His Timing is Perfect

I am a baby hog. I grew up begging to hold all the babies. To be completely honest, things haven't changed at all! I love all things babies. When I was given the blessing of my own, it was such a different love than anything I'd ever experienced.

I'm 99% sure our fertility struggles have made my baby fever even worse! We'd always talked about 4. It was perfect. I was married at 22. I wanted all my babies before I was 30. I had plenty of time. Well here we are in my 26th year with one child. While I would welcome back to back pregnancies, I'm grateful for the gap I was given. The miscarriages were life changing, to say the least, but His timing is perfect.

Lincoln is almost 2 and the most beautiful soul. He's so full of life and love and mischief. He has the biggest personality (wonder where he got that from! 😝 ) and so much character. I am just a few weeks away from my second loss' due date. I would have had 2 under 2. It seemed crazy at the time, but I loved that gap so much. March 22nd is such a special date for us now. As well as February 7th. I'll never forget those babies and their birthdays. I cannot wait to find out who they are and meet them on the other side.

As each day passes, the yearning for another child grows stronger. I absolutely cannot wait to watch Link be the best big brother. I watch a few babies throughout the week and he is learning so much. He's always rubbing their bald little heads, helping with bottles, giving them toys, and making them laugh. He'll even try to sit in their laps! I'm always there to save them, but he just wants to snuggle them in the only way he knows! It's hilarious to see him interact with these little souls.

I want Lincoln to help us teach his siblings. How to kick a soccer ball. Ride a bike. Skills on how to bug mama (he's a pro some days!). Ways to get extra fun snacks when mom needs a break. All important life-as-a-child skills! He has so much love for us that I know his love for his future siblings will be amazing to witness. He already teaches us so much every day and I am grateful he was given to us. It took us about a year and a half to get that little dude, but the Lord's timing back then was absolutely perfect as well.

It seems selfish, in a way, to want more. I feel guilty. Why isn't Lincoln enough? But we've always felt that there are more spirits waiting to join us. We don't know when that will be, but we know that's in our future. Wanting another child when others never had one or have struggled for over a decade to get their first seems selfish as well. I have very close friends that have tried every method in the book and still haven't been given the blessing of a child yet. Exhausting all of their options with no reward. Yet. We pray hard for you sweet, yearning parents!

I am thankful we have our little guy. If that's all we're given, then that's okay. His plan is perfect. God knows what we need and when we need it. We will soak up every second of Lincoln and be content. We are so blessed to have him and call him ours. He's the light of our life and our whole world. We get to watch this tiny human grow up (far too quickly) before our eyes and become an amazing human. We have so many hopes and dreams for him and I just know he'll do it all and more!

Infertility and pregnancy are something I will never stop talking about. Ever. I will tell the world until I am blue in the face. You never know who you're helping or who you'll impact. For good. It's such a sacred thing that many of us don't enjoy discussing. And that is completely natural. But acting like it's taboo is more harmful. So many women feel so alone. But I do think that awareness and knowledge of loss and infertility has gotten better in recent years. And I'm hoping to continue that awareness and knowledge of just how common pregnancy loss and awareness truly is.

I recently posted an image on Instagram:

Shortly after, I received these messages:

I am so grateful she reached out to me. That's a testimony that sharing my struggles has helped at least one person in a time of hardship. The timing of her loss and my post were also no coincidence. She was meant to see that. If you're reading this, sweet girl, I still haven't stopped thinking about you. Thank you for adding such a special detail into my journey.

It's easy for me to talk about it now. And through my sharing I have created lifelong bonds with people near and far. Some of my closest friends are women that have also struggled with infertility. We check with each other multiple times a week to see where they are in the process of TTC (trying to conceive). "Have you tested yet?!" is always a fun question. And the answer is always YES! Because we pee on sticks like there's no tomorrow. It's kind of a hobby! Haha. My mom joked I need to buy stock in the pregnancy test industry because I am DEFINITELY keeping them in business.

So here we are trudging through the adventure of infertility. Again. It's a lot of hope, worry, wonder, fear, waiting, praying, waiting, wondering, questioning, and talking myself down. I used to obsess over every single "symptom". I would trick myself almost every month. Especially when Clomid was added into the mix.

Even though the Clomid helped me ovulate, I still didn't get pregnant. How could that be? Blood tests confirmed. I did everything I needed to do. I was so diligent about my medications and eating healthy (yay Keto!). I was getting enough sleep. I wasn't stressed. I knew Clomid could make me crazy, so I made sure I didn't let that happen again. It was perfect. It WAS going to happen. But it didn't. And we were crushed all over again.

And then we did Clomid again, an even higher dosage, and it didn't work. At all. Zero. Blood tests confirmed that I didn't ovulate even on the max dosage. I had one more cycle to try and then I'd be referred to a fertility specialist. But that was taken away from me as well. While I'm glad it all went down the way it did, I still felt like that last month of trying was stolen from me. I am so thankful I broke it off with my regular OBGYN and saw the specialists so quickly. It still stung in the beginning, but His timing is perfect. Sometimes prayers are answered in a very different way than we ever expected.

Thomas and I chose this journey of life. We may not have all the "whys" answered yet, but we know there's a plan and we wanted it. This walk of life is tough. Really tough. We are continually humbled by this entire process. We have it much easier than most. While every trial is different for each person, we are thankful for the opportunity to grow and learn. My love for my sweet, supportive husband grows by the second. My love for my son is stronger than ever before. I was so in love with him from the moment I knew of his life inside of me 3 years ago. And it is so unbelievably strong today. And will continue to grow even stronger.

I am happy for these struggles, in a way. I have learned more about myself than ever before. I have had to practice patience and TRUST His timing. There's still a long road ahead of waiting for our next little soul to join our family, but we are excited for the future. We have no idea what is in store for us, but we are waiting with open arms.