I spent some time today going back in my blog and reading posts from February of last year – the month after everything happened with Tracy and the month before things started happening with Sweet Pea.

It was so interesting to me to read what I wrote in February because most of my posts centered around acknowledging that God is in control of our second adoption journey and the realization that I just needed to sit back and wait in great expectation for God to do another miracle.

I had no idea of knowing what God was going to start doing on March 8th when my friend Jennifer text me about an adoption situation, wondering if we would be interested.

During the months of waiting to see if we would be matched with this birth mother, the lessons God desired to teach me were all about the fact that GOD was in control of everything and nothing I did or didn’t do would change the outcome.

God had it all under control, even though at the time, there was a lot of waiting involved and a lot of uncertainty on my end.

It just amazes me how God prepares our hearts for what is to come. He planted these seeds in my heart in February knowing in March and until I had Sweet Pea in my arms in August, I would need to hang on knowing that God was in control.

If you have some time, go back and read my posts from February of last year. The words I wrote astound me because I had no idea what God was about to do.

When we find ourselves in a situation where we can’t see the big picture and we don’t have access to all the details, we must remember that God sees it all. He has planned it all. And not only that, He has something good in store, even if it looks like you’ve been deserted in left field.

He is there. Right beside you. And when the right time comes, He will start to reveal the big picture and you too will one day be able to look back on these days of only having just a fraction of the puzzle pieces and you will be able to see the big picture and know that God was in control of every single detail even when it seemed like everything was so uncertain.

It is strange to me that six months have already passed since Sweet Pea’s birth. On the day she turned 6 months old, around noon on that day, I remembered what happened at that exact moment. I believe it was actually a minute until noon and Emily called to tell me Sweet Pea had been born at 7:55am that morning.

The journey that had begun on March 8th – and, really, I guess you could say our official second adoption journey began on December 13, 2010, with Emily’s phone call that Tracy was pregnant – came to a close on August 4th when we jumped in the car and drove the 1.5 hours to go meet our second daughter after the TPR had been signed.

I guess reaching this point – 6 months after our second adoption in 2 years – makes me want to sit back and reflect upon the faithfulness of God through both of our adoptions.

It also takes me way back to September of 2008, the month I saw my first of countless negative pregnancy tests.

Those were my days of having only a fraction of the puzzle pieces. I couldn’t see the big picture which means there were many very hard days as I saw my dream slip away and I was powerless to do anything to change the circumstances I found myself in.

It sounds so cliché, I know, but God was in control. He had a beautiful journey laid out before me.

I am just standing in awe of all this today – and every day.

And thanking God, once again, that His plans were not mine.

My heart goes out to those of you going through infertility during this holiday season.

Going through infertility is hard enough, but then add on the Christmas holidays and I know it can seem like you are suffocating in the emotions another childless Christmas can bring.

Four Christmases ago, I can remember doing some last minute shopping at JC Penney’s with my mother. It was a couple days before Christmas. Dave and I had just started trying to conceive that August and a couple days ago I had learned that another cycle was going to come and go without me finding out we had achieved a pregnancy.

This month was particularly hard to take because it was right before Christmas and my dream of announcing a pregnancy on Christmas morning had been totally crushed.

I remember walking through that department store numb to the world. There was the hustle and bustle of last-minute Christmas shopping going on all around me, Christmas music playing in the background, beautiful Christmas decorations every where I looked, but inside it certainly didn’t feel like Christmas to me.

As hard as I tried the tears just started streaming down my face as we walked around the store. It was a pain I had not felt in my heart before then, a disappointment that was beyond anything I had ever experienced. 

I was scared. I knew something was wrong and I was afraid I would never be pregnant.

Even though I am the mother of two precious girls, those emotions can never be forgotten. No, they are not on the forefront of my mind this Christmas Season, but I remember.

And I will always remember.

I just want to say to anyone reading this who is going through infertility this Christmas season that there is HOPE.

I know that the last thing you want to hear is that God has a plan and you are not forgotten, but that simple truth is your HOPE!

As I walked through that department store three years ago around this time, God had a plan. During those very hard times God desired for me to cling to Him and to His promises.

If you cling to Him, trusting Him to reveal His plan to you as well, you will not be disappointed!

The next Christmas we were still childless, but Little Bug was a tiny fetus growing in the womb of her birth mother.

Then, two Christmases later, this story came full-circle as God granted me one the desires of my heart: to make a pregnancy announcement to my family on Christmas morning.

A year ago I held a secret that only my husband knew. Our second child was on the way and I could not wait to tell my family on Christmas morning!

This Christmas as you are waiting for God to reveal His plan to you, rest in His promises.

And know that someone who has been there and felt the kind of pain you feel today is thinking and praying for you this Christmas.

I have no idea where this post is headed. It is just the contents of my head and heart on this September morning…

It’s official. I dislike the “newborn phase”. I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that my newborns have been challenging and anything but “normal”, but I much prefer babies once they reach the age of crawling and scooting around. That is when the fog started to lift when Little Bug was a baby and I can remember telling myself before Sweet Pea’s birth that things would get easier once Sweet Pea hits 6 months.

I forced myself to enjoy Little Bug as a teeny tiny newborn and I am doing the same for Sweet Pea.

The lack of sleep really gets to me. I am like a baby myself because I require an unusual amount of sleep. My mother tells me I would come home from Kindergarten and take a nap every day. Kindergarten!! Most kids have long ago given up naptime by the time they go off to school. Not Miss Needs to Sleep A lot.

When Little Bug was a baby, we would wake up at 7ish for her to eat and then we would sleep the morning away together in my bed until she needed to eat again. I learned very quickly you don’t have that luxury with the second child! And I thought I was "sleep deprived”. Ha! I am so funny.

It seems like since we started down this road of infertility four years ago (it is crazy to me that four years have passed since those days) that life has been nothing but challenges for me with some being bigger than others but challenges for me, nonetheless.

Infertility and the failed IUI and IVF cycles…then Tracy drama as we waited for Little Bug’s birth…then Little Bug’s withdrawals and first time mom challenges…then, just when life seemed to be settling, Tracy winds up pregnant again and there we went with 6 more weeks of Tracy drama…then we uncover Tracy’s deceit and go on our merry way thinking we will begin adoption #2 after Little Bug turns two…God had other plans and before Little Bug turned two we were matched again…and now we are dealing with the tummy saga.

It has been a very blessed road, but a challenging road all the same.

I am ready to enjoy life with no challenges, no situations in life where God is trying to grow me and teach me more about Him!

I know. Welcome to real life, where challenges are just a part of living.

I guess when we started to try and have a family that is when I lost my carefree, innocent existence and I started to learn about life in the big city where everything isn’t all peaches and cream and bad things happen to good people all the time.

Little did I know infertility was just the first of a string of challenges headed my way.

As I look back on the past four years, I see God’s hand on it all. Each challenge was placed in my life for a specific purpose. Each challenge has grown my faith and strengthened my trust in my Heavenly Father.

Trials and challenges in life are really a blessing.

I am one very blessed woman.

To think four years ago I had just gotten my very first negative pregnancy test on September 20, 2007. There was so much hope, even though even then I had my suspicions that it might take a while. I had just taken the first step of my journey through infertility, although, at the time, I did not realize where I was and where I was headed.

It didn’t take me long to figure things out. By Christmas I knew something was up and just after the new year we started seeking medical help.

And now, four years later, I am the mother to two little girls and infertility is a season passed.

I can remember thinking as I walked that road that I would never be freed from the pain and sorrow. I could not see an end.

There was definitely an end. I cannot pin point a certain day that I stepped off that road, but I have.

One of the greatest blessings of my life is that I grew up dreaming of pregnancy and I have never experienced any of that and yet I am totally okay. There is nothing in me that desires to seek a pregnancy.

I am a mother. All along, that was really the cry of my heart. I just wanted to be a mother.

I’m a mother alright! My two little girls keep me hopping all day long! They are, in fact, quite challenging right now, but we are making memories and I know, one day (probably sooner than I think) I will look back on these first few months as a mother of two and laugh at the craziness of it all.

I never would have chosen to have my children two years apart, but I have learned full well in the past four years that God’s plan is always perfect and always best.

He has things to teach me during this challenging time of caring for a baby dealing with drug withdrawals and her very active 2 year old sister!

I don’t want a peaches and cream life because 1) I hate fruit and 2) it is during the challenging times of life when God teaches us the most and grows and strengthens our faith in Him.

I want to keep learning.

Stay tuned for Q&A #3 coming later today.

It’s been 11 weeks since I made that phone call to Emily. These 11 weeks have flown by…I am not sure where May and June went. July is over half-way over and here we sit today at 37 weeks.

Time has flown by.

I’ve definitely reached that point when I just want Sweet Pea here, in my arms and completely ours.

But there are still more days (weeks) to walk before this can happen.

During my time with the Lord this morning, I came across this verse and it spoke volumes of where I am today:

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14

That is where I am today: waiting on the Lord to move.

This is His show. He is the one that calls the shots, He is the one directing. He is the one that will tell when it is time to pull back the curtain and let the performance begin. It is all for His glory.

I am just one of many sitting out in the audience waiting for the show to begin.

I have no say so in who the characters will be or how the drama will unfold.

So I’m gonna go get my popcorn, prop my feet up on the theater chair in front of me (as long as one of you aren’t sitting there already ) and I’m gonna wait for God to start moving.

Waiting on the Lord is torturous when I get up from my comfy seat in the audience and start trying to tell God what to do to get the show on the road.

Waiting on the Lord, truly waiting on the Lord to move, is peaceful, as long as I am holding onto the only thing keeping me in that comfy seat.

And it isn’t my popcorn.

It’s my faith in Jesus Christ.

I slept good last night because I know this is not my battle to fight.

God is fighting for us.

The battle I must fight is the one within myself.

The one against my flesh.

I must stand strong in the LORD, knowing He will work everything out for my good, even if it doesn’t work out the way I would desire.

Satan is a prowling lion around my heart this morning. He is waiting for an opportunity to attack me, but I will stand strong in the LORD.

Satan cannot get me because my heart already belongs to God.

He is trying. I know the specific ways he tries to “get to me” when there is a battle raging.

One specific way that Satan attacks me during times like this is by reminding me that if I was pregnant with Sweet Pea, none of this would be an issue! Satan is sneaky like this. He takes something that he knows I have dealt with (desire for pregnancy), grieved and moved on from and throws it right back in my face!

That’s okay though because my response to the devil on this is: That’s fine. You can bring this up as many times as you want, but I know God had plans for me that went beyond pregnancy. God has chosen to build my family through adoption and He is walking every step of this journey with me, working everything out for His glory. I may not like every decision He makes, but I have learned that God’s Way is best – always. So back off of me in the name of Jesus Christ!!!!

My role here is not to work out these complications that have come up. My role is to stand strong in the LORD and let HIM do the fighting.

Please pray for our lawyer, Emily, today. Emily’s role is to work out these complications and I am incredibly grateful that God has put her in this role to be an advocate for both us and Melody.

Please pray that God will open the doors for her to be able to figure things out and iron out some of the mess that occurred yesterday. (Which, I will add, Melody is not responsible for.)

Please pray binding Satan from any attacks he would wish to throw at me today.

Please pray for Melody and Sweet Pea.

I hate not being able to tell specifics. I really do.

The adoption plan is still in place at this time, however, there are some things that have happened that have complicated things for everyone involved.

And our lawyer told us to pray that God would bind “X” from happening, which could complicate things even further.

All of this, of course, leaves me feeling on edge.

I see the ticker up there and I see it says only 25 days and I just pray God allows this baby to come as soon as possible, although I know she will come on the appointed day God has chosen for her birth.

However, Melody is ready, we are ready and with these complications, it would just be a merciful act of God to allow Sweet Pea to go ahead and be born.

But the fact of the matter is God is still in control. And I am not.

And tonight, that is what is on the forefront of my mind.

It is almost as if God is reminding me of all that He has already done to place this baby with us and He is now asking me if I am going to continue to trust in Him to complete His work or if I am going to stupidly try to regain control and sit and worry for the next 25ish days.

I am going to trust God.

And let me tell you, even after all that God has already done in my life, it is a struggle to relinquish control and just rest in the knowledge that GOD IS IN CONTROL, not me.

But I know it is a choice that I have to make.

Am I going to worry or am I going to trust?

And I really feel like God has brought me to this place so that I can bypass the frazzled worry stage I usually put myself through before I finally surrender and just let God do His work in my life.

Tonight I am going to trust first.

Because I know God’s got this.

I know God is faithful.

I know He has a plan that will prosper me and bring me hope and a future.

And you know what?

I’m glad these complications are in the Hands of the One who created the universe, hung the stars in the sky and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

He can handle this.

Because nothing is too great for Him.

I feel your prayers and I know the prayers of many are a huge part of the peace I feel tonight.

Thank you.

Sometimes during my time with the Lord, I like to go back and read my journals.

Today I found something I wrote on April 28th, 2011 – a week after we learned that the woman working with Susan had decided not to place through her and about a week before I called Emily and figured out this woman had left Susan and called Emily!

Here is what I wrote:

God is sovereign.

That statement alone is the foundation of my complete trust in Him.

He created everything, He controls everything. And His Plans for my life are beautiful.

There was a day that I did not know of the work God was doing to bring me a little miracle.

Any day before April 9th, 2009, I did not know what God was going to do.

By my faith in God I was able to say things like…”God must have Something More” (in reference to all our failed infertility treatments), “I wait in great expectation of what God is going to do.” and “God is faithful still.”

And on April 9th, 2009, God started letting me in on His miracle and it WAS better than anything I had imagined.

As we now have really started our journey to #2, I am at that same place again …

Trusting God and expecting something better than my wildest dreams.

Because that is just how the God I serve works!

His ways are higher, His love is deeper.

And He is Sovereign.

I have never written this down anywhere but the memory of it all is still very vivid in my mind.

It was back in January when we were dealing with “Tracy drama”. We were in the middle of trying to figure out if Tracy was pregnant or not.

I was over at my parents’ house because emotionally I just could not deal with lawyer phone calls and Tracy drama on top of taking care of Little Bug.

My parents have a huge window in their living room. In a quiet moment, as I was waiting on a phone call, I walked over to that window and looked out.

Framed between the trees and a neighbor’s house, as I looked out the window I saw a flock of birds flying freely.

Immediately this verse popped into my head:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:26

I stood there and watched those birds. I thought about the fact that God knew exactly what was going to happen and He promised to take care of my every need.

I stepped away from the window for a brief moment and then came back to find the birds had flown away.

In that quiet moment God spoke to my heart by allowing me to see those birds and be reminded that God takes care of the birds of the air – He will certainly take care of me.

He did.

And He does – every day.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.

Psalm 37:5

I received an email from a reader asking me how I can believe in God since it can not be proven that He really does exist.

I am no Bible scholar and honestly, when I read this email, my first thought was that this email would be better suited for a pastor, not me!

But then I just poured the contents of my heart out to this reader because God IS very alive in my life. He is the reason I walked through the fire of infertility unscathed. He is my Rock, my fortress, my strength, my joy in troubled times.

And HE is the one who orchestrated the Miracle of Little Bug and He is going to do it again as we are now on our journey to #2.

No, I’ve never seen Jesus, but I have witnessed Him at work in my life numerous times and that gives me a voice to answer this reader.

This was my response:

Thank you for your email. I love to hear from readers, especially ones like you that are questioning everything about God. First, I want to say that questioning God is totally normal. Wondering if He exists? Totally normal.

No, we cannot see, touch and literally SEE God. But I know He is real because of what He has done in and through my life. I KNOW sometimes it is terribly hard to trust that He is real and alive and present in our lives everyday, even when we are in a dark tunnel and cannot see the light. HE IS THERE. You just have to learn to look for Him.
 
And really, this is what faith is all about…believing in the unseen. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6
 
I can only speak from my personal experience of walking daily with the Lord. God is a very personal God and He speaks to us in very personal ways. I guess on the outside looking in you could say that my faith is so strong because I come from a family where generation after generation has walked with God and had personal relationships with Him. But I know that is simply not the case. Yes, I come from generations of Christian family members BUT their faith does not give me any more or less faith. It is totally the individual’s choice to believe in God to to not believe.
 
I put my faith in the Lord when I was 8 years old. As a teenager God started working on my life. And by working on my life I mean that He starting building my faith in Him and teaching me truths about Who He is and what He desires from me. It was during my walk through infertility that God really started to do major work in my life to build my character and my faith in Him.
 
I found myself in a situation that I had NO CONTROL OF WHATSOEVER! As much as I desired to be pregnant, I couldn’t MAKE it happen. Then on March 8th, 2009, when we learned our chances of conceiving, even with IVF, were extremely slim, I found myself in the darkest, lowest, most hopeless place I had ever been in in my entire life. Here I was, a girl who had always dreamed of pregnancy and giving birth to four children, and now I was being told that was never going to happen? You better believe I questioned what God was doing in my life. I mean, hello God!, YOU put this desire in my heart, right??? And now you are NOT going to allow me to conceive…ever?!?!? It made NO SENSE whatsoever to me.
 
But I also knew something else. I HAD TO CONTINUE TO TRUST GOD. I HAD TOO. WITHOUT FAITH, I had nothing, no hope. So I choose again to put my faith in the Lord and surrender.
 
As I look back on my journey, I think we don’t realize just how important surrender is in our walk with the Lord. God requires faith, but in order for us to experience the good plans God has for us (Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”) I believe that we must first come to the place of total surrender to GOD’S WILL for our lives. What this means is that we relinquish our need to control, to "fix" things to the way we think God wants.
 
Since March 8th, 2009, God has really been working on my life and teaching me so much about surrender. I believe it is paramount to discovering God’s Will for our life. I had to totally LET GO of my desire for pregnancy. Instead of feeling deserted and forgotten by God, I surrendered to HIS WILL, not having any clue what His will was, and it was THEN that God did a miracle in my life.
 
God had opened our hearts to adoption in Dec. 2008. After the cancelled IVF cycle, I knew God was saying no to more treatments and yes to adoption! In obedience to God, I started filling out adoption paperwork and working on a family profile to be shown to prospective birth mothers. If you’ve read my blog, you know the miracle God performed. A little over 2 months after learning I would never conceive, I was holding my baby girl in my arms through the miracle of adoption. The circumstances that brought Little Bug into my life are nothing short of a miracle. Something ONLY God could have orchestrated and done.
 
And you know what? That was His plan all along! And it was BIGGER and BETTER than my wildest dreams!!! So why did God put that desire in my heart for pregnancy and then not fulfill it? Because He knew He had SOMETHING MORE than even pregnancy to bless me with!
 
My heart is so full and so content. It is overflowing! God is sooooooo good. You have to choose to trust Him, choose to surrender and then….the rest is totally GOD. Obey where you feel God is leading you to go and then stand back in amazement at what God is going to do through your life because your faith is in Him!
 
As we are starting our journey to #2, God is already teaching me more about faith and surrender to Him. When the time is right, I will be sharing more on the blog.
 
I hope what I have shared here has encouraged you in some way. PLEASE write me back with any more questions you may have. I seriously would love to help you figure all this out. Our walks with God are a continuous journey of growth and learning more about God and the truths found in His Word. I would love to help you find your way through this dark tunnel you are in right now. There is HOPE and there is LIGHT, but it is only found in Jesus Christ.
 
Take care and I hope to hear from you again,
Elaine