I will forever remember the first time I tried to educate somebody else about NFP. I was explaining that NFP along with natural reproductive technology, or NaPro, could actually provide health solutions for most problems treated by the pill. My audience: my junior level morality class.
I am one of the first in a generation that has used NFP from a young age. Rather than immediately being put on the pill for the issues I was having with my cycle, my parents took me to see a NaPro doctor and a Creighton practitioner. And so at the young age of 16, I was familiar with signs of my fertility, the way in which a woman’s fertility worked, and the fact that my current hormone levels likely meant that I would struggle to have children if they continued at that level into adulthood.
I quickly saw the many uses of NFP. I saw how it benefited me greatly in preventing immense pain throughout my cycle. I wanted others to have this knowledge, too. Hence, the position in which I found myself: explaining NFP, a woman’s cycle, and the downsides of birth control to my junior morality class.
It was at that moment that I learned that many of my classmates were in fact on the pill. Mind you, this was a Catholic school. However, many of them had been put on the pill for various health issues. Most of these health issues could have been addressed by hormonal support provided through NaPro Technology. I’ll never forget the reaction though from the boys in the class who looked at me and booed me and Said to all the girls in the class “We don’t want to hear about your flow.”
Although comical now, it points to the issue of educating not only young men but also women about their health and fertility. Fortunately, my school decided to address this issue by bringing in a Creighton practitioner to talk to all the girls in the high school. Perhaps the young men could have benefitted as well.
As I became older, I found myself having discussions about NFP with my fiance. When we attended marriage preparation the way in which NFP was presented to us was a sort of prosperity gospel: use NFP and avoid kids when you want. But when you want kids, since you have been following God’s will, they will come easily!
However that wasn’t at all our experience. We faced infertility and all the struggles that went along with it. I wrote about that extensively in my infertility series that you can find here. If that is currently your struggle, know that I am praying for you.
Once we were finally blessed with our first child in 2018, we then switched to using NFP to avoid. That was not nearly as easy as it as it had been made to seem either. For both of us when I was postpartum it seemed that there were infinitely less available days for use than the happy, smiling, overly cheery couple at our marriage preparation had made it seem. There were likely many days that had been available to us but that I did not feel confident enough in using. I was using Creighton the first time postpartum, and since Creighton is a mucus only method, it became confusing postpartum. Postpartum cycles and fertility markers are very different than in normal cycles, which is why I’m using Marquette this time around.
In both cases, using NFP required trust. Trust that we would be carried through our suffering. Trust in the purifying fire of Christ’s love and suffering. Trust that any child would be a blessing, no matter that timing. Trust in one’s spouse to communicate. The center of NFP is trust, which is why this method can be difficult to embrace.
If you don’t trust your body, your spouse, or Christ, other forms of birth control can become tempting. And while there have certainly been times that birth control has seemed appealing, I know it would leave me feeling empty. It would remove the radical trust required in each intimate act. It would become a divide between us rather than something that requires continued communication and trust, as NFP has been for us.
I find that NFP mirrors the requirements of love: it requires self knowledge, communication, vulnerability, and trust to work effectively. How fitting that these elements are also required for a healthy and successful marriage. And so in using NFP to plan our family, we practice the very things needed for a strong marriage and indeed, a strong faith as well. For at the center of our fertility is Christ calling us to relationship with Him, calling us to walk on the waters, to put out into the deep, to trust in Him. Christ is calling us to know ourselves that we may know Him, to trust that we may be vulnerable with him, to be vulnerable with Him that we may be loved by Him. Will you answer His call?
Infertility
TTC: On the Other Side of NFP
This is a post written in the midst of our infertility journey that I had not gotten around to publishing.
When Nick was hired by the Athenaeum (Cincinnati’s Seminary) in late February, I couldn’t have been happier. We had jumped into marriage trusting in God’s timing, and here was an answered prayer. After going out to dinner and celebrating, we began talking about the changes the new job would bring.
I was excited to move to Cincinnati, which had always been one of the two cities where I wanted to live. Nick was happy to be working for the Church and assisting the students at the seminary. We started looking at apartments and town homes, ready to be out of UD Student Housing.
As we discussed what we both felt to be a true start to our lives together, our discussion turned to children. Nick had a steady, stable job now, with amazing health insurance and a comfortable salary. Before that point, Nick was a graduate assistant at UD and we were living in student housing as part of his assistantship. I still had a semester left to finish my undergraduate. It was easy to see that we shouldn’t rush into trying to have children, though building a family together was one of the deepest desires of our hearts.
I remember the profound joy I felt when Nick and I decided to intentionally build our family together. In previous months, we had remained open, but we wouldn’t have said we were trying. At first it was easy to remain hopeful and excited each month, but after a few months of trying, it began to weigh on both of us.
Suddenly, communicating about my fertility became a big deal and a source of anxiety for me. I wanted to allow Nick the chance to initiate, but I knew he also needed to be aware of the changes in my cycle. I didn’t want to put pressure on either of us, but as the months passed I felt a growing sense of urgency and the need to take advantage of every opportunity. It was exhausting for both of us and it became a strain on our marriage.
In our marriage prep, we’d heard about the stresses of NFP. We’d heard about the difficulties of choosing to abstain during times of fertility rather than choosing a form of birth control. We’d heard that NFP could cause fights and at times resentment.
Everything we’d heard about the difficulties of NFP prior to our marriage was in the context of using NFP to avoid having. children (or TTA).
Clearly, we weren’t using NFP to avoid having children at this point in our marriage. It followed then, that there should be no difficulties caused by using NFP, no stress, no strain on our marriage.
We didn’t have to abstain at any point in my cycle! We didn’t need to worry anxiously about being pregnant when we weren’t ready! From the point of view of anyone that was currently trying to avoid having children by using NFP, we’d struck gold, and we should take advantage of this fun and exciting time in our marriage.
And while for a few months we felt that excitement and gratitude for our situation, as stress and worry about fertility mounted, the excitement and gratitude faded away.
Our marriage prep failed us. I realize that may seem to be a drastic statement, but I believe it’s true. When the couple you bring in to talk about NFP is the couple that “gets pregnant when the husband sneezes” (something the wife actually said while teaching us about NFP), the only side of NFP that you will hear about the crosses that come with NFP are those related to trying to avoid children. But there are a whole other set of crosses and struggles when a couple is trying to conceive (TTC) and it doesn’t happen. Even if the couple doesn’t ever meet the standards for being called “infertile” (6 months to a year of trying, depending on age as well as the doctor you ask) trying for two, three, four months is still stressful. It can still create issues that need to be addressed. The Church does newlyweds a disservice a when the struggles that come with TTC (and not just avoiding children) are not included in the marriage prep discussions about NFP.
I truly believed that trying to build our family would be a time of joy and excitement in our marriage. Sometimes, it is a time of joy and excitement. But other times, it can be a time of frustration, stress, and worry. It can drain Nick and me, although in different ways. It can cause tension and resentment between us, something we were not prepared to work through when it came to the intimate issue of building our family. As newlyweds that followed the Church’s teachings on sexual morality, intimacy was already new to us. It was already a struggle to communicate about issues related to intimacy, simply because we didn’t even have the language or the knowledge of how to do so—as is true of all newlyweds that choose to follow Church teaching. Now, because we were trying to have children, there was an added set of issues we needed to discuss with each other related to intimacy—on top of simply figuring out how to communicate with each other about intimacy in the first place.
I truly believe that had our marriage prep included a discussion on the tensions that can arise in a marriage while trying to build a family, that we could have dealt with some of these issues more gracefully. It would’ve helped to simply know that what we were going through was normal. It would’ve helped simply to know that we might expect some additional tension at times. We had learned things about arguing, finances, dating each other while married, compatibility, temperament, and love languages. We certainly didn’t follow through with everything we learned (and are still working on it, as are all couples), but simply having the knowledge was a great help to us. It helped us feel that we had at least some of the tools we needed to address the situations that arose between us. But when it came to building our family together—and intimacy in general—we did not feel that we had the tools we needed, and so we had to seek out the knowledge ourselves.
I know I am not alone in this struggle. I know of many married woman that say that they felt wholly unprepared for the struggles that came with marital intimacy. I have had numerous discussions with other couples about how the Church needs to be more upfront about issues that can arise with sexuality in a marriage as well as how to deal with them. I have read countless stories about women–and their husbands–who were utterly blindsided by the problems that accompanied trying to have children.
For those that have started trying to build their family, whether it be the first or seventh time, know that you are not alone in these struggles—whether it’s the first, third, or seventh month, or whether it’s been years, it doesn’t matter. There are always difficulties that accompany the TTC side of NFP. I believe this is the silent side of NFP, the side that people don’t talk about, because after all, Catholics can easily pop out ten babies. And we all know that NFP is all about creating happy families, because that’s what good Catholics do, right? We all know that NFP is the natural option for family planning, and so it naturally follows that when you don’t abstain during fertile times, that your body will naturally do what it’s created to do!
These statements aren’t true, and yet within Catholic circles we seem to silently accept them as such. Trying to have a child isn’t as simple as checking in with your spouse monthly and deciding that yes, we are ready for a baby! Deciding that you are ready does not mean a baby will follow, and yet this was the impression that was given in our marriage prep–and the impression I believe is given among most Catholic circles. There were almost elements of the prosperity Gospel, since there was this idea that if you follow God’s plan for sexuality and don’t use birth control in your marriage, that God will bless you abundantly with children and shower blessings on your marriage. We should follow God’s plan for sexuality out of love for Him and because it respects our spouses. We should not be convinced to “buy in” to NFP by hearing the stats about how couples that use NFP have better commmunication, better experiences with intimacy, etc. We need to be honest with couples preparing for marriage about the difficulties that can arise with sexuality, trying to avoid children, and trying to have them—in so far as is appropriate and prudent for couples that are not yet married.
We reached a point in our marriage where intimacy was a chore and an obligation. Intimacy became a source of anxiety as I examined my chart and started feeling “it’s not enough if we want a baby.” I relied more and more on my understanding of health and cycles to try to optimize our chances for success—acting as if I could control whether we had a baby. I pinned the success of my health goals on two pink lines at the end of the month. I made Nick feel objectified and as if I was only interested in having a baby. I felt Nick didn’t care enough and didn’t understand what I was going through. It resulted in a myriad of issues that all came to a head around our first anniversary, pushing us to question whether we needed marriage counseling.
Thankfully, because we were able to recognize the issues that were disrupting and straining our marriage, we were able to develop a plan of attack to address these issues. We began having intentional, vulnerable conversations with each other about our struggle. I was able to listen to Nick’s concerns and adjust the way I approached him and our fertility so that both of our needs were met. I began focusing on the many blessings in our marriage, and this ignited a new, deeper intimacy between us. We were able to do this because our marriage had a strong foundation in our faith. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of all newlywed couples in the Church that are experiencing this struggle.
We need to have frank, open conversations about the struggles couples can encounter in their sexuality, especially when using NFP for any purpose. I would strongly encourage those involved in marriage prep to have multiple presenters for the NFP talk, so that a variety of experiences, struggles, and blessings that come from using NFP may be presented. There is no singular experience of NFP or married sexuality, and the way we prepare couples entering into marriage should reflect that reality. When we avoid these difficult discussions out of a misplaced sense of propriety, we are doing a disservice to newlyweds. There is a difference between speaking imprudently about one’s very intimate experiences with one’s spouse and seeking to educate and inform those entering into marriage about the difficulties they may encounter.
Despite the Church’s beautiful teachings on Theology of the Body, speaking about the struggles and joys that accompany married sexuality still remains somewhat taboo. We remain silent so to avoid scandal, but in being silent, do we produce scandal by failing to adequately prepare couples for the realities of married life?
We cannot remain silent on these issues, and yet while these realities require frank discussion so as to adequately prepare couples, they also require a certain delicacy and restraint. These are matters of a deeply intimate and personal nature, and we must recognize and treat them as such. We must maintain the sacredness of the intimacy shared between the couple. Walking this fine line is certainly difficult, yet I firmly believe that it is a line we must walk if we wish to truly form couples in the Church’s teachings on sexuality.
We cannot continue to fail newlyweds. There is much that needs to be reformed in marriage preparation, and I strongly believe that the treatment of sexuality is one topic desperately in need of greater emphasis in marriage prep. If we are bold, yet prudent, in our discussion of married sexuality, we can address a myriad of potential issues before they even begin in a marriage. We can encourage those in need of healing from previous experiences to seek help. We can invite couples into the struggles and sufferings that married life carries with it, particularly with the use of NFP for any reason. Ultimately, in choosing not to be silent on these issues, we can raise up a stronger and more faithful Church, built upon the foundation of strong and holy marriages.
For Nothing is Impossible with God: An Update on Our Journey with Infertility
This is a post written during my pregnancy with Madeleine that I had not gotten a chance to publish.
Many of you may know by now that we are expecting our first child. It took 698 miles, over twelve months of blood draws, over twelve months on progesterone and estrogen, nine months of Clomid, two months of Femara, two ultrasounds, one HSG, one laparascopic surgery for endometriosis, but one year, nine months, and 30 days later the Lord has answered our prayers. Baby Jobe will be with us by mid July 2018! We cannot begin to describe our gratitude and our joy. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on all that has brought us to this moment.
In late September of 2017, we travelled to St. Louis to see Dr. Patrick Yeung, a surgeon specializing in endometriosis. Our regular doctor, Dr. Mattingly, felt that since other treatment wasn’t working, that perhaps endometriosis was the culprit of the symptoms I was experiencing. We know I had low progesterone and estrogen, and endometriosis was the only probable cause of those and other symptoms. We were hopeful that the surgery would provide us with answers and prove to be the treatment I had needed.
We are grateful for the love and care we received while in St. Louis. Since my extended family lives there, we were able to visit with nearly everyone before the day of my surgery and stayed with one set of my grandparents. After a day of testing and exams, Dr. Yeung scheduled me for surgery. The morning of my surgery, we headed to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. I was incredibly nervous, and the stillness of the Cathedral helped me to feel more at ease. I reflected on the past week, on recieving the anointing of the sick, and on the hopes and dreams that Nicholas and I share for our family. I thought about our frustration at the lack of answers, and hoped for the best. I knew God was asking us to walk with this Cross for a reason, but sometimes it was difficult to see the blessings in the midst of the pain.
The doctors and nurses that took care of me were incredible. They put my worries at ease, making me laugh and smile when I was nervous. In between the constant parade of different persons coming into the room, Nicholas and I prayed together. I prayed holding the rosary he had made for me for our wedding. He matched this rosary to my wedding dress, and put on it the medals of all the patron saints for those desiring children. Dr. Yeung even came in before surgery to pray with us, asking that God guide his hands and that the surgery would prove fruitful.
Of what they removed, only three spots were endometriosis. After the surgery, Nicholas and I decided to take a break from all of my medications, with the exception of progesterone, for a few months. We felt a deep peace about this decision and looked forward to having some time to focus simply on enjoying each other and growing in our marriage.
I have often been told that “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” Well, it was the month after my surgery, and I knew any baby we could be blessed with that month would be due in July. I told God that I was perfectly fine waiting until September or October of 2018 for a baby to come, since that would let me work over the summer more easily. The one month, I told God, that I did not want a baby to come, was July—but, of course I would still be overjoyed. I just wanted to let God know that there was no rush.
On November 8th, 2016, I saw two lines on a pregnancy test for the first time. I screamed, I sobbed, and then I calmed down enough to think that I should call the doctor. Thinking the test would be negative, I had taken it while Nick was at work, which meant I had four hours before I could tell him. These were the longest four hours of my life. I ran out to get my blood drawn, and then went to Target to buy two baby hats: one pink and one blue. I made the bed, and put these in a gift bag in our room with a card. And then I waited.
When Nicholas arrived home, I took him upstairs. As he opened the gift bag, he began to sob. That very weekend, I had seen him tear up after watching a number of small children in our parish play during mass. He told me later that he desired so much to be a father, and that infertility had been weighing on him lately. At first, he didn’t believe that it could be true, and Nick asked me, “Is this a joke?” I had to assure him that it wasn’t a joke, that I had called the doctor, and that our baby was coming in July.
Infertility has forever changed how we will view our children. We have a deep understanding that no person is entitled to a child, and that children are undeserved gifts from our Lord. It has changed how I experience pregnancy as well. I have been able to thank God for the fatigue, the nausea, the hunger, and the other symptoms I experience. I am able to view these experiences joyfully, and offer them for others carrying the cross of infertility, miscarriage, and infant loss. To those that are still struggling with infertility, you are always in our prayers and in our hearts.
Struggling with infertility has shown me just how broken I am. I frequently attempt to do things alone, without the help of others, but I have learned that this is a struggle I cannot handle by myself. When I tried to deal with this alone, it hurt Nicholas and me. Infertility has humbled me. I have learned that I am easily overwhelmed and that I am frequently inflexible. I have learned that I have issues with control; I want to be in control, but I cannot be. I must surrender and give all things to Christ. Struggling with infertility has allowed me to experience a vulnerability with my spouse and with others that I would not have otherwise known.
Now, pregnancy challenges me to let go of control. It has challenged me to rely on Nick to do more of the cooking and cleaning than I would normally let him do. It has broken down my pride and helped me to realize that I cannot do any of this alone. I do not fully understand why Christ let us carry the cross of infertility, nor do I fully understand the timing of his answer to our prayers. I do know, however, that our journey with infertility is not over, in a way. I have learned that I cannot plan the future, and that it is possible that we will struggle with infertility again after our first child comes. Earlier in pregnancy, I was very worried about the possibility of miscarriage. Through these crosses, Christ has called Nicholas and me into a deeper trust. We cannot know the plans the Lord has in mind for us, but I do know that they are plans for good.
For although the journey has been difficult and sometimes painful, there have always been moments of immense joy. We have prayed, and the Lord has answered our prayers. We look forward to welcoming Baby Jobe into our arms, and teaching him or her that truly, nothing is impossible with God.
During the next few weeks, I will be publishing some pieces reflecting on infertility that I had intended to publish earlier, but was unable to do so due to technical issues. I still hope to take the time to make Visitation Bible Study a reality, as it is a project close to my heart. Over the next few months, I will be expanding the topics covered in my blog to reflect the broader experiences we have had with infertility and pregnancy.
An Experience with Faithfulness
I was around 13 weeks pregnant when a friend, upon hearing that we were expecting and knowing of our struggles with infertility, looked at me and asked me,
“What has your experience of God’s faithfulness been throughout this journey?”
I stared. My mind was blank. The Lord’s faithfulness? The thought had barely crossed my mind. I was just then beginning to make plans for this baby, to truly begin to believe that this little one would make it into our arms. I had been blessed by very little morning sickness, but I was exhausted and constantly hungry until around the 9th or 10th week of my pregnancy. When I wasn’t trying to figure out what I to eat or overcome by exhaustion, I was constantly praying for the safety of our little one.
As I struggled to answer her, I realized that despite our immense joy and gratitude, that thus far, I had spent most of my pregnancy consumed with worry. Fear was waiting in the wings, always ready to come out and turn my joy to anxiety. Even on days with relatively little worry, I worried about our experience with having our next child. I dwelled on the possibility of secondary infertility. Some that knew us asked us how we felt now that our journey with infertility was “over.”
In my heart, though, our journey with infertility was far from over.
I had yet to truly open my heart to Christ. He had blessed us with this immense and incomprehensible gift, and yet, my heart still felt broken and shattered. I was consumed with “what ifs” and the darkness of the unknown. I prayed constantly for our little one. I prayed for the grace of baptism to be given to our child, I asked for the protection of our child’s guardian angel, I looked up week by week miscarriage statistics, I tried not to worry at every new pain, all while trying to hold it together and be as joyful as others expected me to be.
That question shattered the facade and walls that I hadn’t even realized I was building.
Where was Christ in this? In the midst of all my worry, and yes, joy, what had I done in my life to seek Him? The question of Christ’s faithfulness began to swell up within my heart as my heart repeated and amplified the question as a resounding chamber echoes. In time, it became another question:
“How have I been faithful to Christ?”
I hadn’t been. Thoughts of planning and of worry took root in my heart where Christ’s love should have been. I allowed myself to be consumed with noise and distraction, content with a spiritual life of mediocrity. The noise of television and social media drowned out my worries, rather than turning to Christ and allowing His Mercy to pour over me as an ocean.
The realization hit me like lightning, and I was paralyzed. I was ashamed. I was angry with myself. For months, I had simply been going through the motions of my faith. I was numb to the reality of Christ’s immense Love and Mercy. I was too consumed with my own worries and my own faults. The way I had been living was not enough, and it had to change.
I poured my heart out to Christ that evening. I was brutally honest with Him about the worry that this child would not make it to our arms. I prayed over and over again, “Lord, you did not spare us from the Cross of Infertility. In your Mercy, I beg You, spare us from the Cross of Miscarriage. Yet not my will, but Thine be done in me.” I laid bare all the ways in which I knew I was failing Him and those around me. I confessed feeling empty and disconnected in prayer. It was a moment where I allowed myself to be vulnerable and to truly feel all the pain, hurt, anguish, worry, and fear I had carefully bottled up within my soul. I resolved to be more faithful to Christ, and asked His forgiveness.
To my surprise, Christ met me in that moment. When I allowed myself to be brought low, Christ came down to me and lifted me into His arms. Our Lord gave me a beautiful experience of His Grace. For the first time in my pregnancy, I felt peace. I felt hope. I felt an assurance that this child would be given the grace of Baptism, and I gave myself the emotional permission to be excited about our child’s future. I opened my heart, and Christ met me there in my brokenness. He began healing me from the wounds that I hadn’t realized were left from our experience of infertility. And I sobbed, because in that moment I was finally able to say, “Our Lord is faithful.”
All throughout Lent and into Easter, Christ has continued to show me His faithfulness. I have begun seeing that the Lord allows us to be brought low so that we can more fully realize our need for the Holy Spirit in our hearts. When we are small and entirely dependent upon Christ, we experience His Love all the more deeply.
So, what has my experience of the Lord’s faithfulness been throughout our journey with infertility?
Our Lord is gentle and merciful. He knows our hearts, and He knows exactly what we need in order to grow in holiness. Christ frequently gives us more than we ourselves can handle, but the Holy Spirit will walk with us and carry us through these pains if we allow Him. All of our sufferings in our journey with infertility have come with a clear lesson. I have grown in ways that I would not have if not for our experience with infertility. I am able to experience a deeper gratitude, not only for our child, but also for my spouse and for the daily little blessings of my life. I know that secondary infertility after this little one is still possible, but I know longer dwell on it. I know in my heart, that Christ’s plan for our family is greater than I could imagine, and so day by day, I strive to give control of our lives to God.
For the Lord does not allow Calvary without the Resurrection, whether that Resurrection be in this life or the next.
A Letter to my Future Children
When Nicholas and I decided to be open to children from the beginning of our marriage, we both hoped for the best. I could never have anticipated the heartbreak that has accompanied us on our journey towards having a child. I broke down the night after I took a negative pregnancy test during our fourth month of trying. And so as I knelt in front of our home oratory with tears streaming down my face, I felt a deep sense of loss. I had been so sure I was pregnant. I was heartbroken and crushed, and I started pouring my heart out in my journal. This letter to my children, whom I deeply longed to hold in my arms, is what resulted from that experience of loss. In a sense, It is this letter that marks the beginning of my journey with infertility.
A letter to my future children, April 30 2016
Oh my child, how I love you. I love you so dearly and my heart breaks that you are not yet with me. For I have loved you. Before God formed you in my womb, I knew you. I knew the tears I would shed for love and want of you. I anticipated the joy I would experience in finding out that you were coming. I anticipated the fear I would know as you grew. The pain as you were sick. My beloved child, before I was ever a mother, I loved you with a maternal love.
I prayed for the joys and the sufferings. I poured out my heart to Christ. I saw you at once a child and grown, and my heart welled up with joy and sorrow.
I have consecrated your hearts to Christ and promise to raise you as saints. Yet even now I know I must commend you to your true mother, Mary. She will always protect you.
I am imperfect, and I may hurt you. Already this fills my heart with deep sorrow. I beg your forgiveness, my child, and ask you to commend me in prayer to Christ through the Blessed Mother.
I cannot explain my love for you. I only know that I am your mother. You have always been a part of my heart and you always will be, even if you come to my arms through the sacrifice of another. You will always have a place in my arms and prayers. But until you can be in my arms, I hold you in my heart. But know that for me, you have always been here, though I cannot know the time or the way you will come to me.
I want to thank you for sanctifying me. I want to thank you for teaching me how to love. For though you are not yet in my arms, I know my beloved child, that you will lead me to Christ as I strive in my imperfection with the Blessed Mother to bring you to His Heart.
My darling, I pray for you. I pray each day for you. I sometimes fail in my prayer life, but you are always in my heart. Never doubt how deeply you are loved and how much your father and I have desired you. For we have desired you with longing and pained hearts, but the wait is worth it.
For though I love you my child, I do not love you enough. I can never give the love you truly deserve, for that love is the love of Christ. And it is only in His time that you, all of you, will come. But I know you will come. For I hope in the Lord. My Lord is my good shepherd, in Him I put my trust. My heart is waiting on the Lord, watching and waiting for my beloved children.
Love always,
Your Mama
This is the seventh post in a series for National Infertility Awareness Week.
On Coffee and Shoelaces 