Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow…

Sometimes life gets so loud and painful that we miss recognizing blessings.  Our vision gets blurry because we are just trying to survive.  We start the journey with clear eyes, but life and all of its subtle and not so subtle issues help us to forget the goal for which we were striving.

This story started almost 8 years ago.  Two and a half years ago, God brought 4 miraculous blessings into our lives—eggs and sperms together to form embryos against some stringent odds.  Two were implanted September of 2010 in my uterus and a little miracle named John Benjamin “Jack” Pinkner entered the world in June of 2011.

Greg and I began praying about these next two embryos almost immediately after having Jack.  We had made a commitment to implant them or put them up and available to be adopted when we began the whole IVF process.  We took this decision very seriously as Greg and I know now the reality of his RA in parenting brings.  We had to be prepared to parent twins…which would be a big challenge with one parent with a chronic illness.  With trepidation (we are both realists–no romantic notions of parenthood here), we decided to trust God and go through a Frozen Embryo Transfer in January of 2013.

I was not prepared in my heart to walk back into the throws of infertility drugs and infertility thoughts and fears.  It. was.  hard.  The drugs seemed more intense in my body and in my head.  I had a toddler to tend to, as well.  Our journey with infertility was the richest time of growth in the Lord I had ever experienced, but it was so so so painful.  True growth comes, many times, through pain.  It is the kind of thing you want to look back on and not walk back through.  The process is long and you hold to hope and yet guard your heart for what reality might bring.  We had to know that this could be it…no more children and the answer would come definitive and soon.  All the while we were laying our hearts on the altar trusting God’s sovereignty and being re-baptized into the faith that grew the first time around–is God good when He acts differently than we expect?  When we gives what we hoped would not come?  Is He good and does He do us good when we hurt and are disappointed?

Three and a half months after this process began, fertility drugs, heartbeat scares, daily shots, shingles, colds, intense sickness and many many many prayers from the saints…we got a good report from the doc today.  A doctor who knew he was an instrument and not the answer to our problems…he acknowledged that God’s hand brought this life (single life) growing in my womb.  For the first time today, I have let some joy wash over me…thankfulness as my self-protection begins to fade and yet heaviness for those who have gotten devastating news in the last days and weeks about their hopeful ones.  I am so thankful –so undeserving of this blessing.  As my sickness wanes on, I pray that each day grow in joy.  These last 10 weeks have been filled with many things physically and mentally to cloud my vision and help me forget the reason we started this journey.  We having a baby that is due October 10, 2013.  Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow.  He is our hope…our strong tower…our defender…our redeemer…our all.