What a Difference a Year Makes

December 5, 2011 changed my life forever. Dave and I had hosted a Christmas party for the college students we work with during the year in the program that I direct. It had been a very busy day going from one thing to the next and preparing for the party. After the students left we put the left-over food away, washed the dishes, and headed up stairs to bed.

We were lying on the bed just winding down from all the activity. We had been trying to conceive for only a few months at this point. Dave looked at me and said, “I think we should take a pregnancy test.” I laughed and said, “We’ve only been trying a few months and I am only one day late. We really shouldn’t get our hopes up.” Inside I was dying to take that test. I couldn’t stand the wait, the anticipation (wow if I had only known then how much wait and anticipation was in my near future.) 

Dave convinced me that we should take the pregnancy test so we did just that. Those three minutes seemed like forever. We busied ourselves with cleaning while we waited. I kept telling myself, “don’t get too excited. It probably didn’t happen this month but that’s okay sometimes it takes a few months. “   But in the same breath I prayed desperately, “God please, please, please give us a baby.  We have wanted to be parents for so long. Please let it be this month.”  (Again, wow, if I had only known how many times I would voice that prayer over the next year.) 

When the three minutes was up we rushed to see the results. We had placed the test on the side of the bathtub and pulled the shower curtain over it so we wouldn’t peek.  I reached around the curtain to retrieve the test and we both closes our eyes. On the count of three we opened them. The test said PREGNANT. 

Our world changed in an instant. We were going to be parents. We couldn’t believe it. We were ecstatic. We jumped up and down, laughed, cried, and just held each other in disbelief.  We spent the rest of the night dreaming about this baby. When would he/she be due, how will we tell our family and friends,  what will he/she look like, be like?  Dave immediately went into daddy mode and made a to-do list of the things that needed to be fixed up in the house to get ready for a baby. I immediately went into mommy mode and started thinking of all the things we needed like bottles, diapers, clothes to take care of a baby.

We started reading up on what to expect while your expecting. A friend of ours gave us that book in our first year of marriage (I guess they were ready for us to get going on the baby thing right away).  My mind wondered to so many things. I was so excited, scared, shocked, and overcome with thankfulness. I spent the night praying and journaling my thoughts of gratitude to God for this blessing. I don’t think I have ever been that happy in my life. That moment, that night is engrained in my memory forever.

Today I look back, one year from that night.  I look back on that joy, that hope, that gratitude and I am in awe of all that God has done.  Our little baby girl was still with us at this point last year. We just found out she was coming. I can’t begin to describe in words how much this week means to me. Each day that passes brings us closer to the day that we learned she had gone to be with Jesus. But each day is also one more day I get to remember her with us.

Our lives changed forever in that moment when we read the word PREGNANT. At that moment we had a whole different picture in mind of what God was doing. We knew change was coming, growth was coming, transition and transformation were on the way but our picture of how God would bring those things into our life looked a lot different than the path we have been walking for a year now.

I look back and see a lot of pain, sorrow, struggle, heartache, and fear but I can also see joy, hope, peace, growth, and purpose. I would not trade the lessons I’ve learned, the intimacy I have with my Heavenly Father. Would I have chosen to learn those lessons and grow closer a different way? ABSOLUTELY! I still wish I could rewind time and live out this scenario in a whole different way. There are many days I think back and wonder what it would have been like to carry Abigail, to give birth to her, and to be holding my 4 month old baby girl this year. I picture her with her presents on her first Christmas. I go into the spare bedroom and envision her nursery and hear her laugher and cries. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish she was here. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish this whole year would have been different. 

I miss her, I will always miss her but one year out from the day we found out we were going to be a mommy and daddy we are stronger, we are wiser, we are closer to each other and the Father than ever before, we have more faith, we have more resolve to surrender to God’s ways, and we are in the center of God’s will.

One year from the day we found out about Abigail, I am still a mommy and Dave is still a daddy. We are just waiting for the baby in which we will parent. We are waiting to be matched with a baby through the adoption process. We are still waiting each month to see if God has provided a biological child. We are waiting, most days not so patiently, but we are waiting.  We are growing, we are learning, we are praying for provision. Wow, what a difference a year makes.