someday

This is about fertility, babies, and the deepest longings of my soul. Consider yourself warned.



Even though we're not trying, even though we have a plan, and even through I know the timing is not right, every month I feel a sense of failure sink in. And every month I try explaining this to Matt. I tell him about callings. I tell him about the feelings that are so core and so very central to my being. I try my best to articulate that while I am currently decidedly unpregnant, I feel like I should be pregnant. There's always a lot of pausing for deep breaths between even deeper thoughts. I sigh, stare at the ceiling, and struggle for the right words to say. I finally tell him what he already knows - his wife would like a baby please. After this display of emotion, I always find myself flopped on the bed. And in a display of spousal love, I always find Matt flopped next to me.

We discuss timelines. We discuss finances. We discuss waiting and agree that a bit of patience is best. But then we (mostly me) discuss the what-ifs: what if it doesn't work/what if it takes years/what if we regret these months of waiting? We (mostly Matt) discuss trusting God. We (I) discuss infertility and miscarriage and the dozens of things that can go wrong. We (Matt) discuss, again, trusting the Creator of the universe and our hearts, the One who put these desires in motion.

Then we (Matt) get up to brush our (his) teeth and get ready for bed, while we (I) go to the couch to do some thinking.

I think about the first time I realized I was made to be a mother - made to nurture and support, to tend to and love. I was six and my youngest brother was a few months old and starting to cry. I picked him up from his crib, sat cross-legged on the floor, put on my gentlest voice, and calmed him down. Something clicked. I sat there, watching him drift slowly off to sleep, feeling like I had both power and purpose.

I think about my heart and the hearts of women everywhere who share the same longing. How all of our hearts beat so strongly for this one thing that all this waiting, either intentional or unintentional, just seems throughly unproductive.

But then I think about God. I remind myself of His promises and His plan and of all of those little things that my impatient heart doesn't want to hear. How my God is the same God who remembered Rachel, who remembered Sarah, who remembered Elizabeth. Someday, somehow, He will remember me.

Then, in all of this talk remembering, I remember this doozy: God knows the exact date of each of my somedays.

And with that, I can finally go to sleep.