Even the Font Size is "Normal"

I’ll be frank; this is probably way more about my intimate life than anyone wants or cares to know. But it’s where I am and our journey wouldn’t be bearable if I didn’t know there was at least one person on the other side of this blog reading along, knowing our pain and little joys and abnormalities. So thanks for being Jesus to Alec and me. I hope we are able to return the favor.

I’ve finally stopped tracking my period and putting little “x”s on the calendar every time we have sex. It started out to make sure my cycles were “normal”. Which progressed to making sure our timing was “normal” for reproduction.  And became a constant reminder that I am anything but “normal” in the realm of fertility. I still have the app on my phone with the history, but it’s like pounding that final nail in the coffin of having kids biologically; the “normal” way.  Not throwing in the towel, per-say, but listening to the calling from the open window instead of pounding my head against the locked door again and again.  After 3 cycles of meds, 2 failed IUI procedures and over a year of fertility exploration, we’re taking a 2 month hiatus from procedures, meds, doctors, ultrasounds—all of it—to rest.  And be thankful. Which seems weird even as I type this.  Not that I’m thankful for this process, because, let’s be honest, it sucks. As I’ve shared so many times before, it is long and draining and discouraging. No, to be thankful for our health (yes, our health), our community, a roof over our heads, food in our fridge, clothes on our back, so many things that have gotten lost in the shuffle of trying to have a kid. We are choosing to be thankful for the goodness of a God who continues to call us his children and has offered the ultimate sacrifice of his own son to be with us. To be thankful for the new creation started in us, our new life in Christ, a new definition for "normal".

During this resting period, this fallow time of rejuvenation, what keeps coming to my mind is the path of adoption. Not the final third IUI. Not IVF or surrogacy or any other means of biological reproduction. And that’s kind of a big, scary deal. It’s not the “normal” path given by doctors in the infertility journey.  But I know this time of pausing is God-ordained because the decision to stop tracking after almost 3 years of hoping and waiting feels like releasing a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Not like releasing a breath when you’ve been under water for 2 seconds too long. I close my eyes, breathing deep, even breaths while my shoulders droop and I find peace. Not gasping short gulps trying to calm my frantic heart and convincing myself I’m safe now.  Resting in God’s definition of who I am, what “normal” means to him.

Please continue to pray with us and be present with us during our Ecclesiastes’ season of resting. Motherhood will never look “normal” for me, but I am thankful for a God who chose to enter into this world, into relationship with us, in a way that was anything but “normal”.