Thy Word: Becoming a Mom/ Secondary Infertility

Monday, May 9, 2011

Becoming a Mom/ Secondary Infertility

Easter 2011

Happy Mother's Day (a little late!)!

My sister and I were talking about my "adventure" getting pregnant with my babies over the years, since she got pregnant easily and just had her baby a few months ago. Some people are "fertile Mertles", and I thought I'd be that way, but ended up not being that way, so much.

When we tried getting pregnant the first time, with our oldest daughter, we "tried" for only about two-three months. I was so excited to be pregnant, and be a mom. The pregnancy went pretty well, except for some bleeding at 2-3 months. I was nervous that I was going to miscarry, had an ultrasound, and saw that "flashing peanut" - the flashing was the heartbeat, so amazing! Hence our baby was nicknamed peanut, and she got a peanut ornament for her first Christmas! :-D So our Rebekah was delivered, and we loved having a baby. She quickly grew, and we began trying to have another baby.

Well, this time, it took a while. We don't know why... but it took us nearly a year to get pregnant with our second child. I was getting ready to get "checked out", but my family doctor reassured me that it was normal. Some women have a harder time getting pregnant the second time, a term I learned was called "Secondary Infertility." It was very challenging and discouraging. Especially when people asked us when we were going to have another child. What do you say to that?! "Well, we're working on it?..."
:-D The time of "trying" was trying, to say the least.

So we were overjoyed when we finally became pregnant again, and our babies were born closer to 3 yrs 8 months apart, instead of 3 years. We were fine with that. Our two older kids have always gotten along well. Rebekah is a wonderful big sister. Our Caleb was born, and since he was a boy, not many people asked us if we were going to have more kids. They just figured that if we had a girl and a boy, we were done. But we weren't so sure... we wanted another baby.

Then when Caleb was almost three, we started trying for another baby. Once again, it took almost another year. It was so frustrating! I remember speaking to my sister-in-law during the summer about it, since she is an Ob-Gyn doctor. She gave me some tips and answered some questions, and she and my brother agreed to pray for us. We had great kids, and they told us we were great parents. Well, a few months later, things finally happened and we became pregnant a third time. We thanked God that He had allowed us to be blessed again, and the pregnancy went very well. Our Mallory was born, and our family was complete, or so we thought. Our Caleb and Mallory were almost 4 years apart, and they get along very well (most of the time!)

A friend of mine at MOPS asked if we were going to have more kids, and I said no, we thought we were done. She laughed and said, "Did you tell God that?" I was humbled, knowing God was really in control. I just felt like it wouldn't, or couldn't happen again...

God showed us that He has a sense of humor, because, believe it or not, we became pregnant again, without even trying! We laughed, we cried, and everyone else laughed with us. We joked that if we had a boy, we should name him Isaac, which means, "God has made me laugh" or "Laughter" (See Genesis 17:17, Genesis 18:12, or this webpage). Our fourth baby was another girl (much to her brother's initial disappointment), and her name is Bethany. Her middle name is Joy, and she is a smiley, happy girl most of the time, and brought us much joy when we found out about her! She is the biggest surprise of our lives, and such a joy to our family. I can't imagine life without her, or any of my kids. They are a huge blessing in my life, and they keep us very busy. Life is full, and I wouldn't have it any other way.