second time around.

​To say that the month of May was emotional is the greatest of all understatements. I turned 33, celebrated ten years of marriage, resigned from teaching after ten years, packed up my classroom, hugged my colleagues, hugged all my kids (some for the very last time), and lost a pregnancy.
 
Yeah, I know.  I should probably back up and hit rewind. After months of testing, and re-testing, and calling around to every doctor that Jason and I had seen regarding trying to start our family, my new doctor in Atlanta was finally ready to meet once again. With a patient file as dense as a 90s phone book, we sat in his office where he literally sketched out a plan on a plain white sheet of computer paper. This number shows this. This lab shows this. This is what we’ve tried. This is what we haven’t tried. “Ok, let’s get started. Today.” He ended the conversation so matter of factly. Jason and I looked at each other in amazement. We like this guy. He’s direct, straight to the point.
 
We moved across the hall to a pre-treatment ultrasound and consultation. Hormones began the next day. So May began with hope. May began with anxiety. Already knowing that I needed to meet with my principal about my resignation, I would now meet with her on hormones . . . great! This was also yearbook week, with the always-emotional yearbook banquet the Thursday night before distribution Friday where I would tell my staff of my departure as well. And I would be on hormones.
 
In case you don’t remember how hormones previously manifested in me, go back and read restoration. They make me a hot mess. A crazy, irrational, overly sensitive, emotional, hot mess. And’s that putting it gently. Thankfully, I was not training for a marathon this time and would not subject my running partners to monsoon meltdowns on unsuspecting downtown streets.
 
But there was no monsoon. No tornados. No hurricanes. No scattered thunderstorms or even summer showers. In what I can only attribute to God controlled, this round of triple dose hormones instead filled me with optimism, excitement, and even energy. When I stood before my students on Thursday night at our banquet space at Mellow Mushroom, all I could do was beam with joy. When I told them I was leaving, I couldn’t shed one tear because deep in my heart I was hiding the greatest secret of all; hope.
 
Having just told my principal the day before, she cried and I couldn’t. I was fearful she thought I was heartless but I was just really overcome with actual hope. Maybe I was finally getting everything I ever wanted? Still the week continued with a bundle of stress and excitement. Every day during lunch I was self-testing looking for a positive LH surge meaning I was ovulating. All I needed was one positive result and I could schedule the artificial insemination the following day. I kept praying that I wouldn’t miss my last yearbook day and God answered that prayer. With no positive surge indicated, my doctor ordered me a shot that I self-injected to force my body into action. So after the most emotional week of my career, after my last yearbook banquet, my last yearbook day, I drove home exhausted and shot myself up. Jason and I were scheduled back to Atlanta both Saturday and Sunday mornings for two rounds of IUI, intrauterine insemination.
 
Without going into the awkward details, we emptied our savings and poured out all our faith. Before leaving on Sunday, I asked my doctor the dumbest question possible. “So, what percent of pregnancy am I now looking at?” Without missing a beat, he responded “Oh, about 15%.” Wait?! What? Like 1-5-%? “That’s correct,” he smiled. With a pat on my shoulder he told me to have a good weekend and good luck. 
 
For the second time that weekend, Jason and I drove the 55 miles north in a haze of emotions that even this writer can’t fully put into words. For next two weeks we waited. We held our breaths and we prayed. I told my core group of friends and our families, of course. That might have been a bad idea since I felt like all eyes were on me for the next two weeks. Well, was she, or wasn’t she?
 
Jason and I were planning our ten-year anniversary get-a-way. We would spend this weekend away to celebrate our first decade as husband and wife and we would also test to see if there was another reason to celebrate. Mother’s Day was the weekend prior. In years’ past where I would hold up in my fortress and avoid, this year I smiled. This was the perfect timing and this feeling in my heart told me that God was granting our desire. My everyday prayers became more and more like chants for life and for hope, stream of consciousness conversations with the creator of all life. I ended every thought with Thy Will Be Done.
 
The Thursday before we left to go out of town, Jason’s great uncle passed away at the age of 95. Instead of spending the weekend away, we would spend it with family honoring the legacy of a faithful follower of Christ and faithful husband of 64 years.
 
Before the long Saturday of funeral arrangements, I just had to know. Did I have a reason to mourn or a reason to rejoice? At 5am on that Saturday morning, I peed on a stick, set it down, and walked away. Forcing myself not to wait, I made my cup of coffee and headed toward my spot. I would pass the time waiting with my Father. In prayer. In song. Through tears. I sat in my office begging God for the one thing I could not hustle my way through. For all my achiever tendencies, accomplishment driven traits, He is God and I am not. 

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