Tonight, I Wanted To Share A Quick Status From A Friend’s Facebook In Speaking Of Terms Of The Dreaded Term Infertility. It Is Every Woman’s Enemy When Married And Trying To Start Their Family, Yet It Seems That More Women In Recent Years Are Dealing More And More With This. I Wanted To Share This From One Very Strong And Beautiful Mother’s Position On Her ‘Blessing Of Infertility’. This Was Too Awesome Not To Share. Let Her Response Greet You Without Discouragement, Anger, And All Feelings Of Disappointment…Yes I Am Sure She Felt All Of These Emotions; However, She Is A Messenger Of Hope. Hope That Is Beyond Means What Is The Most Important Message Here. Hope And Faith In God That He Has It Covered And He Knows What He Is Doing. Enjoy!
The Blessing Of Infertility
In February Of 1987, If Anyone Had Referred To Infertility As A Blessing, I Would Have Thought They Were Clueless, Thoughtless And Cruel. But Looking Back On The Journey That Don And I Have Walked, I Am So Aware Now Of God’s Amazing Ability To Take Any Cross He Gives Us And Turn It Into The Most Precious Blessing.
When We Were First Married, We Both Agreed That 4 Children Would Create The Perfect Family And Looked Forward To Our First Pregnancy With Joy And Anticipation. Those Feelings Slowly Turned To Sadness And Anxiety As Month After Month, No Pregnancy Occurred. Little Did We Know That Not Being Able To Conceive Was Just The Beginning Of Our Nightmare. After Several Years Of Attempting To Get Pregnant, Our Doctor Recommended Infertility Testing And Treatment. That Was When The Horror Of This Cross We Were Given To Bear Truly Pressed Upon Us. I Started To Get Really Scared That We Would Never Have A Baby Much Less Four.
We Researched To See What Fertility Tests And Treatments The Catholic Church Approved And Began Months Of Doctor Appointments, Blood Tests And Medications. Then, One Stormy, Blizzardy Night In February, 1987, My Doctor Called Us To His Office To Tell Us That Because Of A Rare Condition That Showed Up In One Of Don’s Blood Tests, The Chances That We Would Ever Get Pregnant Were Slim To None And He Recommended That We Consider Adoption.
We Were Devastated. We Were Going To Be Denied The Joy Of Ever Being A Mom And A Dad. Don And I Both Knew How Difficult It Was To Adopt A Baby. When We Got Home That Night, I Sat In A Rocking Chair In The Nursery And Hugged A Teddy Bear And Cried And Cried. For The First Time, I Actually Talked To God About This Tragedy And Said, “If You Want Us To Have A Child, Then It’s All In Your Hands.”
When I Had Calmed Down, I Really Thought About Our Situation And I Asked Myself The Most Important Question. Did We Want A Pregnancy Or Did We Want A Baby In Our Arms And In Our Lives? After Some Careful Conversation, We Concluded That What We Really Wanted Was A Child To Raise. So We Placed This Cross Back In God’s Arms And Prayed And Prayed For A Child – Whether It Was A Birth Child Or An Adopted Child Was Up To God.
We Spread The Word To Everyone – Friends, Doctors, Attorneys Involved With Adoption, Even Total Strangers – That We Were Interested In Adopting A Baby. Weeks Later, We Received A Call From Our Doctor Saying That He Had Been In Contact With A Birth Mother Who Knew She Wanted To Give Up Her Baby. She Was Due In A Few Months. We Were Thrilled And Scared All At The Same Time, But Again, We Turned It All Over To God. On A Beautiful Spring Evening, We Were Getting Ready To Go Out For Pizza When The Phone Rang. The Doctor Said, “Your Daughter Was Born A Few Minutes Ago And She Is Perfectly Healthy.” Through A Lot Of Tears, I Yelled The Amazing News To Don Who Was In The Bathroom. He Came Running Down The Hallway Still Trying To Pull Up His Jeans And Screaming, “It’s A Girl!! It’s A Girl!!”
The Next Morning, Our Attorney Gave Us Permission To Go See The Baby. We Flew Up To The Hospital And Peered Through The Nursery Window At All The Babies And Way Back In A Corner, There Was A Tiny Baby All Wrapped Up In Pink With No Name Written On Her Crib. The Nurse Saw Us And She Knew Right Away We Must Be The Adoptive Parents. She Motioned Us Around To A Side Door And To My Great Joy, She Opened That Door And Placed This Precious Little Bundle In My Arms. That Was One Of Those Forever Moments! I Understood So Clearly That God Is My Loving Father And The Love I Felt Toward This Miracle In My Arms, He Felt A Thousand Fold Toward Me. That Is When The Cross Of Infertility Became The Most Awesome Blessing.
“I Am Telling You The Truth: You Will Cry And Weep…..When A Woman Is About To Give Birth, She Is Sad Because Her Hour Of Suffering Has Come; But When The Baby Is Born, She Forgets Her Suffering, Because She Is Happy That A Baby Has Been Born Into The World. That Is How It Is With You: Now You Are Sad, But I Will See You Again, And Your Hearts Will Be Filled With Gladness, The Kind Of Gladness That No One Can Take Away From You.” (John 16:20-22)
God Continued To Bless Us And Because Of The Generosity And Love Of Two More Birth Mothers, We Were Able To Adopt Two More Perfect Newborn Babies. The Cross Of Infertility Became The Gift Of Life That Enabled Us To Finally Have Those Babies In Our Arms For Whom We So Dearly Yearned.
Adoption Is So Dear To Me. And Yet I Never Even Think Of My Kids As Adopted, Because They Are Such A Part Of Me Now. I Cherish These Three Children With All My Heart. They Are A Living Breathing Sign To Me That God Is A Loving God To All Of Us. I Thank God Constantly For The Miracle Of These Children And For Their Birth Mothers Who Showed Such Unconditional Love By Choosing Life For Their Babies And Giving Them To Us.
“Not Flesh Of My Flesh, Nor Bone Of My Bone, But Still Miraculously All My Own. Never Forget For A Single Minute, You Weren’t Born Under My Heart But In It.”
People Say To Us That These Children Are So Lucky To Have Been Adopted By Us But The Truth Is, We Are The Blessed Ones, The Luckiest Mom And Dad On Earth. We Never Could Have Created Children As Cool As These Three. And We Laugh That There Are A Lot Of Traits On Both Sides Of Our Families That Were Better Off Not Being Reproduced!!
Our Journey Has Taught Us Many Things, But Two Of The Most Important Stand Out. The First Is A Call To Action. We Must All Defend The Right To Life, Support Birth Mothers In Every Way We Can And Earnestly Pray That God Remove The Sin Of Abortion From Our World. The Second Lesson Is We Must Faithfully And Trustingly Take All Of Our Crosses And Give Them Back To God. He Loves Us And Will Transform Even The Cruelest Burden Into The Most Amazing Miracle. He Will Give Us Blessings A Million Times Greater Than Anything We Could Wish For Ourselves!
As told by CatMan, The Rose Bandit 