Movement
“Nicole, I’d say you have at least a 90% chance of getting pregnant and carrying another baby to term with IVF. Everything you just shared? Your concerns and the vision for how you would want that process to go? We can do it exactly how you want.”
John and I had a quiet walk to our car following that visit with our fertility doctor. This was our follow-up appointment after my second laparoscopic surgery in a year to remove aggressive scar tissue from my abdomen that had returned sooner than expected. As my doctor described it in there twelve months prior, “It was like a bomb went off. Scar tissue everywhere, Nicole. You must have had an undiagnosed pelvic infection at some point. That’s the only thing I can figure.” One of the many times in my life where my body has left a doctor scratching his head and wondering, “What the heck?! I did not expect to find THAT.”
I know, Doc. I know. Welcome to my world.
I looked over at John as we were speeding up the highway on-ramp to head home. Not able to take the silence anymore I casually asked, “Sooooo…what are your thoughts, Babe?” Already knowing my answer. Curious about his.
Everything we had been working toward for years was coming to a head in this moment. We had exhausted the world of IUI, taken every possible medication for that process in every possible dosage. I have eaten my weight in salty salami to keep me out of the hospital during the months my body overreacted to dosages and overproduced follicles. It took months to recover from two very painful surgeries hoping that this mysterious scar tissue was the reason why I have been pregnant three times with no prior intervention…until now.
For two people feeling consumed by the world of child loss and secondary infertility, our doctor was telling us EXACTLY what we wanted to hear. This was our chance. Our chance for me to relive another pregnancy. Step into a process that has been successful for so many of our friends.
Without hesitation, John never took his eyes off the road. “Right now, I still feel like God’s calling us to adopt…”
I teared up.
“Me, too, Babe. Me, too.”
Can I just say one thing here before I go on? Sidebar with me for a sec. Stepping into a fertility doctor’s waiting room for the first time, admitting that THIS is where you are now and officially crossing over into “that world,” changes you and everything around you. My thoughts on infertility and growing a family are nothing like they were prior to this process.
Until you LIVE IT, you have no idea what it is like. How it affects your marriage. Your friendships. Your daily life. How you can be walking the same exact path with your spouse and still feel alone at times…wondering if he will catch up to where you are, or if you will ever get to where he is.
Within the infertility community, every family is grown differently. I think that is beautiful. The decisions you make regarding this intimate topic are ones that will be a part of your story forever. Long after your family grows from two to three.
IUI, IVF, Foster to Adopt, Domestic Adoption, International Adoption. Just because one of these was the right fit for one couple does not mean it is the right fit for the next couple that comes along. You do not always know someone’s full story, the conversations that happen late at night, why they made the choices they made and how they got to where they are now. Most importantly, what God is saying to them and why. John and I know that first hand, because no two couples we have encountered on this journey have grown their families the same way. I kinda love that.
A week later, we told our family the news that we were pursuing adoption. BEYOND excited for this next leg. I cancelled every single photoshoot I had scheduled for that fall to pursue this process full-time. We began to narrow down agencies. We started taking classes. If I stood still long enough I swear I could finally feel my hair blowing in the breeze of sweet sweet MOVEMENT. We were off and running toward growing our family in a way my heart was already preparing for. GAHHH!!
Until one day about a month later. Ironically, in the car again.
We were bickering on the way to visit John’s best friend to tell him and his wife our news of pursuing adoption. The thing about bickering, at least with us, is there’s usually an underlying issue. A deeper conflict that just has not surfaced yet. We sifted through the, “What is really going on here…?” and found out halfway into our hour-long drive that we were both hearing the same thing from the Lord regarding our pursuit of adoption. Something that did not make sense to two people who finally got the green light and a clear direction on HOW our family was about to grow.
We both felt like…for whatever reason…God was telling us to wait.
Picture the threshold of a door. The door began to crack open, the “winds of movement” caught it and that puppy flung open when we left the doctor’s office that day. It was like I was standing there next to my Heavenly Father and He reached His Hand out for me to hold tightly as if to say, “Here we go, Nic! Adoption! What you’ve been waiting for. It’s FINALLY TIME!! THIS is where we are going next!”
I clenched His hand and looked out confidently at what I was about to step into with certainty. I could SEE what was coming for us. Then, just when my heel was about to embark on untouched territory God moved his other hand. His pointer finger extended like every parent does when you are telling your child to hold on a second.
A year and some change went by and my hair was motionless. Not a breeze to be found. Movement toward cradling a little one in my arms again was stagnant. From late summer of 2017 through the goodbye of 2018, we didn’t know what we were waiting FOR but we knew WHO we were waiting WITH. Never questioning His intentions or his credibility, we used those 17 months to lean into Him as much as possible. Trusting. Asking God every single day to sharpen us and remind us yet again that His times of waiting are not to be wasted.
Your circumstances may not appear to be changing, but you are. Even in the wait. We just don’t always see it.
With the turn of 2019, John and I revisited the conversation again about adoption and what we felt like God was saying to us. Feeling that maybe, just maybe, now that we had settled into our first home the winds were about to pick up again.
And then…days later…it came. MOVEMENT.
Movement that preceded shock, the need to sit down to breathe and a panicked Saturday morning text to my doctor’s personal cell phone (to whom I have not spoken to in 17 months, mind you!) asking him, “WHAT DO I DO?!?!” as I tried to wrap my mind around what had just happened. Something completely unplanned and unexpected.
This movement I am referring to came in the form of a blue plus sign I thought my eyes would never see again.
A positive pregnancy test.
For the last 8 months, after 8 years of trying to grow our family, I have been able to carry a living miracle inside this ever-growing belly. Me. Miss Scar Tissue. Miss Secondary Infertility. Nervously making it past the 8th and 9th weeks of pregnancy where this baby has lost two siblings to stopped heartbeats. Watching the screen as this baby has a visibly healthy, strong heart. A stark contrast to similar visits with our heart warrior, Owen. The big brother this babe will never get to meet on this earth.
This is how our looooooong season of waiting to parent earthly children again is coming to an end for us. With our “Chubba Butts.” Our little “Chubs” as we call him or her. Our wild-child, CRAZY-kicker, mover-and-shaker-all-day-e’ry-day baby on the way. Arriving in late September.
God gave me wind in my hair again that Saturday morning in January. Chubs gives me COUNTLESS, powerful kicks in the gut on the regular. Now THAT…my friends…
is MOVEMENT.
(Photo Credit: Adrienne Gerber Photography)
Click here for the very beginning of our 8 year journey through life, loss and our unexpected struggle with secondary infertility. Starting with what we shared at our 3-week-old son’s funeral.