While living in Italy, I felt pretty good about blogging, my post schedule, and the like. In Search of Gelato was my diary, my therapy of living in a foreign country, my remembrance. It was also in the early days of blogging, so it was new and fresh. I still love to write, but somehow, since coming “home,” the drive is gone. I still write plenty. Usually in Word Documents or Facebook posts that I delete before publishing. I guess I feel like it’s not important to say. Or worthwhile for anyone to hear. We live in a fast world. A world where people swipe approximately 300 FEET of information per day. I don’t even have a desire to compete for space in that. But I do feel moved to post tonight.

The photo above is of my sweet, beautiful, fun, amazing cousin. She spent her teen years caring for two families, each with five children, and routinely took those children out and about all around town. Grocery store. Whatevs. Anything goes. Meanwhile, I’m 47 and still sigh at having to take my ONE child anywhere. My cousin was designed to be a Stay At Home Mom of two dozen children. Except God said No. And therein lies the rub. When your entire life experience and planning lead to one path, but then reality slams door after door…what then? Doesn’t that happen to us all at some point? We think we are on one path, and then that door totally and completely slams shut.

My husband and I married out of college. I’m a year ahead, so I took a job that kept me near him during his Senior year. Sometimes, I think about the internship opportunities that were offered. I picked a different path. I picked a Military Wife and Mom path. Or so I thought. I worked jobs I could get in the late 90s and early Aughts. We didn’t want to have kids while my husband was still deploying on irregular schedules so we waited. In Year 9 of our marriage, he’d transitioned to a more stable, military branch, more predictable deployments, and we were ready to add children. HA! The old “Man Plans, God Laughs” saying reared its head. No children showed up. Nothing. Tests. Miscarriage. Nothing. Tests. Miscarriage. Nothing. This went on for YEARS. Finally, we decided on In Vitro. At the perfect time. While my husband was working in the Pentagon as an Aide to a 3 Star Admiral, and he was told prior to taking the job that there would be no time off, no matter what. Obviously, this was the PERFECT time to (1) begin In Vitro Fertilization with all those months of testing, exams, daily hospital visits and so on and so and so on and so on, and (2) add a dog. A male dog who thought the order of the household was Husband, Dog, Wife. In our household, we are EXCELLENT at timing. Clearly.

Since my husband was required to be sitting at his Pentagon desk by 6:30am, no exceptions, and I needed a “chaperone” to be with me at my daily or every other day appointments at the hospital for the ultrasounds to determine just how many eggs were showing up on the inside, we flew up my unmarried, female cousin for 3 weeks. She accompanied me to the hospital every day, saw far more of my nether regions than she expected, watched every night as my husband shot up my hiney up with fertility drugs, and well, there we all were. The In Vitro failed. It’s the one day my husband walked out of his Pentagon job in the middle of the day. I remember just riding on the D.C. metro with tears streaming. It’s all I remember of The Day. Nowhere to go. Feeling like NOWHERE to go. Not only was it a low point in our marriage and life that day, but it set the stage for so many future low points in our marriage, time and time again. To this day, actually to this moment that I will hit Publish on this post, roughly three people in the entire world know the true extent and depth of the pain that then followed for years. And in some respects, is still on going. My cousin is one of them.

Fast forward, we left D.C. for a Duty Station in Naples, Italy. The Naples that sits at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. Eating and drinking foods completely filled with its volcanic, fertile minerals. Two years into our tour, on New Year’s Eve, we headed off to the local package store to fill our cart with alcohol and snacks. New Year’s Eve in Naples, Italy is the BEST place to be in the entire world. It’s utterly magical. Friends were coming over, as we planned every year. We were in the American Package Store on base, which meant it carried pharmaceutical items. As we passed the “Lady” aisle, I happened to think, Hmmmm, it’s been awhile. I’m just going to grab one of these tests. Ha Ha Ha. There is NO WAY. I took the test as soon as we got home. No, I didn’t wait for the morning. And all you infertile ladies reading this post know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m NOT explaining it for the rest of you. Two lines showed up. I sat in the bathroom in shock, then I uttered an expletive that echoed through the house. For those of you who really know me, you know I do not use curse words. EVER. Nathan saw what I’d thrown into the cart full of liquor bottles, knew what I was in the bathroom doing, and knew the minute he heard me actually utter a curse word. What the WHAT?????!!!!!!! Even the pregnancy AND birth were full of trials, setbacks, and medical scares…but today, we have a healthy, gorgeous, brilliant, beautiful, amazing, funny seven year old. She is an absolute miracle. In every sense of the word.

But there are even greater miracles among us. Take another look at the photo above. That lady, my cousin, the one I mentioned who was BORN to be a mother to about 800 babies, the one who sat through all my In Vitro workups…well, she got her one beautiful, amazing, funny, handsome, smart boy. And then…her babies kept disappearing. Gone, gone, gone. Two of the many, she actually had to go into the hospital and labor to have, knowing they were gone. Her labor in both cases was DAYS. Take just a moment to imagine that pain. Really…just pause and feel that.

But here, you can see her. Two Hers, actually. The Mama Her, with the Light of God behind her, her True North, the Light that kept her focused on His Promises for years and years. Looking out at alll her babies. And then…the Baby Her. She is almost HERE. She made it! She is the miracle, the Rainbow. The Anointed One. None of us know the why of our painful journeys. Every now and then, we get a glimpse of the “Might Have Beens,” and sometimes, not always, that shows us the answer to the Why. But we always know there is a bigger picture. There is a Reason and a Design.

My beautiful cousin had her Maternity Photos done a few days ago. Her baby is almost due. For those Mamas reading this…when did you schedule your Maternity Photo Shoot? I guarantee you that in most cases, you didn’t wait until the very end. The end when you knew your baby was going to live no matter what. For those of us/you who have lived the infertility journey, then you know. You know the pain. You know the uncertainty. You know the deeply hidden spark of joy that you don’t dare nourish, just in case it’s snuffed out. And then you have to pretend that it’s all okay b/c it’s all just “part of the plan.” I don’t agree to this plan. Ever. But also, in my limited, small, peon understanding, I still know and respect and love my Creator and my Designer and the One who is in Ultimate Control.

A lot of us have heartbreaking stories and carry pain inside of us that we keep hidden behind smiles and love and a desire to make and keep the world around us a positive, encouraging, beautiful space. Give us that. Please.