly being pregnant, he told me he thought it was a perfect way for it to happen. Well, then. Ok.
The following week, on October 5th, a friend from our first base started posting about her miscarriage. I still don't know why it never occurred to me in the first place, but reading her story made me realize that we were banking on getting pregnant whenever we decided to start trying. We had never accounted for it to take a while. Not really. And we definitely had not given any consideration to the possibility that once we got pregnant, we could experience the loss of a miscarriage. I was in tears that night telling The Mister about it all, scared of what our path could look like. He agreed that we had been foolish in our expectations. The next morning, he called me from work to say he thought we should start trying to have a baby. He said it seemed like the timing of everything plus my desire was God's answer for him.
The very next night one of my dear friends lost her baby boy at almost 37 weeks. With her husband deployed and both of their families more than half way across the country, I showered and packed a bag, prepared to stay the night, and waited to hear that I could head down to the hospital to be with her. That dark night is forever engrained on my heart and in my mind. At the time, I was just a friend trying to love a friend in all the ways I knew how. This memory would become important later on.
Through all of this, we were holding it in the back of our hearts that I might be pregnant. However, I confirmed a week later that I was not pregnant, after taking two pregnancy tests. The first, I later realized, had expired one year prior... I'm so embarrassed, but that's how much of  a rookie I was at the whole thing! Knowing my period was a few weeks late though and yet I wasn't pregnant set the stage for realizing things weren't quite right in my body at that time.

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The Beginning: Our Marriage & Five-Year Plan

The Mister and I decided before we got married that we wanted to wait five years after marriage to have kids. Even at that time, we had enough foresight to know we would need some time to learn how to be husband and wife before becoming dad and mom. How true that was! While stationed in Germany, after being married only three years, we were in counseling with a couple, trying to save our marriage. At the time, from my perspective, things were really, really bad, but I only later learned that The Mister went into our first counseling session with the perception that the only solution for us was to get divorced. Thankfully, God was able to reach us through that couple and we began a journey of learning how to love each other better, how to have conflict in a healthy way, and how to put aside our stubbornness and pride. That journey continues today, for sure, but I would say the first two years after that were especially hard for us in making those things second nature. And let me tell ya, at that time, we were so glad no kids had come into the picture. I would often think, in the middle of fighting with The Mister, "What would I do right now if we had a baby or children in the house?" God is gracious to us, indeed. Meanwhile, I felt like God was telling me our perfect little five-year plan wasn't going to work out like we thought. Of course, I mostly assumed that meant our timeline would be moved up, not necessarily back.
In the meantime, we moved to California and within the first year, friends started having babies. The Mister and I talked about what we might want to do. I told him I was never going to be ready myself unless he was ready as well. Parenting was something we would do together or not at all. I was adamant about that. I've heard stories of women deceiving their husbands in order to get pregnant because they were ready and their husbands were not. I couldn't imagine ever making such a huge decision in that way, altering our life for my selfish desires. The Mister gently let me know that there would probably never come a time where he would look at me and say, "Let's have kids!" His solution was for me to just let him know when I was absolutely ready. I acknowledged his feelings were probably normal, but I was not on board with his plan. I began praying that God would change The Mister's heart and that we would decide to have kids together.
When five years of marriage hit in July of 2014, The Mister was already slated to deploy in the fall. There was no way either of us were wanting to get pregnant and/or have a baby at that time, knowing he was going to be gone for six months.

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The Beginning: An Outlet to Be Honest

I have always craved intimate, true connections with people in my life. I know in order to accomplish that, you have to be honest and open in communicating, even if it's hard or painful or awkward. This had led me to be fairly open with my family, close friends, and anyone who inquires about my life. The Mister is much more keen to keep things to himself.

However, when it came to the all important conversation of having a baby, he and I were on the same page from the beginning. We weren't going to talk about it with anyone. I didn't want people involved in that area of our private life and I certainly didn't want any undue anticipation. This plan worked for a while. A long time, actually. Over a year. I broke down here and there and shared bits of things with certain people, at certain times.

But now I need to talk about it. I need to be able to say something more than "We hope soon!" with a smile plastered on my face. I told The Mister recently I've realized that because I don't want to be totally honest with people, I'm not being totally honest with myself, and then I can't be totally honest with God. And that is making it hard to deal with this pain and uncertainty.

I told The Mister a few weeks ago that while working through some feelings of discouragement and frustration, I reminded myself that the purpose of all things is to glorify God. To make His character, His purposes and His ways known. As soon as I had that thought I asked myself, "Ok, but how is anyone going to know the glory if they don't know the struggle?" That's when I began to think maybe God was telling me it was time to share. So that He might be glorified. Known. Exalted.

On Sunday, our pastor talked about how there was no room at the inn for Mary & Joseph, and therefore no room for Jesus. Something he said when explaining how making space in our lives for God doesn't make our lives perfect shouted at me. "Make space in your life for God to get into the darkness and bring light." This is my corner of darkness where I am making space for God so He can bring light.

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