If we were still “trying to conceive” we’d be coming up on the 60th month of negative pregnancy tests.

That is astounding to me because the very first time I took a pregnancy test on September 20th, 2007, and it was negative, I had hopes that one day I would see the two pink lines.

If not that month, there was always next month, right?

And here we are, 60 months later, and had I been taking a pregnancy test every month --- I’d still be seeing….nothing.

But praise the Lord God removed me from that path and placed me on the path that lead me to adoption and my two beautiful daughters and I haven’t had to pee on a stick and see nothing in over three years!!!

Some say adoption is not a substitute for pregnancy, but, for me, it certainly was.

Sure, I didn’t feel my daughters inside my own body and they don’t share one strand of my DNA or the DNA of my husband, but…it just simply doesn’t matter.

I don’t feel like I missed anything.

I guess one day I just realized there is more to life than pregnancy.

Don’t get me wrong. Pregnancy is beautiful and miraculous, but it wasn’t in my cards.

And life goes on.

It actually didn’t take me just “one day” to get to this place.

I can remember still desiring pregnancy, although not as intensely, after Little Bug’s birth.

But God continued His work in my life and on my heart and He totally changed and transformed my desires.

Something I grew up desiring and waiting for suddenly just wasn’t that important to me anymore.

God made it very clear to me that His plan for my life was adoption.

And I embraced that with every fiber of my being – just like I had embraced and longed for the day I’d find out I was pregnant.

It is something only God could have done in my life and I thank Him that I don’t have to live my life today hanging on to the thread of hope that maybe just maybe one day He will allow me to conceive.

If He did – well, obviously I would embrace that completely unexpected miracle from Him – but it is not something I hope for or even pray for.

I am totally content with the fact that God grew our family through adoption.

And I am just so thankful that infertility is truly in my past.

I will never forget the pain of those months where I did experience negative pregnancy tests when I was hoping and praying for a positive test.

I will never forget the hopelessness I felt laying on the floor screaming and crying out to God, “Why??” when I had been told, yet again, another one of our infertility treatments had failed.

If you are there now – I know your pain.

If you aren’t technically “trying” anymore and God has blessed your life with a child through some other way than pregnancy, but you still feel that tug and desire to be pregnant but God hasn’t opened your womb, I truly believe you too can find contentment in never being pregnant and moving forward with your life.

It’s a long process to get there, but with God all things are possible. And believe me, if I can “get over” the whole pregnancy thing, anyone can!

I wrote everything above before going to my recent appointment with my RE.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and praying about my “wonderings” that I wrote about here.

The bottom line is I don’t know what the future holds for my family and me.

To begin with, we are uncertain about a third child. We were absolutely certain that we desired a second child and God brought her to us in HIS perfect timing. I grew up always saying I wanted four children but the dream of four children and the reality of four children are two totally different things.

We’ve discussed a third child on multiple occasions and at this point, we just don’t know.

Simply from the past and the ways God brought me my two daughters I know my role in this is to simply be open to God’s plan – whatever that may be.

Where He leads I will follow.

If God does lead our hearts to bring another child into our family, I honestly can’t see us starting over with fertility treatments simply because for the amount of money we would spend to “maybe” get pregnant, we could use almost that same amount of money towards adoption and know that one day, in God’s timing, we’d bring a baby home.

Now, if my RE called me up and asked if I’d be willing to undergo an IVF cycle free of charge so he could experiment on someone who is a “poor responder” (my RE currently has an ongoing research project investigating protocols for the “poor responder” IVF patient) I don’t think I would hesitate in the least bit to move forward with something like that. But what RE does that?!

There is peace in my heart because I know the Lord will lead concerning a third child. He’s already written His plan and, just like He did with my beautiful daughters, He will reveal His plan in His time.

Until then, I live in the here and now, enjoying every day God has given me with the children He has blessed me with, for now.

If a third child is in our future, I am confident at the right time God will begin to stir our hearts towards that and He will show us the way as well.

- Elaine