Cameron and I have reached a disappointing milestone in our marriage this month...2 full years of TTC without a pregnancy. I don't love this reminder, but I feel it is important to speak up about it for anyone else who may be struggling with it as well.
I had a heart-breaking reminder this weekend of this so-far unanswered prayer, when I asked myself if I could "paint" a picture of what I wanted in life...what would it look like? Cameron helped me through the tears with the answer that came...I want children. We both share an extremely intense desire to start a family but we are not in control of it... God is in control of our family.
So to focus on the positive that has come from this difficulty, I wanted to share some great milestones that God has given us on this journey...
...gaining true patience. The kind that can be happy about others' pregnancy announcements and not focused on what I don't yet have and strong through each let-down.
...giving up my need for control. I think along with control goes blame. So long as I felt like I controlled when we had children, I also felt some level of blame for it, like if I could be less stressed or eat healthier (all good things) then maybe I could make it happen. We tried all sorts of "helpful" tips for a while, and then we “let it be”--the phrase the happens to be tattooed on my arm as a reminder to give it over to God, which I got in 2011.
...time to focus on our marriage, which though I don't always love it, I am thankful for. Marriage is hard and Cameron and I are dedicated to working through those difficulties. This process has brought out tough issues that we have had to balance each other's views on, dilemmas I was not prepared to face and vulnerabilities that are difficult to share. But we have grown as a couple because of them. I'm so thankful that our difficulty in having children hasn't resulted in a blame game. This is our problem. Not one or the other of us.
...understanding my body better. We are incredibly built by God and after learning more about my body and understanding my cycle (sorry guys), I have learned to be more attuned to it and avoid shifting the balance of my hormones unnecessarily. It even helped me find some scale of relief on other, seemingly unrelated medical issues to just understand how my body naturally works.
...trust in God's plan. Not necessarily that God will give us children, but trust that God has a plan for us.
...My personal favorite: Adoption! Cameron and I were never very familiar with adoption and quite frankly, we were intimidated by the idea and hadn't ever honestly considered it. God has slowly shown us that adoption is a great gift that he was the first to give by adopting us. It is very important to us that we express that we are continuing to TTC AND adopt. Even if I ended up conceiving multiple children, we both feel strongly that we would like to also adopt. The slight delay on that front is that we will most likely wait to initiate adoption until we move to our next location since the process generally needs to start and end in the same state.
So looking forward, thank you for everyone's thoughts, prayers, and encouraging words! We ask that you continue on this journey with us :) We sincerely hope that children are in our near future and as Cameron will say "we are definitely trying our best"! We are thankful for all we have been given and look forward to those things yet to come...whatever God has in store. We will continue to be a house that serves the Lord, as our God is faithful and we know he hears our prayers.
