A Decade of Delight and Disappointment

10 years.  A decade.  So many years of marriage...  So short a time when you're in love...

Looking back over the last ten years, I see mostly sunshine and roses with just enough rain and thorns to make us appreciate the warmth and sweetness. Chronologically, I would characterize our first decade in this way:

Delight #1:  After many years of singleness, finally marrying the man of my dreams and experiencing God's gracious goodness in the delight of our love.  Our marriage has been the "exceeding abundant" answer to my every prayer and has surpassed my wildest expectations.

Disappointment #1:  Realizing in the second year of our marriage that conceiving a child would be difficult for us.  Battling infertility has been the cloud in the otherwise sunny sky for most of the first decade of our marriage.  But through it all, we have found solace in one another and in the sovereignty of our God.  I often think of Elkanah's words to Hannah in 1 Samuel chapter one, and silently answer his question to his wife "Am I not better to you than ten sons?"  with a firm "yes" as applies to the gift God has given me in Conroy.

Delight #2: The blessing of our miracle from heaven, our own Jacie Nevaeh, born in the fourth year of our marriage when we had just about given up hoping for biological children.  She has been our gift that keeps giving as we delight in each stage of her development!

Disappointment #2:  Secondary infertility.  I mistakenly thought that after having one child, the "floodgates would open" and more children would come easily.  Not so.  Prayers and tears and more doctors' visits have proved me wrong.  But the same truths that held me during my years of singleness and then during the first few years of infertility have held me and have been my stay and comfort. I'm reminded once again to keep my hands open in surrender to the One Who loves perfectly and to relinquish my dreams as I allow Him to write my story.

Delight #3:  Ministering together.  "Two hearts, one dream."  We're in this life journey together.  Our calling unified.  There's no greater joy than serving the Lord, except for the joy of serving Him together.  He has replaced our dreams and expectations with His own, and we delight in discovering His unexpected plans for us.

So it is with the confident delight in our sovereign Lord's plans, that I eagerly anticipate the next decade (and more) of our marriage --  peering around the corner down the next corridor of the joyous adventure found in serving our Great and Worthy Savior together!

Today My Smile is Forced

so you're pregnant again.  glowing with happiness and expectation.  

congratulations flood you, surround you, then it's my turn to smile, to congratulate. 

And I do. 

I believe in babies.  I am pro-family.  

But sometimes it hurts to smile.  

Sometimes the congratulations feel forced. 

I don't want to feel that way. I want to feel nothing but pure, unadulterated joy for you.

But the lump in my throat is real.  

The pain that comes with experiencing my own emptiness again and again won't be ignored.

Depending on the day your news catches me, smiling may come more easily. 

 I may laugh, and exude more genuine joy. 

But then there are the days when I'm struggling.  

when the grief I thought I was done with is breaking me again.  

of course when you share your news, you can't possibly know that  I'm having one of those days. 

But I am.  

And today, my smile is forced.

Empty

Our house has empty rooms. Waiting. At times filled temporarily with guests. One person, then another, finding transient rest in one of the empty bedrooms. I close the doors compulsively as I walk by after tidying up the central room, putting away folded clothes -- perhaps if the doors are closed the empty rooms will be forgotten, set aside, put on the back burner.

But ignored rooms don't go away. And emptiness rings hollow. Like a dull gong sounding deep in the recesses of the heart. Empty. Barren. The symbolism cannot be ignored. And the words echo relentlessly: Empty...  Empty ...  Empty...

Then, like a whisper in my soul, the dull echo begins to sing. Quietly at first, the lyrics turn the gong into a song:  "Empty hands held high. Such small sacrifice..." 

    Lord I give my life

A living sacrifice

  To reach a world in need

    To be Your hands and feet...

And I know it's true -- if my hands are empty, it's to raise them as an offering to my King.  The wracking of my brain to figure out what to do with the emptiness is answered in these simple lyrics -- offer the emptiness to Him.  A small sacrifice in light of Calvary. My life, my dreams, in exchange for Him. 

So with joyful, painful relief, my soul bursts into full song: 

Let my lifesong sing to You!

I want to sign Your name to the end of this day

Knowing that my heart was true

Let my lifesong sing to You.

(Lyrics by Casting Crowns)

Our Summer So Far....

She asked me how many kids I wanted to have.  "I would have liked to have had at least four, but that's probably not gonna happen," I answered honestly, biting back the sigh of infertility.

Incredulously, she looked at me and exclaimed, "Four kids!  Then you'd never have room for all of us!"

And there it is.  The truth.  God's plan.  Because just maybe I'm supposed to have room for the kids who have nowhere else to go. Maybe that's what He wants for our lives instead. So instead of a houseful of young children, we have:

College students and extended family filling our home...

Trips to the DMV and driving practice in the parking lot...

Impromptu graduation party with volleyball, football, soccer in the yard...

Trips to the mall because the AC broke...

Wedding bubbles celebrating the holy matrimony of special friends...

Long, lazy, sunshine-drenched days....

Strolls through flea markets and farmers' markets...

Dollar ice cream cones from Burger King....

Late night movies with teens and twenty-somethings piling in our living room...

Living the God dream -- the One He has wrought -- so satisfying, so blessed.  Our home is full and our hearts are full; we are so in awe of what happens when His hands gently remove our plans and replace them with His own. 

Gagging on Hope

I don't want to hope anymore.  

I want to turn it off. 

But it rises up of its own accord  ~  it tantalizes and appeals, so strong that I can taste it in my mouth. Tears well in my eyes with the strength of it.

It's so much easier not to feel hope, not to think about it, not to give in to it.  So much easier on the heart to press forward, to focus on my full and blessed life, to attend to the needs right in front of me.
But hope won't allow itself to be ignored; it presses in in the quiet, unguarded moments  ~~ in the moment when I am sitting in church, my heart raw and exposed before God ~~  in those moments it comes back.

Hope wells up and won't be shoved down. 

From nowhere, it fills my mind and heart, until I am gagging on it, choking it back, blinking away tears with the effort, bewildered and blinded.

And because it is hope, I waver unsure whether to banish it completely or to allow it in measure, under control, tamped down.

But hope isn't like that.  It's immoderate, brash, a force of its own.  

It won't be shut into a corner or constrained.  It's all or nothing.  

But still I fear its power.  I fear that it will break me.  And so I gag it back.   I refuse to allow it full rein. Like water bursting through a dam, I know it will return eventually.  I know it is irrepressible.  But for now, I tamp it down yet again.  I summon the strength to rein it in and to turn my head and move on with life.

For this Fridge I Have Longed....

Every time I look at my refrigerator door, my heart smiles.  No, not because of the refrigerator itself, nor because of what's inside it.

It's the outside that I love -- the outside covered with photos of friends and family, yes.  But especially the bottom half -- the Jacie-height part covered with random pieces of her handiwork ~~

scribbled crayon Sunday School papers, 

glued construction paper shapes, 

the requisite magnetic letters constantly changing in design and order at her whim. 

This is the fridge door I longed for so many times in those first four years of marriage while trying to get pregnant.  I wanted it so badly -- all of it -- the clutter, the chaos, the toys strewn in random places, the too-loud chatter of a toddler voice.

And now it's my life.  She's my life.

  

So while I still dream of more children, of the chatter of more than one little voice, I am thankful, so thankful that my prayer has been answered in my lively little girl.

That our house is not quiet.  

That the lower half of the refrigerator door is not bare. 

That my living room isn't grown-up neat like it was for so many years. 

I treasure the mess because it represents life -- one sweet little life much prayed for and much loved and too soon grown up.

Dreaming a Different Dream

I dreamt of picket fences, marriage right out of college, and a neat, orderly life.

Instead, God sent me to China, allowed me to be single, and opened my eyes to a great, big world.

I dreamt of finding fulfillment in children of my own, raising up an army to serve the King.

Instead, God limited my offspring and opened doors of outreach.

I dreamt my dream of life.

Instead, God gave me His.

Today our household increases by one more.  

One more sweet, possibly scared Korean teenager looking for a place to stay in a strange, new land.  That makes five of us, no two ethnicities alike. 

That makes our house about as multi-cultural as you get with a Jamaican, an American, a "Ja-merican," a Chinese, and a Korean.  

Our "household of faith."  

The one I didn't dream of, but the one that fills my heart with joy and with PURPOSE today. 

 God's dreams are better than mine.  

Always. 

What If......?

So I was at the library recently, browsing titles while Jacie played in the children's room when I came across a book about The Only Child (I don't remember the exact title).  I picked it up, surfed the Table of Contents, and skimmed over chapters that caught my interest.  Of course, as a secular book, it was missing many of the Biblical reasons to have multiple children, but much of it was addressed to the parent(s) who did not plan to just have one child.  Some beliefs/"myths" (their term) were cited such as feeling that your child will miss out on the "big, happy family" scene -- lots of playmates, forever friends, "us-against-the-world," "loyal-to-the-end" siblings.  I found myself nodding in agreement --- this is certainly one of my great fears/sadnesses as I think about Jacie being an only child, even if it's just for a block of time.  The book tried to "correct" that notion, saying that some sibling are competitors, fighting more than friends.  It also alleged that only children are more confident, achieve more, and are happier in general.  The book warned that children pick up on parents' projections, so that if a parent believes that her only child is somehow "gypped" of siblings, the child will pick up on this perspective and feel bereft and robbed, too. However, according to the book, if the parents are content with only one child, the child will not have experience any sense of "missing out."

As stated before, I took much of the book's reasoning with a grain of salt since it was written from a secular psychologist's standpoint, but it did cause me to re-examine my own attitude.  Perspective is everything, they say.  Some people plan for and want only one child.  So they would view me as crazy to be upset or affected in any way by having only one child.  Our perspective is also influenced by the people around us. As a theologically conservative Christian, I have deliberately surrounded myself with friends, family, books, blogs, and other media from this same conservative Christian perspective.  Rightly so, the family emphasis of these sources celebrates children in unlimited numbers, encouraging adoption in addition to biological children.  So as I mentally backed up to analyze my perspective after perusing the library book, I wondered how much of my sorrow and disappointment is based on an expectation that has been shaped by the influences in my life.  Maybe the beautiful image of a successful Christian family = many kids, all happy, healthy, well-disciplined, and home-schooled should be replaced by the reality that God's definition of a successful Christian family differs for each one, according to His Divine Sovereignty.

This isn't the first time I've had to re-align my thinking from the Christian culture around me.  As a single woman in my 20's, I did not fit the "good Christian girl" expectation of getting married right out of Bible college.  I wanted to.  The expectation was just as much mine as it was the church's.  Bible reading, biography reading, and prayer brought me to the rightful conclusion that following God's unique plan for my life meant serving Him in whatever state He had me.

The connection I'm making between singleness and "single-childness" makes sense to me.  Not that I will not continue to pursue God's leading for more children -- either biologically or by adoption or both -- but that maybe it's okay to have only one child.  Obviously, this IS the state He has me in -- by design, not by accident. Doesn't belief in His sovereignty mean that we accept what He's given us, realizing He gives only good gifts? Sadly, I would be fearful to even voice this view to some well-meaning Christians.  I know that the rebuttal will be "But I know so-and-so who adopted"  or "have you tried this....?" Back in the day, childless couples just accepted their childless state and filled their lives with service.  I know several older couples like this -- missionaries, Christian school teachers, and church leaders. Lest any of this rambling be misconstrued, I am so pro large families and I am so pro-adoption!  But might I be so bent on fulfilling these goals/expectations that I miss God's plan for my family and me?  Am I putting words in His mouth when I assume that a lack of biological children necessitates adoption?

Mullings...  musings....  thoughts still in process....

Here We Go Again....

Worsening PCOS symptoms lead to more doctor's visits which leads to the inevitable decision:  Clomid or not?  I like to think that I gave the natural route a fair shake -- two years and two different nutritionists before Jacie was born, and now radical diet changes to work on getting my body back on the right track.  I still plan to be as natural as possible in my diet and way of life.  But the fact of the matter is that I will be 37 this year and if I'm to have a child biologically, the window of time is narrowing.
So we will see.
We will see what the ultrasound results and blood work show.
We will see how my body reacts to Clomid.
We will see if I can conceive another child.

If not, we'll pursue adoption.  The large $$$ amount involved in adoption and excessive red tape/paperwork are so very daunting to me.  But if God closes the door firmly on more biological children for us, I have to believe it is because He wants us to be involved in the rescue of orphans.

Trusting and waiting = The story of my life.  But it doesn't seem to get easier with each roadblock.

Each doctor's visit feels emotional, burdensome, weighty  -- as in a physical pressure pushing down on my shoulders, making each step come sluggishly.
The second-guessing, swirling mental questions come at every juncture. Which method/advice/ "doctor's orders" should I follow?  It's not cut and dried.  There's no neon sign.  There's no risk-free option.

So I lean heavily on Jesus.  I trust Him.   I cannot see the way.   But He can, and He's there already.

Broken Dreams, Beautiful Exchanges

Orphanage visits in Jamaica.  Coming home to our large, mostly empty house.  Wondering about God's plan for our family.  Will our home ever be filled with our children, adopted or biological (the latter seems less likely as time moves on)? Or is the Divine Exchange a home filled with ministry? As my 40s creep closer and the dream of a large family appears more elusive, I search for an explanation, an alternative.  The why behind the closed womb.  An answer to the daunting question of adoption (mounds of paperwork, red tape, waiting lists, and $$$ for international adoptions).

Down to the marrow of my bones, I believe that God's plan is the best plan.  But am I missing it?  Is the battle with infertility meant to push us to fill our home with children who need a home?  Or is it something else altogether since the means necessary for adoption doesn't seem forthcoming?  I am willing to exchange my dreams for God's best, whatever that is.  It's just the waiting and uncertainty that get to me every time.

Fear and Hope

Already I feel the fear raising its ugly head.  What if the next pregnancy proves as elusive as it was the first time?  Am I up for the roller coaster ride of emotions, hoping every month only to be disappointed?  I try to squelch the fears with:  shouldn't I be content with the child I have?  Or it's too soon to know if I will have difficulty getting pregnant again because I'm still nursing.  Or even, it's out of my control anyway, so why worry about it --- when it happens, it happens! 

And yet...  the twinge has returned when I hear about another pregnancy, when I think of my desire to have a family -- siblings playing together, growing together. I am thankful and so blessed with my husband and my little girl that I feel guilty even about the twinge.  But, still, it bothers me that what comes easily to so many is such a fraught-with-frustration process for me.  Perhaps I'm worrying too soon -- maybe, maybe not.  So, cautiously, I will let myself hope.  And I will try to remember Aslan's words in The Horse and His Boy as God's reminder to me: 
"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own."

This is my story -- my lot -- perfectly handcrafted by God to work His purpose for my life and no one else's.

The Paperwork Process

Once we'd decided to focus on adoption, I was chomping at the bit to get started. But I had to wait. Waiting has long been a struggle for me. I like to see immediate results and have all the steps fall into place. But waiting has been a constant theme in my life. This time I had to wait for us to move.

After a little bit of research, I found that one of the first steps for foster care and/or adoption is completing a home study. Since we were anticipating a move to another state, I knew that it was pointless to begin the process until we were settled. But I printed out the forms and made a few calls in the weeks leading up to our move, trying to expedite the process as much as possible.

We've decided to try to adopt through Jamaica first. I could not find many agencies working with Jamaican adoptions, though the wait and cost were quoted as much shorter and lower than almost any other international adoption. A phone conversation with one agency in Jamaica proved very discouraging as she cited a long list of problems with adopting from Jamaica. But we are persisting, hoping and praying that Conroy's family in Jamaica will make the process smoother for us than it might be for the typical American family seeking to adopt. We are not going through an agency either as the cost increases substantially to hire an adoption agency and Jamaica does not require that we go through an agency; we can adopt directly through Jamaica's Child Development Agency (an office of the government).

Ever impatient, I wanted to increase our chances of finding a child quickly by looking domestically at the same time that we are in process with Jamaica, but I've been told that's not possible. Each home study must be country specific. And getting a home study done is not a cheap or simple process! ($1200 for an international adoption and between $200-$300 for domestic)

Besides completing the home study application on this end, we've also submitted an application to the Jamaican CDA for approval on their end. We're waiting to hear from Jamaica in regard to that application now. I'm working on getting all the required forms together for the home study application in the meantime.

Lately, frustrated with ambiguous time line for adoption, I've begun to consider again other herbs and drugs to aid conception. I don't want the emotional roller coaster, but the "what if it works this time?" and the lure of possible instant pregnancy tempts me....