...But thanks for asking.
It actually doesn't bother me when people ask if I'm pregnant. I get it- I'm constantly talking about how I want a million children (or, more realistically, 6-8), so it makes sense that people are a little confused. Hasn't it been like, almost three years since I had my last baby? Geez. What is the deal?
This is the deal.
We just haven't been able to. God allowed circumstances in our life that made it clearly unwise to try for a third child. And I hated it. Truthfully, I had a really terrible, self-pitying attitude about it during most of that time. Which was sin, and God has been gracious to forgive me. But aside from my sinful attitude, it was also just really, really hard for me.
I was sad. It was painful to wait. It was hard to smile and casually respond to questions like, "Are you ready for another?" with "Yes, but it's not the right time yet."
Often I got well-meaning responses like, "It will never be the right time!" and "You'll never be able to 'afford' another baby, you just make it work." It was never the right time or place to explain that we already couldn't afford rent. It was hard to bite my tongue when I wanted to outline how ok I was with it being "hard", but that in our case it was actually unwise.
I hoped, almost constantly, that God would allow us to get pregnant anyways. Every time that I thought maybe, somehow, against all odds, I was pregnant...I wasn't. I took pregnancy tests and imagined how excited I would be to see two lines. Sometimes I was unsurprised and composed in the face of one line; other times I was unsurprised and devastated.
It's not that I wasn't thankful for the two children we already have- I was, and I am. So thankful. Crazy thankful. I really did focus on enjoying them at the ages they were; making the most of that time with only two little ones; and just loving them. I thanked God for them daily. I wanted to be content, and sometimes I did feel content- it wasn't that my kids "weren't enough", it was just that while I adored them and thanked God for them, I was also longing for our next child as well.
Meanwhile, everyone and their mother was pregnant. Ok, not their mothers. And not everyone. But just enough people that I cried a lot. It was horrible and guilt-inducing to internally respond to such exciting news with sadness. I was truly excited for them, yes, but my first response was just pain. One time I had decided to be vulnerable with a friend about how much I was struggling with this, and when I got to her house, another friend was there and told me she was pregnant. By that time, I had progressed from collapsing into sobs at this news, so I was able to hold it together- I just went numb. I probably wasn't any fun that day. It's hard to be fun when you're waiting to drive home and cry.
Another time I accidentally walked through the baby section at Target. I think I was just walking to the diaper aisle, and thoughtlessly cut through the newborn clothes. Suddenly I looked up, saw the little outfits hanging two feet in front of me, and started to cry. I didn't mean to, and I didn't want to, but I did. The longing and aching for another baby was very real. It was also something I didn't talk about much, with anyone other than Arthur, because it was so raw. And because everyone was pregnant- that, too. No sense raining on other people's baby showers.
Anyways, then God moved us to Walla Walla. That's a whole different (pretty awesome) story, but with that big change came the freedom to have another baby. Well, we've been here for almost ten months (literally enough time to add a person to the family), and like the title of this post says, no, I'm still not pregnant.
Long story short, I have been completely ok with us waiting a little longer. It's been good. It's been good to unpack, settle in, meet people, and get to know the area. It's been a sweet, wonderful time for our family in a lot of ways. And really, I am so thankful that God gave me such a change of heart, because I can see that it has been better to focus on beginning our life here WELL, for His glory, rather than being consumed with baby fever and/or throwing up all the live long day. Although God would have seen us through that, too, because He is faithful.
If you are in a season of waiting, particularly painful waiting, please know this: I see you, but far more importantly, God sees you. He knows. He gets it. He, too, longs for His children. He is long-suffering as He waits for us to come to Him.
I don't know when we'll have another baby. We definitely want to, and we want to trust God more fully with the timing of that. Waiting has been good for us- the pain of that was so sanctifying for me. It revealed how little I trusted God with our desire to have more children. My intense "need" to control and plan that part of our life according to what I thought was best showed that I was not actually trusting God. For some, being pregnant unexpectedly is a beautiful opportunity to learn to trust God more; for me, unexpectedly NOT being pregnant for such a long time gave me an opportunity to learn the same thing. God is kind and faithful, and He uses our circumstances for our good and His glory when we depend on Him.
His definition of good for that time of our life was a lot of trial, pain, heartache, and just SO. MUCH. WAITING. for so many things...and it was good for us. It was not all fun at the time, but I wouldn't undo it. (Though I'd try to do it over with less whining on my part, frankly.) His definition of good was very different than mine, but, of course, He was right. And I am better off because of it.
It was a humbling (crying in Target will do that to you), revealing, and sanctifying few years. And so, ultimately, they were good. Hard, painful, sad things can be redeemed in life with Christ! It's the beauty of the Gospel, that while the bad news is we are desperately broken and lost in our sin, that only makes the grace of our God- loving, just, and eager to forgive- shine all the more brightly amidst our darkness.
He has made everything beautiful in it's time.
It actually doesn't bother me when people ask if I'm pregnant. I get it- I'm constantly talking about how I want a million children (or, more realistically, 6-8), so it makes sense that people are a little confused. Hasn't it been like, almost three years since I had my last baby? Geez. What is the deal?
This is the deal.
We just haven't been able to. God allowed circumstances in our life that made it clearly unwise to try for a third child. And I hated it. Truthfully, I had a really terrible, self-pitying attitude about it during most of that time. Which was sin, and God has been gracious to forgive me. But aside from my sinful attitude, it was also just really, really hard for me.
I was sad. It was painful to wait. It was hard to smile and casually respond to questions like, "Are you ready for another?" with "Yes, but it's not the right time yet."
Often I got well-meaning responses like, "It will never be the right time!" and "You'll never be able to 'afford' another baby, you just make it work." It was never the right time or place to explain that we already couldn't afford rent. It was hard to bite my tongue when I wanted to outline how ok I was with it being "hard", but that in our case it was actually unwise.
I hoped, almost constantly, that God would allow us to get pregnant anyways. Every time that I thought maybe, somehow, against all odds, I was pregnant...I wasn't. I took pregnancy tests and imagined how excited I would be to see two lines. Sometimes I was unsurprised and composed in the face of one line; other times I was unsurprised and devastated.
It's not that I wasn't thankful for the two children we already have- I was, and I am. So thankful. Crazy thankful. I really did focus on enjoying them at the ages they were; making the most of that time with only two little ones; and just loving them. I thanked God for them daily. I wanted to be content, and sometimes I did feel content- it wasn't that my kids "weren't enough", it was just that while I adored them and thanked God for them, I was also longing for our next child as well.
Meanwhile, everyone and their mother was pregnant. Ok, not their mothers. And not everyone. But just enough people that I cried a lot. It was horrible and guilt-inducing to internally respond to such exciting news with sadness. I was truly excited for them, yes, but my first response was just pain. One time I had decided to be vulnerable with a friend about how much I was struggling with this, and when I got to her house, another friend was there and told me she was pregnant. By that time, I had progressed from collapsing into sobs at this news, so I was able to hold it together- I just went numb. I probably wasn't any fun that day. It's hard to be fun when you're waiting to drive home and cry.
Another time I accidentally walked through the baby section at Target. I think I was just walking to the diaper aisle, and thoughtlessly cut through the newborn clothes. Suddenly I looked up, saw the little outfits hanging two feet in front of me, and started to cry. I didn't mean to, and I didn't want to, but I did. The longing and aching for another baby was very real. It was also something I didn't talk about much, with anyone other than Arthur, because it was so raw. And because everyone was pregnant- that, too. No sense raining on other people's baby showers.
Anyways, then God moved us to Walla Walla. That's a whole different (pretty awesome) story, but with that big change came the freedom to have another baby. Well, we've been here for almost ten months (literally enough time to add a person to the family), and like the title of this post says, no, I'm still not pregnant.
Long story short, I have been completely ok with us waiting a little longer. It's been good. It's been good to unpack, settle in, meet people, and get to know the area. It's been a sweet, wonderful time for our family in a lot of ways. And really, I am so thankful that God gave me such a change of heart, because I can see that it has been better to focus on beginning our life here WELL, for His glory, rather than being consumed with baby fever and/or throwing up all the live long day. Although God would have seen us through that, too, because He is faithful.
If you are in a season of waiting, particularly painful waiting, please know this: I see you, but far more importantly, God sees you. He knows. He gets it. He, too, longs for His children. He is long-suffering as He waits for us to come to Him.
I don't know when we'll have another baby. We definitely want to, and we want to trust God more fully with the timing of that. Waiting has been good for us- the pain of that was so sanctifying for me. It revealed how little I trusted God with our desire to have more children. My intense "need" to control and plan that part of our life according to what I thought was best showed that I was not actually trusting God. For some, being pregnant unexpectedly is a beautiful opportunity to learn to trust God more; for me, unexpectedly NOT being pregnant for such a long time gave me an opportunity to learn the same thing. God is kind and faithful, and He uses our circumstances for our good and His glory when we depend on Him.
His definition of good for that time of our life was a lot of trial, pain, heartache, and just SO. MUCH. WAITING. for so many things...and it was good for us. It was not all fun at the time, but I wouldn't undo it. (Though I'd try to do it over with less whining on my part, frankly.) His definition of good was very different than mine, but, of course, He was right. And I am better off because of it.
It was a humbling (crying in Target will do that to you), revealing, and sanctifying few years. And so, ultimately, they were good. Hard, painful, sad things can be redeemed in life with Christ! It's the beauty of the Gospel, that while the bad news is we are desperately broken and lost in our sin, that only makes the grace of our God- loving, just, and eager to forgive- shine all the more brightly amidst our darkness.
He has made everything beautiful in it's time.
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