{Pregnancy} Pulling Out the Thorn

When I first started this blog, I had planned to write extensively about our desire for a 3rd child. I believed that this was one of the purposes of my blog and I looked forward to sharing our different but difficult journey. I started a series called Paying {Praying} for #3 in which I shared some of our story, some of our prayers and some of our hopes. When we suffered another another miscarriage, I just didn't have the desire to write about it. I honestly thought the journey was over.

A year ago this month, we had completed a round of IUI. It was top secret except that I had told two of my dear friends. I prayed myself through the two week wait and on day 28 we had our prayers answered, a positive pregnancy test. I was excited but cautious and within just a few days, we knew that this was another baby born to heaven before it's heart even started beating.

All these years I had prayed for God to take away my desire for more children. If I wasn't destined to have more, then to remove the thorn and let me find peace and contentment in my family of four. However, no matter how hard I prayed, this feeling that my family was incomplete just never seemed to fade. Well, until that day last February. 

It was almost like a switch had been turned. I no longer felt this deep desire for more children. Pregnancy prayers were not #1 on my list. I didn't even return to our reproductive specialist for follow up treatments. I was done.

God had placed this thorn in my side. It had been a difficult journey but it was mine and in many ways I was thankful for the path that I had been given. It's not one that I would have chosen but how many of us choose our thorns (or our crosses). It had been mine to bare, I made the most of it and for all intensive purposes, it was done.

Fast forward 6 months, I on an 8 mile run with one of my running partners, lamenting about being "late." My dear friend tells me to take a test and I literally laugh at her. I was done. There was no chance. I haven't gotten pregnant on my own in 9 years. God had taken away my thorn and my desires for more children.

Another few days passes, I give in and take "the test." A faint line appears. It's positive. I am unbelievably, shockingly pregnant but we all know that doesn't mean anything to me. I have seen that pink line before and it has brought me more heartache than joy.

And so it started...

Blood tests every 48 hours, an ultrasound at 5, 6, 7, 8 weeks, progesterone supplements. Praying, fears, more praying and more fears. Every week, waiting for the doctor to turn the monitor around to an empty womb, a baby that has stopped growing. A return of the thorn.

Yet, not really. My God had not only removed the thorn but he had also redeemed it. It was in His time. In His way but here I sit, feeling a little life wiggling inside of me. A little life that already sucks his thumb and likes the worship music on Sunday mornings. A little life that has blessed me more than I really knew was possible. I just had to die to the thorn to find the rose. 

⁷ or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2Cor 12:7-9)