A Miracle in the Making

As many of you know, when I started this blog (and long before that) our attempts to start a family have been a long and trying journey. It has not been without joy, but to say that it has been wrought with setbacks and disappointment is also an understatement.

Now I am happily able to share a recent flowering of hope in our path to becoming parents. I am expecting. I'll just give you a couple seconds to process that... (Goodness knows we needed more than a couple).

Okay, on with the story...(because of course if I'M pregnant you know there must be a story attached to it).

A little over a year ago my sister had her first child. It was a bittersweet time for our family, as we had both been anticipating babies together. While our little Noah was born premature and went to be with his heavenly father 9 days later, my sister's Elijah was full-term and a lively little thing from the start. It was at this time that my sister's father-in law, (who is an obstetrician) approached my mother about me. He told her that he and his wife had been praying for us and he wanted me to know that he thought I COULD have a baby. He went on to explain his medical opinion of what probably went wrong when we lost our daughter. You may remember that I had had a cerclage and had been assured by my OB/GYN that it would "fix" the problem which occurred with our son, Brennan. Later when my mom shared with me what he had said, she explained that what struck her more, and what gave her more hope than his professional opinion, was that he said he had been praying for us -- for me. My mom felt as though God was speaking through him, telling her I could carry a child. Of course we were starting the process of adoption and weren't even thinking about trying to get pregnant, but I did think if it were true wouldn't that be a lovely thought. Perhaps all the prayers I'd been praying for healing, for a possible chance to try again might be answered one day. And so, a small seed of hope was planted.

Shortly after we became a certified family and began waiting for an adoption placement. I was eager and hopeful we'd get a placement early on, but as the weeks turned into months my hope began to fray. It was around this time we received another piece of interesting information. My aunt up in San Francisco (who knew nothing of the conversation that went on earlier that summer) had casually brought me and my situation up to her doctor. He proceeded to tell her that one of his partners, Dr. Katz, worked specifically with patients like me and was an expert in this specific form of medicine. Knowing that we were in the process of adoption, but also knowing this information might still be valuable to me and our family, she sent the information on to my mother.

My mom, after doing some research with this information, eagerly got in contact with me and we took a look for ourselves. We were impressed with what we learned. This doctor was having tremendous success with a couple different forms of special cerclages for women with previously failed stitches, most of which with situations far more serious than my own. We thought perhaps it was too good to be true, but with the little seed of hope we had received earlier that summer we decided to make an appointment with Dr. Linzey, the doctor who delivered Noah and a well-regarded local perinatologist, to get a second opinion on our situation (as well as his opinion of Dr. Katz).

When we were able to consult with Linzey a couple months later he confirmed what we had been presented with. He knew Dr. Katz, had worked with him before and knowing our story thought it was a great possibility. In fact, as he examined me, he determined I was actually in quite excellent shape. He told us that, had he not known our history, he wouldn't have thought I'd had had any problems at all! Naturally I needed some time to process all of this. Here now were two doctors telling me quite the opposite of what I heard 3 years ago.

The idea of getting pregnant again was still an incredibly scary prospect for me, but we decided to at least make an appointment and meet with Dr. Katz in San Francisco to see what he had to say. We were completely blown away by his response. Not only was he eager to help me, but he was incredibly optimistic about our chances. As Brian grilled him about his experience, success rates, the complexity of the procedure and my life post-op; it became clearer and clearer to both of us this was not only a legitimate option, this was an answer to my prayer. We decided to take a step of faith and give it a try. We knew it was still a risk, but then again, faith often requires risk.

At the end of May we began trying to get pregnant. All the while I prayed for God to let whatever his desire was to happen first. Whether a placement or a pregnancy, I just wanted a child. He answered; I was pregnant by the end of June.

So now here we are 12 weeks in today and in a week we'll be flying to San Francisco for my procedure. It feels very surreal much of the time, and the other part of the time it feels both exciting and terrifying mingled together. We truly believe God has orchestrated this process and we feel His presence as we proceed. It is not without trepidation that we face the months ahead, but we have faith and trust that God is good and most certainly faithful...and in the end that's really all we need to know.