I’m sitting here trying to figure out the best way to put our 2 year journey into words.

It’s a story that needs to be shared.

It’s a story that He has given us.

It started on our honeymoon May 2012, this crazy pain in my tummy and back. We would be out and about sight seeing and I would be hunched over in pain. We laughed it off, like we do pretty much anything. Steven would mimic my stance and do the same thing when I would have an ‘attack’ just to make light of the situation. We were in my dream location there was no way we were going to let a little pain damper our trip! After our 24 hour travel day home {crazzzzy long day} and my screaming back/tummy pain we knew I had to see a dr when I got home.

That week I went to urgent care, after I mentioned we had just got back from our honeymoon the “nurse” {I have some other choice words for her…} had the audacity to say “Well…you know what you’ve been doing on your honeymoon all week. We call it the honeymoon sickness,” with a stupid grin, and sent me out the door.  I could have punched her!! Needless to say we will NEVER use that urgent care again. After that little event my neighbor gave me her info for a great OB. After a TON of invasive tests and x-rays we found out that I have endometriosis and it had created two LAGRE masses on my ovaries. 8cm each….the size of tennis balls!

That was the first time they told us that we might have trouble conceiving.  I was devastated. If you asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up my answer would always be the same “a stay at home mom.” Once I found my passion for photography in college the answer changed a bit to “a stay at home mom with my own photography business.” After many tears at home with my love, my best invited us out to their house and we went out for ice-cream. She posted this photo on Instagram over a year and a half ago with the tagline saying “Ice cream makes everything better.”  I remember the emptiness in my heart that night, the heaviness of coming to terms with the unknown.

So we scheduled surgery for October 2, 2012. It went smoothly and as planned, but once the doctor opened me up they saw the severity of my endo. Both doctors said it was the worst case they had ever seen. It was lining e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. They tried their best to clean up what they could in the time they had and sent me to recovery. While in recovery they told Steven, “Just so you know…your wife has an extremely high pain tolerance, the amount of endo that she has, she should have been in intense pain and often. So now you know, when your wife says something hurts. She means it, and that means it’s worse than what she’s letting on.” When Steven told me the doctors told him that I felt like a champion! I felt like it wasn’t all in my head and I wasn’t being a dramatic baby. He was kinda proud too, knowing his wife could handle pain like a champ hahah. But he was also saddened knowing what I had been dealing with all of this time.

After the 2 weeks of recovery I was still in daily pain, and I bled every day for 6 months. I felt like the woman of the bible. The woman in Mark 5 who bled for 12 years but Jesus healed her.

“And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.””

Ok so I didn’t bleed for 12 years…Praise God! But I did start to learn what it means to live life with audacious faith. I started to learn what it means to put all of your hope in the Truth of Scripture. It is living water.

I put these two verses next to my bathroom mirror and read them EVERY day. Every time I got ready in the morning. Every time I was in the bathroom. I read them. At first they were obscure, “Count it all JOY when you meet TRAILS”??? Really? That sounds awful. I wanted to soak in my sorrows. I wanted to bask in the dwelling, in the unknowing. I didn’t want to be joyful! But that’s when God stated molding my heart and reminding me….it’s not about me. Not even for a second. It’s not about the fact that I couldn’t give my new husband children. Or feeling sorry for myself that he married a “sick” girl. It’s not about my dreams to be a mom.

Summer of 2013 my doctors started pressuring me to go on a medicine that would put me into a false state of menopause or “try” to start a family. I didn’t want either. I didn’t want to be on such a harsh medicine and I didn’t want to try for something I knew that was near impossible. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the unknown and I wanted complete control. That winter Steven and I said enough is enough with me being in constant pain. We told the doctors we’d take a leap of faith and move forward with “trying” to start a family. They sent us to a specialist for more poking, prodding and evasive testing. At some point of all this you start feeling like a science project. Always waiting for a negative result or answer.

In January 2014 after all the results were in we got our conclusive answer. We were perfectly healthy and able to carry a baby…but we had less than a 5% chance to actually make one. 4% is considered medically infertility. Basically saying it won’t happen. So we had 1% to spare. They suggested we started IVF : In Vitro Fertilization immediately because our chances were only going to get worse as we got older. I left that meeting like I had been kicked in the gut. I had no air to breathe. I got to the car as fast as I could. Once I shut the door it came. The tears I had been holding back for so long. The tears that I wanted to cry at every appointment the last year and a half. I sobbed. I sobbed because I knew my answer right away. I couldn’t go through with IVF. I knew at that moment that our world was going to change. I was terrified of hurting my dear husband who wanted a child of his own. I was broken hearted knowing I was going to break his heart. I told him on our way home, through my tears, I could not bring myself to scientifically create a child of our own knowing so many kiddos need homes. God had put it on my heart to be a mother. Not to create life. So many people choose to go down the IVF path and thats ok. That’s their journey that makes sense for them. I do not look down on IVF, they are miracle babies just the same. I just knew that wasn’t the path God had called us. I knew it SO clearly.

After about 3 days of being in bed soaking in my sorrows, I told Steven I needed a biblical perpecisve to keep my sanity. It’s living water, It fills you up. That week we made an appointment with our dear friend and pastor who married us. He gave us a great new outlook. “It’s not about right now, it’s about long term. As a married team your marriage comes first, I urge you not to make any decisions until you are both aligned 100%” So we did just that. I vowed not to pressure Steven and he vowed to have open conversations about considering adoption. We promised to take the year to seek out God’s plan for our life. So even if we made a decision we wouldn’t move forward until the year was up. From that point on we didn’t look back. We lived each day looking to Christ and thats it. His grace is enough. We lived life. There was no more pressure. There was nothing else we could do. We looked to Him.

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

…..

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts,he will be blessed in his doing.

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’sreligion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

I rested in James 1. I read it over and over and over some more. We happened to have started a great series at church in Ephesians about changing yourself apart from Christ is impossible. That trying to be a “good Christian” apart from faith…you’re missing the mark. Pray because you want to praise him, not to try to manipulate the outcome. I learned to… Let GO! Letting go of all plans, ideas, and just live. Live with a servants heart. Not just to make myself feel better or in hopes He will give me what I want. Live with a heart of love because that is what I have been called to do. That’s it. I then realized the goal of parenting. I don’t want a kiddo who looks like me, I want a child that lives like Jesus. One that is raised up to know what it means to love sacrificially and unconditionally. 

In March after some great friends and their kiddos left our house after a photo shoot Steven came in the kitchen while I was starting dinner. He held up his hand to give me a high five and said “So I’ve decided we are adopting” gave me a high five, smiled and walked away. I was in awe. I was in awe of the man standing before me and our Maker who had clearly softened his heart. I followed him into the living room smiling ear to ear and asked “What changed your mind?” He said he had been thinking/praying about it a lot and he had never been against the idea, he had just never truly considered it until we had to. He said that he knows he’s ready to be a dad and that we could give a kid a great home. Those next few days I looked up a few agencies in Fresno and found one having an info session/orientation May 8th. Steven said we could go to get more info but we wouldn’t submit our application until the end of December. Remember our year deal? That would have given us a FULL year of prayer and looking over our options. Not dwelling on our circumstances, but joyfully walking through the doors He had opened for us.

Wednesday May 7, 2014 I woke up and had a dream I was pregnant. I was totally sad and discouraged. Feeling like crap from the endo. I started texting my bestie Dani when she happened to call. I told her all about my dream and how I hated the fact that I even considered it an option. That morning I made an appointment with my doctor in hopes to talk with her about moving forward with surgery. I’ve known I’d need a hysterectomy before I’m 35 because of my endo. Steven and I decided if we were going to be adopting I better be in tip top health when we get our placement. I felt like poop that whole day and had errands to run. On my way home my dream was still on my mind. I called Steven and told him I was picking up a pregnancy test. Might as well before we head to our adoption info session the next day. I picked it up knowing I was going to go home..pee on this stick…be sad and feel like crap. But on my way home I was thinking, “wouldn’t that totally be like God to rock our world the day before our meeting.” Then a verse popped in my head…

His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ Matthew 25:21

It kept repeating over and over. I was thinking, “God I haven’t done anything?! What are you talking about?!”

It’s not about US. It’s not about our plans, our life, our wants, our desires. It is and always will be about Him. There is always a greater plan to your journey. You are where you are on purpose. Nothing is by accident. Praise Him in the good and bad. Learn what it means to be joyful in trials. WHAT a story He has given us! A story of heartbreak and redemption. A story that ALL things are made new in Him. His will, will ALWAYS be done. Live with audacious faith and cling to the Truth of Scripture. The promises are real. I can testify for the Lord, His word is truth. It’s living water.