Today I’m continuing our Baby Journey Saga for all of you. But before I start I would like to take a second and state that this is not just a story… I started sharing over a year ago because I felt called to share our journey. And I keep sharing now in spite of the difficult road because of the countless women who have reached out to me because they have found some comfort in knowing they are not alone. So with love, I ask that you please remember that this is my very real life and an everyday struggle for my husband and me.

Now for a refresher… In my last post about what has been going on, I shared that we found out we both have issues resulting in our difficulty to conceive. I discussed how we were told that our only option to have children of our own is through IVF. And I shared some of the struggles we’ve been going through over the past few months. Today I’ll be sharing the continuation of that… (And if you want a glimpse at the past – you can find all of my posts about this journey here.)

As you may recall – for months I have been praying the following words: “God tell me what you want me to do, and no matter how hard it is, I will get right with it, and I will do it.” I really do believe in the power of prayer. I’ve seen it impact my life and the lives of those around me. So I have not been saying these words in idleness. And honestly, these are not easy words to say because I realize what I’m offering to sacrifice. But in spite of the constant prayers, neither myself nor Ryan felt any real push or guidance in any particular direction. So we kept our appointment on the calendar to meet with the specialist in mid June.

In May, one month before our appointment, I told God that I truly believed He could work miracles, and that I was going to place our efforts to conceive into His hands. I placed no expectations on Him and had no expectations for what would happen – I simply hoped. And no – we did not get pregnant. We had no new signs. So we continued to pray for guidance as the date for our appointment continued to draw near.

On June 7th, just nine days before we were scheduled to meet the specialist. I got a text from one of my best friends. She had wonderful news! She and her hubby were pregnant with little one number two! I cannot tell you how thrilled I am for them! Such an amazing couple with a strong marriage and the cutest little girl you could ever hope to meet! We talked for a long while that night, and then around 9:30 or so, she texted me and told me one of the ladies from our church was wanting to get in touch with me.

Let me preface this by saying I had never met this beautiful woman before, and she had never actually met me. Kim is one of the core group of our church, and I had heard a lot of wonderful and amazing things about her and her closeness to God. She had heard about me and our struggle with infertility from her sweet daughter (who I adore). She told Laramie that when she heard about our struggle – she immediately had a very strong feeling that our infertility was not okay with Jesus and that she needed to contact me. So I called her, and Kim reiterated that she strongly felt that Jesus needed her to reach out to me and tell us that He isn’t okay with our struggle, and that she has faith that we are to have a baby. She said she wanted to pray with us on Sunday.

So many thoughts passed through my mind about this. I didn’t really know how to process it. First I was shocked that she would reach out to me. I’ve heard some of the awesome things that she has directly been connected with at Ren and the thought that Jesus sent her to me… That’s not something I ever imagined would happen. I was also floored that she would take the time to pray with us and for us about our struggle. The one thing I never felt, however, was skeptical. And her words renewed my hope that things might be moving in our lives very soon.

There were some serious hard points the week leading up to our Sunday of prayer. Moments that tried my heart, brought forth tears and anger, and a sorrow started to seep in. There were some deeply hurtful moments and insensitive words said. And there was no denying that despite that little glimmer of hope – a depression was starting to take hold of me. I can’t tell you how many times I reached out to friends for support, and how frequently I felt I needed to thank them for their friendship. I can’t even imagine how much more difficult that week would have been without these people in my life. Just thinking about it makes me feel an uncontainable amount of gratitude and love towards these people who I call our family!

Sunday morning rolled around, and I woke up feeling ill. It seemed that everything was working together to try and keep me from attending church that morning, but I refused to let it keep me home. We got to Renaissance and I gradually began to feel better. Another service full of powerful music and a message that always rings a little too close to home. And as the last set of music began to play, we got up to go out to the gallery for prayer. As we entered the gallery – one of our dearest friends, Niki, stepped out before us, arms open, a smile on her face, excited to see us and pray for us. And then our wonderful new friend, Kim, came up to join us too. We talked briefly and then they began to pray for us.

Now the first thing you need to know is that there are specific things that we had been praying about and concerned about over the past couple months. For a long while now one of my main requests of God was that he tell me what to do, what path He wants us to take. I had also had concerns about how we were going to pay for this very expensive procedure because I don’t know about you – but I don’t have $25,000 just lying around. I had even researched statistics for health issues in infants from IVF, as well as issues that could arise with our specific conditions. All of these were things that had weighed heavily on my heart.

You also need to know that neither Kim nor Niki knew specifics of what was happening with us. Neither of them knew we were scheduled to meet the specialist about pursuing IVF in just two days. Neither of them had heard all the worries weighing on our hearts and minds. And neither of them was telling us what to do, but simply speaking what filled their minds and hearts as they prayed with us.

And as these two beautiful souls prayed, we received what we had asked God for… answers… God spoke to us… blatantly. Through these ladies, He told us to “lay aside all options besides natural conception or adoption” and that “other avenues might put us at risk of financial ruin.” Concerns for potential health problems if we pursued other options were also brought up. And in the midst of it all – we were told not to give up faith and to trust fully in Him. Every concern we had or question we had prayed about – they were all addressed that morning. And I want to reiterate – these women knew nothing of what we were going through… they had no guidance on what to pray about or for… there was no reason for them to speak on these specific things other than through the grace of God.

I have to tell you – it’s a very surreal thing to have your prayers answered. It’s another thing entirely when you find the answer isn’t exactly what you wanted to hear. I’ll be honest – when I heard God wanted us to set our plan aside – I cried…right there in the gallery with our heads bowed, holding hands and being prayed for. (Thankfully He placed two strong and loving women on either side of me to lift me up, encourage, and hug me.)

Relinquishing control… it’s WAY harder than you’d think. It’s so easy to get caught up in our own plans and just focus on what we want and how we can get it. I felt like we had worked so hard and so long to get to this point… and I’m not gonna lie – a part of me felt like we were giving up. Even though that’s not even a little bit true. It’s just that when we have something to do (like visit a doctor), we begin to believe that we have control. And when we think we’re in control – we start to believe that we can achieve that success on our own.

In general – I think that it’s just easier for us to put our faith in the things we feel are fact. The things that seem concrete. It’s easy to stand behind the idea that 2+2=4. It’s much harder to commit to the idea that 2+x=4… because we’re not sure what that “x” is. And what if we’re wrong? Because in our own tiny worlds we get so focused on the “4” – on that result. We WANT that result. We NEED that result. We get so caught up in getting the answer we crave that we fail to see the bigger picture. We overlook the fact that 5 or 6 are nice results too. And maybe our result is a “4” but maybe our “x” isn’t a simple “2”. Maybe it’s more like “(2×4)-8+2”. Maybe it takes us a little longer to get to that result we are hoping for. But if we take control. If we try to determine the timing of things, we may miss out on all the blessings in store on that longer path.

My point is – we want simplicity and we want certainty. And sometimes we mistakenly put our faith in what we think we know. Because it is far more difficult to put our faith in what can so often feel like a far off and distant God. It can be so hard to stand behind our beliefs when the whole world seems to tell us this is impossible…

Ryan and I talked for hours that Sunday evening – about how we felt, and ultimately – about what we were supposed to do about this doctor’s appointment only two days away. And the more we talked – the more convinced we were that God told us what to do. But with our free will – we still had the choice. We could either listen and obey, putting all our faith and trust in this God that we believe can work miracles in the most ordinary of lives. Or we could hear but not truly listen, still keeping some control, becoming hypocrites in our faith. And when you step back and look at it that way – the choice becomes very simple. Still incredibly hard… but simple.

So Monday morning… I called the doctor’s office and I cancelled our appointment. Because on June 14th, 2015 – we made the choice to put all of our faith in God, to surrender all our hopes and dreams to Him, and give Him all the space He needs to work a miracle in our lives. I don’t know what God has planned for us… if we’ll have a child of our own or if he’s calling us to adopt. All I know is that for now – we’ve been called to wait and live in hope…