Secondary Infertility(?)

I'm going a little personal today, so brace yourselves!

I shared awhile back that my husband and I have been trying to have another baby. This month marks our one year of trying. I thought I would give a little update on how I'm feeling about it all and what our next steps will be.

One of the things that I frequently feel is that I have the heart and mindset of a mom of many children. I would have loved to have a "stair step" set of children, you know, 5 under 5 and all that. So when I read blogs of these moms or read stories about them, I feel like I want to relate. I used to think, "oh, that will be me someday soon." As more and more space grows between Joel (my youngest) and the possibility of another child, I feel that my family dynamic will be different. I look at the growing gap and think oh, man, I'm not even one kid behind now - I'm two kids behind! I 'should' have had one when Joel was 1.5 and another when he was 3. I'm not even pregnant now, so he will turn 4 before another baby could even be born. These are the kinds of thoughts that run around in my head!! I'm not making any claims that these are rational thoughts, but I wanted to share with you in case someone else out there feels this way. So when another mom talks to me and makes a comment on bigger families and says she could never do that, I realize that she is trying to relate to me because I have two kids just like her. It kind of takes me by surprise because I don't think of myself as a "just two kids" kind of person. But more on that in a second...

As far as the next step, we are going to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist this week. I have gone back and forth about this decision. My husband and I have said that we don't have any intentions of doing any fertility treatments (a personal decision we've reached for ourselves only) but I still feel like I want to go and at least see if we can find out what's going on. I couldn't explain why until yesterday when our pastor shared something during the sermon and I was like, "yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to say." He said that there are basically three answers to prayer - yes, no, and wait. The yeses are great, of course. The nos are tough, but at least they're an answer. The wait is the hardest because it requires us to really wait on God and trust in him (thus making it the hardest but the most beneficial! Ugh!). I guess I've been feeling that if I can't have a "yes" to having another baby, I'd rather have a "no" and move on than a "wait". Even as I type this I see that that is me choosing what is more comfortable for me than what is going to stretch me. Again, remember, I gave the disclaimer that I was going to get personal today!

So we'll head to the guy this week and see what he has to say. Ugh.

And either way, back to the bigger family thing, we are still walking down our road to adoption sometime in the future. We just joined a program here in Chicago called Safe Families, which is like Foster Care Light (we don't receive any money and the placements are for a short amount of time to provide relief for families in need without abuse or neglect). And we'll probably start our foster care classes this winter/spring on the road to Foster Adoption. We will continue to walk this road regardless of whether I get pregnant again or not. But there is still the waiting and the longing and the trying to find closure.

So, that's my super personal post for you this Monday morning!! Please share any thoughts you have - whether you have been here before or are here now. I'd love to hear what you all have to say.