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I had done a pretty good job of convincing myself that I'd never, ever be pregnant.


So good that when I saw two lines show up on the pregnancy test, I didn't feel much at first. I called Justin in and just kept saying, "this can't be right, there's got to be something wrong." And Justin even spent a few minutes with furrowed brow looking over the box and reading the directions to make sure that the two lines meant what we thought they did.

Before you roll your eyes and think how silly or dramatic I was to give up hope so easily of ever being pregnant, let me explain-


I had to.


Hope hurts. Hope got me thinking of babies and a future filled with first steps and birthday parties and a big family and sunday dinners and softball games. Hope built up those dreams, that then shattered and laid around me in pieces month, after month, after month.

At the time that I looked down at that pregnancy test and saw what I thought I'd never see, we'd been trying to get pregnant for 5 years. 5 years, or roughly 60 months of disappointment. At that point I'd taken at least a dozen pregnancy tests, and in the past, had searched and searched for that second elusive pink line. I'd leave the test lying on the counter for longer than the three minutes that it said to allow. When there was still a lonely, single line after 5 minutes (or 10) I'd throw it in the garbage reluctantly. There were even a few times when I went back and pulled the test out of the trash to see if that second line had somehow shown up mysteriously late- but

it was never there.

For me, the pain of infertility was two-fold. The first part, the worst part, was the longing for a child. The instinct to nurture, the need to be a mother. This was the hardest, this was the pain that kept me awake at night, had me crying quietly into my pillow while Justin slept beside me. This pain was amazingly, miraculously gone when Audrey came to our family. I was actually a little surprised at how quickly it vanished- replaced by more love and contentment than I ever expected.

However, there was another, smaller pain that lingered on. It didn't keep me awake at night or cause me significant heartache, but it was there, and would pop up unexpectedly when I saw a glowing pregnant woman or when I found myself on the outskirts of a conversation about pregnancy symptoms or delivery stories- conversations that are badges of courage for almost all women, conversations that I could not participate in. This smaller, quieter pain was the pain of feeling like a failure in the most basic way possible. My body couldn't do what almost every other woman's body could. I wanted to know that I wasn't somehow broken or deficient inside, I wanted to work. Luckily, this pain was easily ignored. I'm a mother now through the miracle of adoption. I have a beautiful happy daughter and nothing to complain about. Any fears about future babies were quieted with the plan that when we had the money to do so, we'd start the adoption process again. And that was fine with me.

But now two little pink lines, once so longed for and then forgotten, have shown up and changed my life. Now I have heard a fast, fluttery, very tiny heartbeat coming from deep inside me, echoing my own. My stomach is starting to protrude and when I press on it it is firm and round, protecting this tiny, miraculous life. I feel almost holy- I am housing and wholly supporting another life.


And I am so proud of my body.

So proud that it knows what to do, that everything is working, that somehow it knows how to support, and nourish, and take care of this little being even as I am still trying to wrap my head around what is happening. So far being pregnant has been hard, but I'm still thankful that I get to experience this. So thankful that I got to lie on a table last week and look at a small screen and watch a tiny baby move around inside me and stretch it's arms. Tears rolled down my face into my hair almost immediately and I watched in awe as Justin held Audrey up to the screen to see our baby. It was truly a miracle. The second full-blown miracle that I've been able to experience in my life.



I don't know how I could ever ask for more.