Recent Reflections

And three years without blogging went-just like that (snaps fingers). Wow...I relied on blogging to help me address the deep sadness that I experienced during our journey to start a family and to help me keep people informed about how Liam was doing during his first year of life. Now, I have another reason to blog...

Remember those dreams you had when you were in high school? How you thought your life would turn out-the job, marrital status, kids, etc.? Did life follow your plans? For most people their life probably didn't turn out exactly how they dreamt. So that brings up an issue regarding perspective- do you say "plot twist!" and roll with it, or do you wallow in self-pity? Ten years of the infertility rollercoaster was a constant struggle not to fall in into that pit. After adopting Liam, I thought I had gotten it: like Jacob in the Bible who waited for Rachel literally for years, we had also received our blessing. Hind sight was 20/20. God PROVED faithful. He blessed us beyond what we could have ever imagined. There is nothing we would have changed about our journey-NOTHING... Not the poking and prodding of fertility treatments, not the miscarriages, not the emotional toll it took on Billy and I individually, not the strain it put on our marriage, nor the financial debt-because it ultimately lead us to God's perfect plan for us. Now he's four years old!

So, where do we go from here? That is the question we are faced with, and time is passing us by at lightening speed. Billy and I aren't getting any younger, and neither is Liam lol. When Billy and I were married, we dreamt of having the 2.5 kids (.5 was that another baby or a dog?-could never figure that out...). Of course we had no idea that we would struggle for as long as we did to have a family. We wanted to exhaust all of our resources, thus the fertility treatments. We didn't want to look back, and have regret for not giving it "a good ol' college try." However, we continue to experience the consquences of devoting so much of our finances to becoming a family-not just on fertility treatments but also the cost of adopting.  Because of that, Billy and I have taken a very passive stance in further expanding our family. Years ago, I told Billy that I thought God might surprise us in the future. That maybe He didn't want us to be so proactive to pursue baby #2. Maye he wanted us to wait for Him to bring a situation to us.

That is exactly what happened-twice. However, neither obviously panned out. When Liam wasn't even a year old, Billy received a phone call from our social worker that a college girl was wanting to put her baby up for adoption. Our heads spinned as we tried to imagine having two babies in diapers. Billy continously called and checked in with our social worker, but the mother decided to keep the baby. Then in March of this year, I was contacted by a friend about birthparents who wanted to place their child up for adoption. This situation was a bit stickier, and ultimately did not work out either. Billy rolled with it all as a champ. I had a harder time-I felt like God was waving a carrot in front of my face, just out of reach. It felt like a cruel trick. Once again I realized that I needed to rage battle with my thoughts.

As Christians, that is the struggle, right? To not just rattle off Jeremiah 29:11 and Romans 8:28. You have to believe that God really has the best plan for us, and you have to abandon what we thought was going to happen. Accept, and move on. Not so easy, but something that is essential: die to self; live for Christ. I know that I am not the only person that is struggling with this concept. We need to pray for each other as we endure our unqiue trials, refer to previous times in our life when God has proven himself faithful, we need to feed our soul by devouring His Word, and we need to pour ourselves out to Him. Something Billy and I need to do more often as we contemplate our current passive stance or taking on a more proactive stance to add to our family. Your prayers are greatly appreciated!