He gives good gifts. Happy birthday to ME! Pt. 2

If you did not read, "He gives good gifts. Happy birthday to ME! Pt. 1", please DO!

So, let me back up a little and give you some Goble history.

Andis and I are what you might consider 'kid-people'. We have both worked with kids for decades, we have neices and cousins and best friends babies and we are all over them and they are all over us. We love kids. Kids love us. Plain and simple. So, being 'kid-people' we thought of course we will HAVE kids. Hands down. No questions asked. We just sat back and waited for it to happen. Well, not just sat back but eh-hem, you know. And then it happened! In 2010 we found out we were pregnant! Yay! Woohoo! Yippeee skipppeeee! We were shocked and surprised and happy and ecstatic. We went to the doctor, confirmed the pregnancy and were supposed to go back in three weeks for our first ultrasound. We told our parents, close friends and family and started dreaming! It. Was. Awesome. And then, the pregnancy ended up ectopic and I ended up two feet away from six feet under and it was not so awesome. I haven't ever written about that experience so you'll have to wait on that gory story until next time. Point was. We didn't have a baby and not only that but we weren't sure we would ever be able to, as my reproductive system, like a pirate with a peg leg, was limping along with a severed fallopian tube. It took some time to heal from the loss and traumatic experience and embarrassment from telling people so early and the feelings of failure as a woman and a self appointed 'kid-person', but time heals and we did and we decided to start trying again, about this time last year. And one month passed. And then another. And then another. And like a mad scientist chasing cancer I was charting and taking temperatures every morning and checking this and that and the other thing and then came the hurry up and wait phase and then came the delusional phase when you try to convince yourself that the PMS you're having is ACTUALLY pregnancy symptoms and then comes the C.R.A.S.H, the day when you can't fool yourself anymore. You really ARE NOT pregnant this month. And you lay in bed, and you cry and you ask why and you call your mom and you start to want to give up and you tell your husband you're not good enough to be a mom and then you find yourself staring obsessively at babies in the grocery store and then you look up and see the woman who actually OWNS the baby you're staring at, staring back at you because you've now entered creeper level obsession and you start piling like 14 heads of cabbage into your cart because that seems normal and you hope that the words, 'It would be so easy to just grab that baby and run' actually did not come out of your mouth and just stayed bouncing around in your head, but you won't know because the mom is still staring at you and you are still piling cabbage into the cart and you stop and realize no amount of staring will make you a mom and no amount of cabbage will cover up the desperation of wanting to be. And then you try again. And again. And again. And months have passed by now and not only do you NOT have a baby on the way, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON YOU KNOW now does. People who didn't want babies are now pregnant. People who didn't have periods are now magically pregnant. Your best friend is pregnant. The lesbian couple down the street are pregnant. People who just moved into town and moved out of town and EVERYONE on Facebook of course has now joined the 'I'm pregnant' group. Except YOU; the person who is actually trying to get pregnant and not just half way, loosey goosey trying, like TRY-ING-Tiger Mom, third string quarterback on the football team who is finally given a chance, dorky guy trying to get the girl to notice him, struggling musician pulling three gigs a night, homeless person looking for cans trying. And there they are. Walking around on clouds with their big perfect boobs and their big perfect bellies and their perfectly glowing skin and that tiny growing life inside of them. And you can't stab them because you love them all so much and that would be illegal, but seeing their fullness makes your emptiness that much more intolerable. And the cheeseburgers help a little but no matter how big you can get your belly so you at least superficially fit in, you still won't have that tiny, perfect life growing inside of you and let me tell you, no one is going to crochet baby booties for your cheeseburger belly. Believe me, I've tried to convince them.

So you cry and you pray and you cry and you pray and eventually it all becomes so overwhelming and exhausting and defeating that you just simply give up and move on because no one can sustain feeling like a failure in an area where they thought they would be so perfect for very long without wanting to jump off of a bridge, or push the nearest pregnant woman off of a bridge at least. And if you're not TRYING to get pregnant or just don't care, the disappointment doesn't have a hold over you. So you pretend. That life is fine and awesome without kids. You go where you want. You do what you want. You spend money on yourself. You stay up late and sleep in late and enjoy breakfast with your girlfriends without having to excuse yourself early to deal with a tantrum. You don't worry. You are not filled with anxiety. You have savings and a future. Life is perfect and awesome. Right? Maybe for some. But unfortunately for the people who LIKE to make Mickey Mouse pancakes and like to read parenting blogs, and like to play hide and seek and like to tickle and laugh and play and be little league coaches and have adventures with lots of little people, the above list does not equal perfect and awesome. And you can fake it for a while; you can avoid them and push your cart the other way when they come waddling down the grocery aisle and block them as FB friends so you don't have to see the disgustingly sweet maternity photos and baby shower gifts. But then, as those pregnant women get closer to having those babies, they need you; they need your prayers, and your encouragement and your party planning skills and your love and your oatmeal cookie recipes and your strength and you just can't pretend anymore because witnessing those little people come into the world bursts open places in your heart that you had sworn you would seal off until you had a child of your own. But with the bursting open of those raw, vulnerable heart places comes a longing that sometimes it seems like God himself can't even quench. So, then you try and 'manage' the situation. You turn off the tears and turn on the tiger. You say, 'Ok, God, you are obviously tied up with more pressing matters like abortion and Ethiopia or maybe the angel post service didn't forward you the memo that I am awesome and I want a freaking baby so it's time I take matters into my own hands. I can't imagine with all you have to do that you won't apprecicate that.' And you get to work. You start looking into fostering and adoption and you talk to people and you research and you scroll the pages and pages of faces and faces of forgotten children, who once aged out of the system will NEVER have a family of their own; never a mom to take care of them when they are sick or to send a care package when they have had a hard week, never a home to come to for Christmas or Thanksgiving, never a cheesy card with money in it for their birthday and a silly voicemail with two aging parents singing their hearts out like they were on 'The Voice'. Never any of the things you and a million others have taken advantage of your entire lives. And you cry and you cry and you try and convince your husband that converting your house into an orphanage and starting a non-profit called Whitney's Kids would be a very normal and sane idea. And then all of those pregnant women that you couldn't get away from turn into people with adopted kids; the couple with the perfect baby girl and the family with the five adopted stairstepped siblings and the security guard at work with the two adopted toddlers and the lady from your church who has the two adopted boys and is guest blogging about the awesome experience of adoption and doesn't ANYONE just get pregnant anymore?! Where did all of these adoptive parents COME FROM? And they are all so imperfectly perfect; a schmorgisbord of color and texture and personalities and backgrounds and awesomeness. And you want to be them and you cry and you pray and you cry and you pray and you cry and you start to purpose yourself towards that path and you are a tangled mess of nerves on the inside. You ask yourself questions like, Will we be good enough? Will they pick us? What if they take them back? What if they don't like us? What if our house isn't clean enough or the food in our pantry not healthy enough or what if I'm too short or what if I fail or what if it takes so long that I get old or what if my husband doesn't want to do it? Or what if children just isn't in the cards for the self appointed kid-person? What if no matter how hard we try or how perfectly I take my temperature or how 'on' we are or how much we want it, we are never given the family of our dreams because sometimes that's just how it works. And then you stop. Because the weight of that possibility is almost too much to bear. So you pray and you cry and you pray and you cry and you pray and you cry and as you let go of the fraying rope of 'the family of your dreams' you begin to fall into acceptance of the truth that was planted in your heart from the moment of your creation; that life is more that labels, that our joy does not have to be tied to anything but Him who created us and that all gifts, even the ones that don't come in baby shaped boxes are a reflection of the radical love that our Father has for us and testament to His desire to bring us to a place of peace when we are trying to fill our hearts with anything but Him.

"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. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. I will then be found by you and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the places where I have banished you and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile," declares the Lord. Jeremiah 29:11-14

And then, when you have buried this truth in your heart. When you have accepted the unacceptable, embraced the unfathomable and followed His lead into places that you would not ever choose to go yourself, you wake up one day and realize.................that your period is late.

You may call this coincidence. I call it a GOOD GIFT from a LOVING Father who's plans are to prosper and not harm me, to gather me from the places of without and show me that it's only WITHIN my relationship with Him where I will find true peace and purpose....and maybe some awesome birthday surprises in baby shaped boxes every now and then as well!