I wrote these words exactly one month ago and I’ve been pondering them, again, over the past three days as we adjust to our new reality:
I’ve been struggling lately with a strong desire/compulsion to finish things, to have resolution, to have less on my plate. I need to be able to breathe. I need margin. When I made a list of (almost) everything on my plate a few months ago I realized just how little margin I have in my life and it was overwhelming.
Some of these things on my list will be resolved in the fall, when we will gain time, space (more about that in a later post), and increased financial freedom. Some long-awaited house projects will be finished, our potential pregnancy will be finished (embryo transfer in two weeks), and in many ways we will be able to breathe deeply for the first time in a long time. I can’t wait.
I still feel a desire to finish things and to have far less on my plate, but I never wanted our embryo transfer to fail. In my mind, October brought the hope of more resolution because we’d be finished with pregnancies and would add another baby to our family. Not that we wouldn’t have another baby at all.
I didn’t want this.
And yet, this is what God knew would happen all along and I can feel His love and peace deep within my soul.
Since Friday, I’ve been intentionally focusing on the good that this new reality brings rather than on what could have been.
I feel at peace because I know for sure that our (biological) family is complete. It is finished. There will be no more pregnancies, no more c-sections or recoveries, no more breastfeeding, no more diapers once the boys are potty-trained. We will (in theory) be sleeping through the night for the rest of our lives (hallelujah!). We can afford to do more, travel more, experience more as a family of four as opposed to a family of five or six. We are closer now to the family life I’ve always wanted than we would be if we started over with newborns.
Everything is going to be okay.
The last two days brought some tears, some prayers asking for reasons, but they’ve also brought peace. Gratitude. A sense of completion. I got what I had asked for, even though it’s not in the way I hoped it would be.
I was reminded yesterday that I had always (as long as I can remember) pictured myself being a boy mom. I had never planned to have daughters, so when we found out Tori was a girl it was a huge mental adjustment for me. Perhaps my lifelong desire to raise sons was God’s way of preparing me to not have daughters on earth.
We truly believe that we will meet our precious embryos in Heaven someday and I can’t wait to know them, hug them, love them. I’m so thankful for the hope we have in Jesus.
This loss in no way even begins to compare to the pain of losing our Tori; the Lord was so good to us through all of that, and I know He will continue to show Himself to us as we press on and live the life He has called us to live, even though it looks nothing like what we had expected.
Even So, Joy 