His Timing

Matt and I have always wanted a big family. We wanted to have our children close together in age and planned on getting pregnant again when our daughter turned 1. Matt lost his job when she was 11 months old so we put that on hold and we waited on God. It was 18 long months until Matt was employed full time (with benefits), but God met our every need during that time. I don’t think there was a day that passed that my heart didn’t ache for another child. It was hard knowing that God was calling us too more children, but also knowing He was calling us to wait on His timing. I wasn’t on birth control because it really seems to aggravate my blood sugar so we relied on natural family planning. If you’ve ever gotten into a conversation about NFP with anyone you know the biggest argument against it is how unreliable it is. We knew there was a chance of getting pregnant, but it was always my prayer that God would open my womb in His time and I knew He would. We never had a single pregnancy “scare” in the year of using NFP

Finally, Matt was hired on full time with benefits in November 2010 with a company he’d been working PRN for. We prayed and immediately began to try for our next child. In the year of NFP I had noticed my cycle was a bit messed up, but nothing too concerning. We tried for one month and then I decided to call my OB and run everything by her. I felt like we’d waited so long just waiting that I wanted to jump on top of any potential problems that would make it difficult to get pregnant. They did some testing which revealed I had low progesterone levels (one of the most common causes of infertility in women.) I knew this could be remedied with a certain prescription from my OB so I didn’t worry too much and we entered month 2 of trying. I remember Matt, Briley, and I were on the way to a Christmas parade a few weeks later when I got a call from my OB’s main nurse. She said they wanted to check my levels one more time with this cycle and then they would refer me to infertility. WAIT A SECOND. I was under the impression low progesterone could be easily fixed with a simple prescription. “Well, it can,” the nurse said, “but she doesn’t deal with that a lot so she’s just going to send you to infertility.” In shock, I got off the phone and I can remember being SO MAD. Being referred to infertility meant waiting at minimum a month for an appointment then going through a full work up before anything would be done. I’ll admit to a break down in the shower the next day with a conversation that went A LOT like this: “Are you kidding me, Lord? We’ve waited 18 stinking months to start trying to have another baby and now THIS? Now I have to WAIT EVEN LONGER.” My attitude wasn’t the greatest and I forgot whose timeline I was on, but He gently spoke to me. I very clearly felt in my spirit he reminded me He was still in control and I chose at that moment to let it go. I even thought to myself that perhaps I was overreacting a little, but I was due to start my period the next day so I chalked it all up to PMS. Have you figured out how this story ends yet? Two days later with two pink lines.

I want to remember this, to hold it close because I need to remember how God ordained my son’s life before it began. It was not a mistake, it was by His perfect timing. And it was against the odd’s which has proven to be a theme for River.