Getting There in the First Place

It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t easy either. 

I’ve known that I have endometriosis for 6 years and I’ve had problems since I was a teenager because of it.  In 2010, I had a new doctor, who was actually an answer to my prayers because he specialized in endometriosis.  At the beginning of 2010, I visited him with new symptoms that I believed were connected to the endometriosis.  If you know my doctor (and many of you do), you know what his advice was when I said I wanted to treat the endometriosis: get pregnant (at least, start trying).  Well, Clayton and I hadn’t been married for a year and I wasn’t ready.  Plus, I had a hard time thinking that I should have a baby to improve my own health.

The doctor also suspected that I had polycystic ovarian syndrome.  I read up on it (I do that a lot) and talked to a friend with POS, and then I made two major changes in my diet: I drastically cut down sugar and cut out caffeine.  The result was only one cyst in May.

By May, we had also started to try to get pregnant.  This was tough, because we had at least 6 friends who announced their pregnancies around that time.  In fact, five couples from our wedding party were expecting during a two month span.  In July, for the first time, I felt ready to have a child.  In August, I was disappointed that we had not been successful.  I told a close friend (the only friend who knew) that I was in favor of whatever brought God the most glory.  You see, Clayton and I have both always wanted to adopt children.  We were going to have kids one way or another.  Even still, it hurt to try and fail.  It was a rough few days when I shared my feelings with my friend.  The very next day, my sister convinced me to get a pregnancy test, and much to my surprise, it was positive!  God’s timing is absolutely perfect. 

We only tried for 4-5 months.  I know friends who have experienced a great deal more difficulty and I respect them more than they know.  Through pregnancy, adoption, or foster care, regardless of how they come into your life – they are your precious children.

(And by the way, we still plan to adopt.)