This time tomorrow...

By this time tomorrow I will officially be PUPO! (Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise).

Our embryo transfer is scheduled for 8:30 AM on Thursday, November 19.

People keep asking how I feel and it's a hard question to answer. At any given moment, I'm feeling a variety of "feels." And depending on the moment some are stronger than others... I'm mostly excited, and definitely nervous. (Mostly nervous about peeing on Dr. Nelson during the procedure! They want my bladder super full and then the nurse presses down on my stomach to "open things up" or something... it's definitely a precarious situation for him to be in...)

But there's also moments of despair, "I just know this isn't going to work"; and sometimes even indifference, "whatever, who even cares if we have kids or not?"; and sometimes even panic, "I'm not ready to be a parent, I'm still just a kid myself!" But I think those moments tend to come more when I'm failing to trust in God and am relying on my own self-preservation methods instead.

Approaching this second transfer, we've been more purposeful about guarding our hearts. I was SO optimistic last time and it just made so much sense to us that God would allow us to get pregnant on our first try.  And I still think it's good to be excited and to ask God for very specific things, and we firmly believe that God is 100% capable of giving us a successful pregnancy.  But more specifically, we're praying for contentment whatever our circumstances.

Having walked through all this once before has prepared us to enter this second transfer with a little more caution and perspective.  Last time I was so wrapped up in EVERYTHING, it kind of took over my life. I was nervous about what I was eating, how much sleep I was getting, if I should be doing acupuncture, and if I was better off with the raspberry leaf pills or the tea... plus a myriad of other worries. And guess what - it didn't work! And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? (Matt 6:27) If I can't add a single hour to my life by worrying, I'm surely not going to be able to add a living human to my life!  But God has been SO gracious in the midst of my shortcomings.  Instead of just giving up on me and saying, "well, Gabby's a lost cause," He's continued to gently reveal to me the areas in my heart where I'm failing to fully trust Him, and has given me a second chance to do things better.

So yes, I am excited! I really want it to work! But this time around, instead of thinking about pregnancy symptoms, nursery decor and parenting methods, we're mostly focusing on just being still and knowing that God is our refuge and our fortress, and that He will be exalted regardless of what that pregnancy test says.

I can't thank everyone enough for their prayers and encouraging words.  Every time someone tells us that they've been praying, my heart just feels so full.  We are so grateful for God's church and the love we've felt. Thank you!

The Weight of the Wait

(Ok, I should start this post by saying Gabby and I don’t necessarily feel a ‘weight’ per se, I just can’t resist a good homonymous alliteration)

Raise your hand if you like waiting.  Ok, if you’re a smarty-pants like me, you may have thought of situations where waiting is favorable, and you can leave those in the comments below if you’d like.  But for the sake of this post, my topic sentence is this: (In general) No one likes to wait.  Gabby and I love to go to Disneyland.  We dislike WAITING in traffic to get to the parks and having to WAIT in line for Casey Jr.  Our Siamese cats love Kitty Din-Din, but they dislike having to WAIT ‘til 9:30pm for their song and dinner routine.  There are rooms designated for WAITING, and these are not places where you relax and kick-back or have a party.

WAITING is hard because it takes patience.  Especially as mankind advances, so many things involve WAITING less and less.  We have “Insta-gram,” which has “instant” in the title, because we need to brag to our friends about what we’re doing RIGHT NOW!  We have “On-Demand” online tv viewing devices, because we have the right to DEMAND when we watch our shows.  Car places try to draw you in with how fast they can change your oil. “15-minute Oil Change,”   “10-minute Oil Change,” “2-minute Oil Change.”  (Which, by the way, doesn’t instill confidence in me that they’re doing a thorough job).

Patience is hard because it infers that we’re NOT IN CONTROL of something.  We have to WAIT for some other factor to play its part, and then we’ll get to do the thing we want to do.

Gabby and I are in one of the most impactful, surreal, and crazy ‘WAITS’ of our lives (especially in our marriage).  As many of you know, yesterday (Friday, April 10th) was our embryo transfer day.  We went to our Doctor’s office, went into a room to WAIT, and then a few hours later we were heading home!  There are two embryos inside Gabby!  The Doctor said something to the effect of, “Alright, we’ll see you in X amount of days/weeks and we’ll see if you’re pregnant.”  Umm, Ok.  We’ll just go WAIT at home to find out, then.  So…here we are.

It’s crazy because after this WAITING period, we may either hear miraculous, happy, and God-glorifying news OR we may get discouraging, trying, and God-glorifying news.  We have no idea what God is going to do, but we do know He will be glorified whatever the case.
So how should we WAIT?  In Psalm 27, David talks about not being afraid because he trusts in the Lord.  It’s a fairly familiar Psalm, including the passages “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”  David goes on in the Psalm to talk about all the ways he trusts in the LORD in the face of enemies, danger, and trials in general.  He ends the Psalm in verse 14, “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!”  David uses the word “wait” several times around the Psalms, and with it comes the idea of “to expect actively; to look upon with dependence and trust actively, not passively.”  This type of WAITING allows believers to be strong and courageous in the face of trials.  To be clear, these scriptures DO NOT mean, “if you WAIT on the LORD correctly, He’ll answer your prayer the way you want it.”  That’s bad theology.  These scriptures DO promise that whether we get pregnant or not this time, we can find peace, joy, strength, and courage through the grace given to us by God.  We can experience this because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Happy Easter, by the way). 

SO, I come to the part where I let you know what you can do for us, (if you’d like to do anything)
1) KEEP PRAYING.  Keep praying that the embryos would stick!  We’ve been so encouraged by your “likes” on statuses, your comments, and just your prayers in general.  Keep ‘em coming!  There is power in prayer! (to the God of the Bible)

2) WAIT WITH US.  Many of you may have been in situations similar to us.  Perhaps you have WAITED for some type of important news.  One thing that can be a little bit tough is when many, many people ask you, “Any news yet?  Do you know if you’re pregnant yet?”  If you’ve asked this before, don’t worry, but we’re asking that if you see us in these next few weeks, instead of asking “Do you know if you’re pregnant?” a simple “I’m praying for you!” will be worlds more encouraging.  We will share the news with everyone as soon as we’re ready to share it with you guys.  It’s been really special and important for some of these big steps along the way that Gabby and I have time to process it together first before sharing.  It’s been a kind of weird thing to balance, who knew you could bring hundreds of people along your infertility/embryo adoption/pregnancy quest journey, right?

Welp, I think that brings this post to a close.  Thanks for WAITING to read through it all.

- Donny & Gabby