My Soul Sings

My Soul sings...the chorus to one of my favorite songs (written by Delirious) and so often the description of my heart. My soul has begun a new song, one of thanksgiving and gratitude for what was taken away has been given back and what we thought could be impossible became possible. My only response is for my soul to sing to God for His faithfulness to heal and provide.
But let me tell you one of the reasons for why my soul sings.

About the time we got back from Nicaragua we decided it was time to take the plunge and go off birth control. Yikes! Scary step but one we felt ready for. We thought everything would go smoothly but apparently that was not to be the case. I had one cycle on my own and then normalcy stopped all together. At first we thought I was pregnant but several negative pregnancy tests determined I was not. Armed with optimism, I went to the doctor hoping that it was just because I had been on birth control for too long and my body needed more time to normalize on its own. Thus began my journey of staring one of my biggest fears in the face: infertility. After several trips to the doctor it was determined that I have Poly cystic Ovaries essentially classifying me as unable to get pregnant without the help of fertility medication.

Needless to say this news floored me. I have heard of people who have trouble getting pregnant or have infertility issues but never in a million years did I imagine that would be me. However, as I wrestled I experienced one of the most amazing journeys of my life.

To back up a little, the first month we went off of birth control I had a dream. One of those dreams that after you wake up you think to yourself was that really just a dream? The dream in itself was nothing particularly dramatic but the words that were spoken were clear as a bell. In this dream I was at a prayer meeting. (In my dream, and in real life, I had not told anyone we were going off birth control.) As we were praying every single person in the room spoke up saying to me "Mary Frances, God wants me to tell you that you don't need to be afraid, He will open your womb and you will get pregnant." When I woke up my first thought was it was just a dream, something my subconscious came up with since I was a little worried about the "what ifs" as we went off birth control. So, I let it go. But as time progressed and I started having problems the Lord reminded me of this dream, whispering to my heart that this was more than a dream, it was truth, a promise to hold on to.

Then in the spring I came upon a name that caught my interest. I am the kind of person who wants to name our child something unique but meaningful. I had never heard this particular name before and I tucked it away for that "some day" in the future. One day during a quite time in which I was wrestling with understanding what God was doing with my health, the name came back to me. I decided to look up what the name meant and as I did so another whisper to my heart..."This will be the name of your child". Once again, I hesitated thinking I might be making it up, that I was just being a silly girl who wants to have a baby. But then I read the meaning of the name: "The Lord has answered our prayers." I was hesitant to tell Josh about this at first, because I was afraid to hope, timid to call what I had discovered "from the Lord". But the more we talked about it, the more we came to realize that this name signified more than just the healing of my body, but also the perfect timing of God.

And so the journey continued. In May the official word came...I had PCOS and my worse nightmare had come true. Even though I had these two promises, I cannot pretend like I did not wrestle that there were not tear filled days as I looked at the potential loss of dreams. Yes people get pregnant all the time on fertility medication but I never imagined that that would be me, that there would be something physically wrong with me that would hinder me from having children. But as I cried I still felt sustained to believe that God would heal my body and we wouldn't have to use medication. So as we talked through options with my doctor, we decided that we would hold off on medication till the end of summer. If things had not changed we would revisit the conversation and start considering medicinal options.

We never got that far. Two months ago I experienced my first miracle as two pink lines showed up on the test. The Lord was once again true to His word, He has touched my body and enabled me to get pregnant!

Today I am a little over 8 weeks along, with a due date of May 10th. We got to see our little seahorse via ultrasound today in which we saw it's heart beating and its tiny little limb buds move. This last week I had been wrestling with fear, fear that this little baby was too good to be true, not wanting to get too attached to it in case it wasn't for real. But as I watched the screen portray this little gift, my soul sang once again.

Praise the Lord for His goodness to us.