In 10 Days...

In 10 days, I travel to The City.  I will go to the Hospital. 

And the Surgeon will cut into my body yet again (this will be the tenth time).  She will remove the remnants of my scarred and painful and fluid-filled, useless fallopian tubes.  She will separate organs that have fused into random solid masses.  She will use cautery and wire loops and blades and lasers to obliterate as much endometriosis as she can do safely.  Then she'll use InnerCede (a mesh that is body-friendly and dissolves after several months) and stitches to wrap things up and hold them in place and try to prevent scar tissue from going this crazy again.  And she has assured me that I will wake up in a lot of pain.

And I believe my God will deliver me.

I believe that His promise is one of children.  I believe some day, some how, it will happen.  I don't care if it has to involve doctors and embryologists and In-Vitro.  That's fine.  Because any way you look at it, conception, pregnancy, and then birth - it is all one massive miracle.  I will be honest - I used to be bitter.  I used to be jealous. I used to feel that it was so unfair that so many people were fertile and I was not.  It used to bother me that at a minimum, we required shots and steroids and anticoagulants to conceive.  It still bothers me that all nine of my children live in Heaven.  Not that they are there, but that they are not here.

But today?  If you conceive your babies with ease - I am delighted for you.  If you struggle, but it still happens "the old fashioned way" I am relieved that your struggles were rewarded.  If you used medication, I am thankful that your body responded correctly.  If you used IUI, I am thankful for technology and for your willingness to go beyond "just the basics" in your quest to have a child.  If you conceived with IVF, I am amazed by your strength and tenacity (and willingness to stab yourself with needles on a daily basis).  And if you conceived by an obvious miracle, when it was not possible for it to happen - it makes my heart swell with joy. 

I simply do not care how God works in my life.  I know He will, I know He is.  I know that if I die without ever once giving birth... my God is still God and still good.  I know I do not need biological motherhood to be happy, to feel complete.  I want it more than any other earthly desire, but I will be fine if it never happens.  My pity party was long and pathetic, but it's over now.  It's been over for quite some time.  If you were part of it - I apologize.  If you missed it, I'm glad. 

Some day, someone is going to call me mom.  And it's not going to be a slip of the tongue.  That someone will be a child.  I do not know who will carry and deliver that child.  I do not know what that child's biological or legal relationship to me will be.  But I believe completely that I will be a mother.  And I am fine with whatever it takes for that to happen.  When I talk about the fact that to conceive, we will need physicians and needles and procedures and laboratories, and we will call it In-Vitro Fertilization... don't be sad for me.  Rejoice with me because there is an answer to our situation.  If the day comes when I say we are completely out of the race for a biological child... don't mourn.  Rejoice with me because my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life.  When I tell you we are adopting (we aren't, yet), don't tell yourself that it's second best.  It has never been second best in our eyes.  It is a dream, a separate dream.  A dream that is on hold for now, because for now, I still have ovaries.  Did you know that you don't need ovaries or a uterus or the ability to support a pregnancy for a successful adoption?

Anyway, I rarely write about fertility issues here.  But I wanted to today, because I want people to know that even if my dreams of being a biological mother never come true, I still love my God.  I am still thankful.  I still thank God for the gift of life.  I will not fall out or back away over this.  And I am not afraid, not ashamed, and not destroyed.