Motherhood

The second John and I married, he wanted kids.  I wanted to be a mother, but not immediately.  As time went on, we began to realize it would be complicated.

When we had been married for about two years, we went to see an infertility specialist.  We underwent lots of tests and I was put on Clomid.  I did the temperature charts and received progesterone shots month after month.  No results.  Eventually we were told that IVF would be our next step.  It was at this point that we began to consider adoption. 
We found an adoption agency in Memphis and attended orientation.  Here we learned that the waiting list for each baby was 1-2 years.  On the way home from the meeting, we noticed a billboard advertising fostering to adopt and it seemed to make sense.  After all, didn't these kids need us more than the ones with the long waiting lists?

Within six weeks we had attended foster/adoption classes and were matched with a beautiful four year old girl.  A few weeks after that, we were asked if we also wanted to adopt her little sister who was thirteen months old.  We said yes.  Both girls birth mother agreed to sign them directly to us for adoption since her parental rights were going to be terminated.  Six months later their adoptions were finalized and we were officially parents!

For me, adopting our girls had completely fulfilled that hole I'd had in my heart, but we always planned to someday adopt a boy.  We told the girls that someday they would have a brother.  At one point we fostered a nine month old little boy with special needs, but he was eventually returned to his family.  Now and then, we fostered other children, but never any with the goal of adoption. 

John was gone for a year on active duty and when he returned he wanted to go ahead with IVF and try just once more to have a baby.  I agreed, and we began the long process.  I traveled back and forth to Nashville for my doctor appointments, learned to give myself shots, and literally put a while box of hormones and medications in myself in about six weeks time.  I became very ill at the end and we learned I had hyperstimulated.  Instead of making the expected 8 or 9 eggs, my ovaries had made 42.  I was hospitalized for about two weeks in Nashville.  By the time I returned to the clinic for a pregnancy test, my hopes were not high.  I was so sick.  The medications had poisoned my body.  I felt barely alive, and I didn't see how the three embryos could have possibly survived.  I was correct.  The invitro had failed. 

John was depressed.  I was grieving something I never even had.  It was a rough time.  John and I eventually separated for a few months and the girls and I lived close to my parents.

A few months later, we decided to start putting the pieces of our family back together.  It wasn't easy.  Slowly we started to heal and life seemed to be returning to normal.  My cousin called me from Arkansas and announced she was finally pregnant!  She described how she had been sick and had finally decided to take a pregnancy test.  Everything she said sounded weirdly familiar, so I decided to give it a try.  Why not?  It was POSITIVE!  I called John, but he didn't believe me.  Not after 12 years.  I took another and he started to hope it was for real.  The doctor's office confirmed it and scheduled our first sonogram.  My mom drove all the way from Illinois down to Tennessee to be at the first sonogram.  We were so excited, but I was still uneasy.  It just couldn't be, could it?  Not this easy. 

I remember being afraid to be happy.  And the look on the face of the sonographer confirmed my feelings.  She told us that the baby measured at 11 weeks, but that there was no heartbeat.  I wasn't surprised.  Sad, but not surprised.  
A tornado hit Newbern and Dyersburg Tennessee at the same time I was scheduled for a D&C.  Our house had a lot of damage that wasn't covered by insurance and we were heartbroken.  We decided to move to Illinois and start over. 
Shortly after moving to Illinois, I suspected I might be pregnant again.  I was right.  I left John a card on the table to find when he came home from work.  We were both cautiously happy.  Throughout an uneventful pregnancy I never completely relaxed or let myself believe it was really going to happen.  At every sonogram I secretly expected bad news.  When Dr. Gates finally laid my daughter on my breast I cried.  He never understood why I kept saying, "She's really REAL!" over and over.  But I didn't care.  God knew it was the first time I allowed myself to believe in her.  To believe she could actually exist.

Eighteen months later, our next miracle was born.  We finally had our son.  God has been good.  He knew my journey into motherhood would be long and difficult, so he made it more rewarding.  He allowed me to appreciate it more than some people might, because I never take one second of it for granted.  I feel like every second of motherhood is a gift and an unexpected bonus.  Sometimes I'm completely exhausted raising children who have so many special needs, but I am still in awe that God thought enough of me to entrust me with their care.