Blessings - Part 2

Ten days.

Ten days ago we couldn't keep the news for ourselves anymore. Even the thought alone of bringing a little boy home just days after Christmas has our hearts wrapped in the most joyful and reverenced feelings. I can only imagine how it will actually feel. After all these years, all the "almosts", to have a baby to bring home with us. And, then to think of the selfless love that will be involved, I think my heart just might burst. 

This little boy, destined for our home, was the initial opening of the windows of heaven. As if that alone wasn't big enough to be enough. We've been filled to overflowing with this unexpected, incredible news. But, for some inexplicable reason, we received an amazing second portion of blessings. The same amount of time you've now had to let the news of our adoption sink in, ten days, is the same amount of time we had before our discovery of "Blessings, part two."

Are you ready for this?

Ten days after we received our first email from Tracey, I woke up for the fourth morning in a row fully expecting the arrival of that dreaded monthly visitor. On that fourth morning when it still hadn't arrived, I finally gave in and took a test, fully expecting to already know its outcome, as it has been approximately 85 times out of 88. (The odds, clearly, not in our favor.)

Instead, the results sent us into shock. I calmly walked from the bathroom into our bedroom with the pregnancy test in hand. Marc was still sleeping, very soundly and peacefully, I might add. I gently nudged him until he stirred a bit and looked at me with his squinted eyes.

In a half-whisper I said, "so, I took a test this morning."

His simple reply, "And?" 

Me: "It's positive."

I said it just like that. Very matter-of-factly. No exclamation. No screaming. No jumping up and down. There weren't even any tears, of joy or of fear. There was, however, a slight hint of a smile trying to form around the corners of my lips. Marc reflected the same cautious hint of joy.

I soon realized there was a thick protective coating of numbness around our hearts. It didn't help that these sequence of events felt very uncomfortably like we were reliving an awful deja-vu from the spring of 2008. If you remember, we had been chosen to adopt a baby boy, which then followed with news that we were pregnant with our twins. Having things sort of fall into the same chain of events, honestly, made me very uncomfortable. The two main thoughts I had during that time when we were tentatively about to add three kids to our family in one year, were - "our blessing, finally, after waiting for so long" and "this is just too good to be true."

I've refrained from thinking either of those things this time around. Instead, I've just tried to enjoy each moment, hoping and praying for the strength to handle whatever the outcome might be (with both anticipated blessings). 

I called my doctor right away. That very day she sent in an order for blood tests, 48-hours apart, to check my hCG levels. The results would offer me some peace of mind for 12 more days, until my first ultrasound. That same peace of mind has been reapplied, almost as if it's melting away that layer of numbness, with every appointment, every ultrasound, every sign that new life is forming within the walls of my broken tabernacle.

Our first two pregnancies were five years apart. I thought maybe I was on the "five-year plan." Well, and actually, after certain complications following the birth of our twins, I was warned of the possibility of never being able to conceive again. Ever. Not that that news was any different than the fall of 2006 when the Reproductive Endocrinologist I was seeing flat out told me, "you'll never conceive naturally."

I've been tempted, now, a second time to call her and tell her that she was wrong. Twice.

Somehow we have conceived a baby.

Naturally.

Unexpectedly.

Miraculously.

I'm far enough along that my nearly inch-deep "innie" is not nearly so deep, though not yet considered an "outie." I've started to feel the early subtle movements of our little babe. The week after next we will find out if Baby Boy will have a little sister or a little brother.

They will be approximately four months apart. Almost like twins. One coming through an angel named Tracey and one coming through my healed womb.

Both miracles.

Both gifts.

Both blessings.

Both dreams that have cost us too many tears to count.

Both worth every ounce of pain and heartache of the last almost seven-and-a-half years of waiting.

If ever there was a time that I've felt first-hand the reality of the Law of Compensation at work, it's now. As beautifully stated by Elder Wirthlin, just before his death,

"The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude."

The feelings of gratitude we now feel, as we shed tears of rejoicing, cannot be contained in words.