Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Looking for signs...

**** Remember, y'all, the posts you are reading currently were written a few weeks ago. This is not happening in real time, so it won't be two weeks before I finish posting this cycle.*******

When you're waiting to find out if you're pregnant, you're on the lookout for signs everywhere.

The night after I gave myself the trigger shot, David was reading from Isaiah for our nightly reading. I'd been fading in and out of paying attention (honesty here), but I started paying attention when he started read this:

"Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away. The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, 'This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.' Then you will say in your heart, 'Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these- where have they come from?' "- Isaiah 49:19.

Yesterday at MOPs, there were fliers on the table for free ultrasounds for pregnant ladies. A new crisis pregnancy center is opening, and they need moms to practice on. They're taking women from 4-22 weeks. I looked at the dates. I will have found out whether or not I'm pregnant the day before their last one. Is it a sign? I'm hoping it is. =)

The problem with looking for signs is that they can be very deceiving. I thought I'd seen so many things that told me that I'd be pregnant this or that month. By the time I got pregnant with Seth, I was so disgusted with it all that the fact that my pregnancy test was supposed to be on Mother's Day was something I considered just one more test of my endurance.

But I have heard from God before. He told me that I would get pregnant last time. I haven't written about it before, because its a sensitive thing for me to talk about. After He told me, a year went by before Seth was conceived. There were many, many days that I doubted that He'd said a thing to me at all. David was the one who wouldn't give up on that.

I was praying one night, not long after we'd started our first month of treatment. We'd had Chinese for dinner, and my fortune cookie said, "Rule your desires, or they will rule you." I thought about that as I was going to bed, and I began praying that God would take this desire to have a baby away from me if this wasn't going to work out. I prayed fervently that I would be ok with adopting. While I was in the middle of trying to lay down my desires, He cut me off. A voice in my head just stopped me from continuing my prayer. It was almost impatient. He said, "You are going to get pregnant." I started crying, and then I got mad. I thought Satan was messing with me while I'd been trying so hard to do the right thing.

I woke up David and told him about it. He listened, and he said it sounded to him like God had been speaking to me, mainly because pregnancy hadn't been the agenda for my prayer. As I rolled over to go back to sleep, I heard the voice say to me, "It won't be this month." I felt very peaceful, and I believed him. It didn't happen that month... or the next... or the next. It was almost a year after that before I got pregnant with Seth.

I don't think I'm going to hear from God this way again. Since that time, voices in my head are only me talking to myself. Any attempts to hear that way are no good. It's all static. My emotions are totally up and down. One minute I'm just sure that I'm going to be pregnant... another minute I'm just sure that I won't be. Only a week and half left to go...

1 comment:

Shannon said...

Ellen, I so appreciated your comment. In my church, I'm the only mom who isn't homeschooling! Granted it's a small church, but still. I sometimes forget that it works the other way too. I'll be praying specifically for supportive like-minded friends in your circle. Loneliness is a tough foe to overcome. =)

Also, I've really enjoyed your last several posts, and I'm on pins and needles to find out the rest! You're a really gifted writer, and your transparency is encouraging. =)