God's Plans

It is a very difficult thing to not be the one in control of your own life.  I know this first hand.  For years my life was consumed with tuning out God and making my own future, in my time, by my design.
To start a family we went through 3 fertility clinics, numerous medications and procedures ... each failing more miserably than the last.  Instead of pausing and turning to God I would throw myself into figuring out what I was going to do next.  Me.  Because this was MY life.  Right?
It wasn't until Lucas came into our lives, and we sat down to really think about all the things that had to happen just right for him to become ours, that we began to realize coincidence was actually divine intervention.

Lucas making us parents was God's plan all along.  In order for that to happen everything I had planned on my own needed to fail.  Because had any one of our treatments worked it would not have negated Luke's existence.  It would have meant he would be in another family right now.  What a scary thought.
It was then that we agreed (yes even me) to let go and let God.  Because God knows the plans he has for us and you better believe they are far greater than our own.
And wouldn't you know each of our children has found us since then?
Joshua's birth mother confided in a coworker that she was pregnant, planning to place the baby for adoption, and feeling overwhelmed with all that this entailed.  That coworker was an old friend from high school who was following this very blog.  With my permission, phone numbers were exchanged and the rest is history.

Even our beautiful, spunky, foster daughter found our family and not the other way around.  Shortly after Lucas arrived I began going to these mommy and me play groups.  I was elated to finally be in the sisterhood of mommies.  That was until I discovered that discussion at these groups was more about their pregnancies than the beautiful babies before us.  I was crushed.  I couldn't relate! That very night I went home and said "self ... what are we going to do about this?"  That very night I created a Facebook group for adoptive moms in my area.  People who built their families the same way we did.  And as a result I've made some great mommy friends.  One of those super great mommy friends was over for a play date and mentioned that the foster mother who had her son prior to his adoption currently had a little girl needing an adoptive resource.  Would we be interested?
For a while we had discussed expanding our family again however we weren't sure we could emotionally or financially handle another private adoption.  Somehow it all made perfect sense.  Once again God was providing for our family.  Fast forward a few months and we are licensed for foster to adopt and the boys have the sweetest sister.

It was at this point that we really began to discuss what the future would look like for our family.  While we loved our private adoption experiences, the foster to adopt brought a different heartwarming dimension.  So it was decided that while we were done with babies, it did not mean our family was complete.  Should the right foster/adopt opportunity arise in the future we would be all in.
And with that we packed up all our baby stuff and donated it to a couple who had also struggled with infertility and was about to welcome their little miracle baby. It felt amazing and my heart was at peace.

For the moment ...
As time went by I found myself unable to shake a strong internal struggle that I really believe has been there our entire journey.  While I was incredibly happy with our little family my heart was heavy that I was approaching an age where childbearing becomes high risk and not advisable and yet I've never been pregnant. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would not return to fertility treatments and I also knew that our chances without them were less than 1%, if that.  So I prayed to God.  Long and hard.  Not for anything specific but just that he would help heal my heart.
And then 2 days after my Grandfather passed, God answered my prayers in a big way.  The BIGGEST way ...

In complete disbelief I could not get to the doctor fast enough to have it confirmed. My dear sweet OB ordered blood work STAT and called my at 9:30pm with the amazing news. Our very own medical miracle.

We have since had 3 scans all showing a healthy growing baby with a strong heartbeat.  Even more miraculous is that baby came from my left ovary which (due to my severe endometriosis and scarring) is tucked away high up in my abdomen and nowhere near my tubes. My doctor has no medical explanation but we don't need one because we have God.

Had we conceived according to my plans, in my timing, these three amazing kiddos would not be our children and likely not siblings.  They needed to come first and were always part of God's plan <3
We would welcome continued prayers while we wait to welcome #4 in June.