From IF to When

Last week, at our monthly staff meeting, I was sitting beside one of my coworkers, D, with whom I have a pretty good relationship… she and I have worked closely together in the past, and at several periods over the past 4 years, have been running/walking partners after work. –Thus, ample time to share what is on our hearts, both work-related and personal. D is also 4 or 5 years older than me (35 or 36 I think?) and single…not happy about it, but pretty apathetic about it.

Needless to say, the great majority of our “personal” time has been sharing the vast, aching voids we’ve been dealing with in our respective lives – she with desiring to find Mr. Right and be married; me, with desiring a baby.

So we’re sitting there, getting ready for the staff meeting to start, when she leans in and says, “So! I hear that M. is pregnant again,” giving me this long, knowing look.

M. – the only other girl in my department “of child-bearing age.” I may have already mentioned to you that she’s currently expecting her 2nd baby…and she’s due exactly two weeks before my own due date in March.

I met D’s glance, reading the sympathy in her gaze, and said, “I know – can you believe it? There has been so many this past year!” …Literally, we’ve had seven women have babies in the past year… SEVEN. For a company with only 80 employees—all of which are NOT women---that’s a lot. Almost 20% of our entire female workforce here.

Then she said something that took me entirely by surprise.

“I cried when I found out.”

I was dumbfounded… completely flabbergasted by her confession… heartbroken for her pain, for the fact that she’d never voiced that desire to me before. Up ‘til that moment, I’d had no idea that my friend was harboring that longing or enduring that pain – and had been, most likely for every step of my own journey with IF.

It was all I could do to not throw my arms around her and cry with her, right there in the meeting.

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Long after the meeting was adjourned and everyone had gone back to work, I thought about her confession. ...Even now, it still weighs on me.

I hurt for her…
Knowing that she’s been enduring this pain and longing so silently for all this time.
Knowing how she thinks, wondering if she’s been hiding it for so long because of some inane thought that her longing for a baby was less important or less reasonable, in her single state.
Knowing that as painful as it’s been for me to see all these women having babies around us, that it’s been just as painful for her...and wondering how much more pain she’s inflicted on herself in the hiding of it.

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Fast-forward to last night. I was cuddling next to DH in bed, ready to go to sleep. I asked, “Can you believe we’re almost 12 weeks pregnant??” (I am still pinching myself every day, asking if it’s real)

He just looked at me and said yes, he could… and that he’d never doubted whether we’d get pregnant or not. That it was only a matter of when, not if.

I know there were days/weeks/months of my IF journey when I could not FORCE myself to have hope. When the sheer thought of us one day getting pregnant/having a baby seemed like some sort of cosmic joke by God, laughing in the face of our repeated failures. When all I wanted to do was stay in my bed, curl up under the covers, and shut out life.

But even through the worst of days, some deep part of me could not let go of it. Of faith, of hope… of believing that this would all somehow work out, and we’d one day be a family.

Shortly into our TTC journey, I came across a magnet in some arts-and-crafts store that I immediately bought and put on our fridge at home, as a daily reminder… Believe.

Sometimes you just have to believe that things will get better. That one day, your world will not be consumed by this trial… that good things will come your way, despite the current outlook. That in the end, you will actually be alright…and possibly even stronger/better than you were.

For me, I also had to believe that God is, in fact, good… and not just when things are going my way. He is, in fact, good, even when my life seems crappy and I’m not getting straight answers to my prayers/pleadings.

God is also sovereign – He’s in complete control of what is going on in my life, even when it seems like He’s not, or when I can’t understand why things are going the way they are.

God is God, after all– not man – and therefore, I can’t expect to understand His ways… so to try and analyze why I’ve been subjected to this or what He’s doing, etc., is utterly futile… until I stand before Him in heaven, it will remain a mystery to me.

For me, I found solace, hope, and renewed faith in these scripture. Even on the worst of days, when doubt and hopelessness prevailed in my spirit, the truth of these scripture must have sunk deeply into the recesses of my subconcious, because they kept coming back to me, comforting me when I most needed it.

“He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.” Job 9:10

“He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together.” Colossian 1:17

“God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change His mind. Does He speak, and then not act? Does He promise, and not fulfill?” Numbers 23:19

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Matthew 21:22

“…Everything is possible for him who believes.” Mark 9:23b

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Mark 11:24

“Be strong and take heart, all you who trust in the Lord.” Psalm 31:24

“But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear (worship) Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love.” Psalm 33:18

“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him.” Psalm 62:5

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.” Romans 12:12

“Even youth grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those whose hope is in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:30-31

“Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him." The LORD is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.” Lamentations 3:21-26

For D, I truly wish I could impart to her how much hope I have for her situation…how strongly I believe that it will not always be as it is now.

How I hope she can stop focusing on the if of her situation, and start believing more in the when.