His Time

This month of May marks a complete year that we have been trying for Baby #2.

When we first were married, we talked about starting a family, and we both agreed that we wanted to wait 2-3 years. It seemed like a good amount of time to set aside for ourselves; we wanted to get to know each other, travel, just have fun. We had just hit the 2 1/2 year mark when we decided we were ready. Within two months we were pregnant, and I was ecstatic. Everything had gone perfectly according to our well-laid plans. My pregnancy with Savannah was mostly uneventful, outside of an insensitive nurse that completely freaked me out by telling me that my initial pregnancy test came back with a positive result so weak that I would probably miscarry. I remember driving home that day bawling so hard I could hardly see the road.

My due date happened to fall on Christmas Day of 2005. Everyone that I told thought that was the coolest thing ever, the perfect Christmas present. But our Savannah decided she wasn't ready to be a Christmas present after all, and came two days late, on the 27th.

We were in love, so overwhelmed by this perfect little angel that had come in to our lives. And we knew we wanted more...we had always talked about having a big family, at least four kids, and maybe even five or six. I am a planner, so once again, I had it all mapped out. We would try again for another one when Savannah was about a year and a half, so that she would be just over two when the second one came along.

Since I had gotten pregnant so quickly the first time around, I never doubted for a second that it would happen again, and right away. Oh, I knew, of course, that nothing is guaranteed, but I didn't give it much thought. We'll start trying in May, and hopefully it won't take longer than a few months....surely by September or October....

June came. July. Then suddenly it was fall...October, November. Still nothing. By the time Christmas rolled around, I was beginning to wonder, starting to worry a little bit. I knew something was not quite right with me....my cycles were all messed up, which didn't help in the charting and planning and timing of things.

Some friends of mine had some really good success getting pregnant after being treated by a chiropractor, so I decided that was the next step I should take. I made an appointment, and went in for an examination. He told me right away that my pelvis was WAY messed up, that one side was about an inch and a half higher than the other, and that he suspected that this was a major part of my problem in the conception department.

So he started me on a regimen of twice-weekly adjustments in January of this year. I have been going to him ever since. My back and hips feel sooooo much better. He says my pelvis is about 80% back to where it should be. Which is really great news.

But. I'm still not pregnant.

I had a talk with a very dear friend of mine last week about this. I had pretty much kept it all inside up until that point. People, well-meaning people, would ask me when we're going to have another one. Isn't it time that you give Savannah a little brother? Are you guys done, do you want more? And I would smile, brush it off, say, Oh, yeah, we do want another one.....hopefully soon....keep it upbeat, don't let them see the anxiety, the fear that maybe it will never happen.

So when my friend and I started talking about this, I suddenly broke down. Tears that I didn't even know were just below the surface suddenly bubbled over. My friend is an unbelievably strong person who has had more than her share of heartache recently, yet still has an unwavering confidence and trust that her life is in His hands. So she sat with me, listened to me, and offered some really beautiful encouragement, stuff I needed to hear right then. Things she had learned from walking through her own dark valleys.

There are still questions. Things that come into my brain late at night and keep me awake. Am I expecting too much? Is there something in my life that needs to be dealt with? Did I try to plan it out too precisely? Is God just showing me that it's His timing, not mine? Is this something that isn't supposed to be? Is He trying to teach me to rest confidently in Him, using this to draw me closer?

I know there are so many others that are going through things much harder to deal with than this, things that leave them breathless with the pain they are feeling. Still, I know that since it is something that I am struggling with, God cares, no matter how big or small it is in the scheme of things. I read this today over at Bring the Rain; Angie articulated it so perfectly that I have to quote her here:

I was disappointed with God.

Do I praise Him? Yes.

Do I love Him deeply and with abandon? Yes.

Do I trust Him? Yes.

Am I disappointed? I am.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating. He isn’t intimidated by my disappointment. It doesn’t make God turn away from me because I wish that things were different sometimes, in fact, it makes Him come nearer.

Isn't that so beautifully expressed? And so true?

I am so, so grateful for the blessing that I already have in Savannah and I don't downplay that for an instant. I hesitated to write this post at all, because I didn't want to come off as so absorbed in this struggle that I can't see the past the little miracles that occur daily in my life. But I wanted to be able to come back to this point, later down the road, and be able to look back, no matter what the outcome, and say See? He was there, working all along. He knows.

He has made everything beautiful....in His time.