My two-day training seminar to be a counselor at the Crisis Pregnancy Center is coming up in June!

I have been going to the center on Tuesdays for a few weeks now to do various training activities.

This Tuesday, I got to sit in on a counseling session with one of the counselors who has been with this center for many years. It was my first time to see a counseling session first-hand and I was thrilled for the opportunity.

It was the client’s first visit. A pregnancy test is usually administered on the first visit.

The client brought her little cup into the counseling room and then all three of us walked over to the table so that the client could put some drops of her urine onto the test.

Standing at the table, with the pregnancy test laid out before us, I realized that my heart was literally pounding.

I had to stifle laughter.

I cannot remember the last time I took a pregnancy test. It has been years. YEARS!

But just the sight of that pregnancy test made my heart start pounding – just like it did all those years ago when it was time to test.

But this wasn’t even MY test!

I literally had to tell myself while standing there, “Elaine, calm down!!! This isn’t YOUR test!”

I was the time keeper.

We went back to the couches and I was to let them know when four minutes had passed.

Oh, the memories.

Memories of my heart pounding out of my chest as I stood in the bathroom for an eternity waiting for four minutes to pass so I could look at the little window and hope with everything within me that I would see two lines staring back at me.

Four minutes passed and we went back to the table.

There were two very obvious, dark lines on the window of that pregnancy test. It was the first positive pregnancy test I had ever seen.

One might think that experiencing something like that would bring back all the emotional baggage of infertility for me, but it did not – at all.

There was only relief.

Relief that chapter of my life story is in the past.

I know there was a time during my walk through infertility when witnessing a positive pregnancy test from a woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant would have been something that I wouldn’t have been able to handle.

But I stand ready now.

Because of my infertility, I have a message to share with women who clearly do not want to parent but also might be a little uncertain about the option of adoption.

I am so blessed that God has brought me to this place. I hope God will use my story to help someone who is in a crisis pregnancy see that adoption is a beautiful option.

- Elaine