I am not broken.
Our journey to start our family began over a year ago. I was going to come off of birth control in June. I was hopefully going to be pregnant in a few months and we were going to be parents in the Spring. That was my plan. I had it all figured out. I went to all my doctors in early Spring to get the okays. OB said I was good to go. Endocrinologist said my blood sugars were excellent and I was one of his best patients. I even went the extra steps. I met with a nutritionist to be sure my pescatarian diet could sustain a healthy pregnancy. I got on an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor just to be sure I had the tightest control possible. I started taking prenatal vitamins 4 months before I planned on stopping birth control. I had a fertility app on my phone. I had all my ducks in a row.
If anyone would get pregnant it would be me. I had everything planned. My mom was really fertile, wouldn’t I be too? June came and I took my last pill. Here we go. Let’s make a baby. Month after month went by. Maybe it just takes a while for the birth control to get out of my system. More months.
10 months later and I still was not pregnant. Month after month I dealt with extremely high blood sugars two weeks out of the month. I didn’t have these extreme highs while I was on the pill-but now I was heartbroken I wasn’t pregnant but I was also hurting. Physically and mentally. The high blood sugars made it difficult to concentrate and function. This certainly was not an environment to create a child in.
I felt broken. I knew my husband (Mr.D) felt bad for me. He was supportive. He held me and prayed over me the nights negative pregnancy tests showed up.
Adoption was something we planned on doing eventually, discussing it early on in our relationship. I have had a heart for orphans as long as I can remember. We had planned on having a biological child, then adopting down the road.
Back to month 10. I was having crazy high blood sugars, I felt awful and I needed help. My endocrinologist said that since I knew I felt better on birth control and had better (well, excellent) blood sugar control on it and that if we were okay pursuing an alternate road to parenthood, I should do what I thought would make me feel better. This was a relief. I was ready to feel better. I had the support of my doctor. Now I needed Mr.D on board-but I didn’t want to be pushy. I knew he knew adoption was an option, but I also knew of his desire to have biological child. God had to deal with his heart in His time.
Mr.D came home one afternoon after being quiet for a few days and I had gone to bed extremely early after dealing with high blood sugars the two nights before. He said he wanted to talk. He did not want to see me hurting month after month anymore. He knew there were other ways to become parents that did not put my body at risk for diabetes complications down the road. God had been dealing with him over the week and felt like we needed to look into adoption. There were things that had been making him hesitant, but then “something clicked” and he realized those things didn’t matter. He was going to be a dad and I was going to be a mom. We were going to become a family in the most beautiful way possible. We were going to give hope, life, and a future to child in need.
For some, the decision to adopt may come from a long road of infertility and sadness, but for us-it was the most logical next step. We weren’t going to go through tons of medical tests. Every month off birth control for me was another month of uncontrollable blood sugars, so back on the pill it was. This was not a sad decision for us. In fact, it was one of the most joyous decisions we have made.
What I realized was I am not broken. In fact, I am far more blessed than I could have imagined. God has chosen us to be light in a child’s dark world. Is there not a more beautiful way to become a mother? I do not know our child, though I pray over him or her daily. I do not know our child, but I am in love already.
We have chosen an unconventional route to become parents. We may wait 2 weeks or 2 years. We may get a child from foster care placed with us who will reunite with his or her birth family. We may get a child placed with us who will become ours. Regardless, we are blessed to have the opportunity to be a moment of stability for a child if only for a brief time or for forever.
God loved us first and gives us an abundance of grace daily. I am unworthy of the grace he gives, but I am grateful for it.