Happy...and Sad

This must be a good time of year for lots of folks.  Facebook is full of pictures of weddings and big baby bellies and cute new arrivals.  I have many, many friends having babies this year and next.  I have one friend having a baby as I type right now!  It's a beautiful thing really, especially as for many friends this is their first child, and I am so happy for them.  There is nothing like having that first baby.  I am looking at mine right now...he'll be 8 in a few days.  I was so young when he was born that I think I hardly appreciated the awe and wonder of becoming a mom for the first time.  Or maybe even the second time.  Andrew was a different story.  Losing two pregnancies before having Andrew taught me a lot about how precious each child is and how much of a blessing it is to be gifted with another child to raise.

Even after losing the two babies between Joshua and Andrew I don't remember ever doubting that I would eventually have another child.  I didn't know when it when be, but I knew he was coming.  But now I feel like I am in a different place.  I am honestly and truly wondering if I will ever be blessed with another child via my own pregnancy.  And that is a really hard idea to swallow.  I have lost two more babies since Andrew was born, but that's not really what this is about.  It's more about my body and just not knowing what's going on with it.  First we had to deal with the gallbladder problem and all the complications associated with it.  Now that problem is mercifully gone, but in it's place I apparently have some internal scarring near the surgery site that I wonder what will happen to if I were pregnant again.  And then there is this mysterious sickness that I am currently suffering from.  Perhaps the antibiotics will take care of this and in a month or two I'll read back over this entry and laugh at how faithless and silly I was to doubt that my body would be ok for another pregnancy any time in the near future.  But I am not in that position right now.  And I guess that's not the position God wants me in.

I sense that He's trying to do something in me with regard to my view of more children, but I can't see the end of it yet.  And as is often the case when I'm in the middle of something God is teaching me, it hurts.  It hurts so much that I have actually started crying several times recently as I have looked at Andrew and my heart has just ached at the possibility of never bearing another child.  How far I have come from the years when I just had to get looked at by Philip to get pregnant and not feeling sure I was ready to struggling with being able to conceive and sustain a pregnancy.  My heart has certainly changed and I can now understand to some degree the pain and longing that those who are truly infertile deal with.  The empty arms and the longing heart.  My arms and heart aren't truly empty...in fact they are very full with three beautiful sons.  But in my heart I know there are more children that are meant to fill our home and my heart aches and longs for them.

From one of my favorite chapters in the Bible: Psalm 34:18 "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."  Today I am thankful for this promise.


And I am happy for all those new lives coming in to the world.  Those babies have some special parents. :)