The Gift

       I never thought that I would thank God for denying me the gift of fertility.   I should have known at an early age that motherhood was not going to come to me in a conventional way, but few things did come the easy way.  From joint and spinal issues, kidney problems to digestion abnormalities, my body very rarely does things I want it to, or even need it to sometimes.  When I had reproductive issues at an early age it should not have come as a surprise.  All I ever wanted was to be a mom, but I got loss and heartache instead.  I had lost all faith in life and God, until I got an unexpected life changer.  It was through this change I learned that God sometimes says “no”, but he has something so much better lined up for you.

      Like most little girls I knew in my small town, I wanted to grow up and get married and have babies. Having babies was the only reason to get married, romance and actually raising kids never came into mind.  I never knew there were women who wanted to have babies and couldn’t, why would that even happen?  As play turned into talk we matured from young girls to young women.  Some of us were expanding our thoughts to careers and less baby talk, but not me, I was born to be a mommy.  I started developing physically into a woman at about 8 and by 11 had had my first menses.  I remember it because I was at a JCPenny, in a dressing room trying on clothes.  I look down and saw blood, I was terrified.  It was like scenes from horror movies for the next two years.  Sporadic hemorrhagic bleeding that would last two to three weeks. Intense pain and weight gain were just a sampling of symptoms that plagued me.  At about 14 that stopped and slowed down.  Oh I still had horrific menstruation, but instead of two to three weeks every month, it slowed down to a month long torture that only came 4 times a year.  Birth control pills to regulate my cycles, progesterone to start cycles, a week worth of birth control pills at once to stop the bleeding… these were just some of the things the doctor’s tried while testing to find the cause.  I dated a bit in school but this one thing always concerned me and made me uncomfortable. I always had to carry extra clothes and pads in a back pack, because I never knew when it was coming.  I was embarrassed by the surprise almost every time.  By 17, I had learned to cope.  A friend convinced me to let her set me up on a date, and that is when I met the man with whom I would share my life with.

Dan was “the” guy. In my eyes he hung the moon.  I never quite felt good enough, but I held on to him as if he were the air that sustained me.  We are passionate, spirited people. The first 8 years were on and off again and turbulent.  We decided to give it one more try in July of 2002.  I moved in with him and we were engaged shortly thereafter.   I became pregnant in late 2004. We were happy. I was babysitting in the home making little money. Dan had a good job with health benefits, but we were financially struggling.   Being a responsible man, Dan, said we should fast track our plans to be married.  November 3, 2004 we were married at the court house, with very little celebration.   I lost the baby a month and a half later.  I was home alone and couldn’t get off the bathroom floor to call for help.   This wasn’t my first child lost. The others didn’t go past two months, but this one was past four.    I was already through what my Dr. called the “safe zone.”  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  I went into a downward spiral of depression. I didn’t shower, I laid on the floor all the time and just cried.  I shaved my head completely bald. I tried to kill myself.  My life seemed hopeless and dark; I needed a way out.  Dan started to encourage me to get out of the house and do new things. I applied for a job and was immediately hired.  Light began to shine on my face again.      

As the General Manager of a restaurant, I had a lot of responsibility.  The hours were long and the work was stressful.  It proved to be more than I was ready to handle.  Tom was a young guy that worked for me and he was very charismatic. He always had a smile and a joke, Tom never took things too serious, and was very likeable.    Tom knew his way around a kitchen, wasn’t afraid of work and he was fast. If we had a rush or a big order I always knew I could count on him, and when I needed vegetables chopped or something prepped he did it in half the time of anyone else.  I liked Tom, and he had a story that endeared him to me.  He and a longtime girlfriend Nicole had a baby together and he was responsible for them.  Playing house was more than she could handle so Nicole left without a trace. Nicole did leave Tom a parting gift, their baby Erin.  Tom now had a problem, he needed childcare while he worked.  I had the problem of needing waking hours that weren’t working hours. We Agreed, I would keep Erin for him while he worked at night, in exchange for him being promoted to Assistant Manager, relieving me of some of my job duties.

Erin was my joy, her father on the other hand, I wanted to slap into next year. While being a great worker, Tom was not the most attentive father.   After struggling with stress and my still unstable spirit, I quit my job and became like a mother to Erin.  She was with us all the time. Tom, being complacent as a parent,  relied on us heavily for her care.   People assumed Erin was our child, she even sort of looked like us. I enjoyed playing mom with Erin, but I knew it wasn’t right.  I was not her mom and that was not going to change.  The time came that I had to tell Tom he needed to care for Erin, she needed her family. He agreed.     

A few months later, Tom called me, asking if we ever considered adoption. I told Tom he was crazy and he needed to figure out his life.  Erin needed her dad. That’s when he told me he had heard from Nicole. She told him she was pregnant, but it wasn’t his child.  Nicole wanted Tom to give her money for an abortion.  Tom knew about our struggles with fertility and knew how much we wanted children, so he mentioned us to her.  I laughed off the thought of adopting, at the time it didn’t seem possible.  It seemed only moments later we get a knock on the door that stopped the laughter. 

The most surreal moment in my life was opening my door to a stranger and her uttering the words, “So, do you want my baby?”  There before me in a moment that seemed to last forever, was Nicole. Nicole was petite and dangerously skinny. She smelled of stale cigarettes and body odor.  Her hair was dirty and unkempt. She looked as though she had been on a bender and hadn’t slept. Nicole continued, “Tom said you might want my baby, do you?”  As the words left her mouth, I was sure I was imagining them, but they were real. As real as the green flames tattooed on her ear.      

We decided to jump feet first, and said yes to this crazy adoption idea.  We did take time to contemplate everything and do research into adoption. I wouldn’t let my heart fully believe we were doing this.  Dan and I only told a few family members and very few friends; we didn’t want negative opinions to change our minds.  Nicole wasn’t as communicative as we had agreed, which brought on concern and doubt.   She moved to Arkansas to be near her family and communication became less.  We bought phone cards so she could call us with updates.   She would call when she knew we were at work, giving us details but not the opportunity to ask questions. After months of playing phone games, and being unsure what was going on, Nicole finally calls. She said, “If you want to be here for his birth you better get here quick.”   I ran to the bedroom and yelled, “Wake up Dan!”  I have never seen such a large man leap so high.   Just seeing this 300lb Grizzly Adams looking man move that quickly, is a vision I will never forget.  We threw some clothes in a bag and we were out the door.  The four hour drive to Arkansas seemed to go fast. We walked into the birthing room at the hospital at 6:45pm and at 7:05 pm we became parents. We weren’t allowed to stay in the room for his birth, but I was the first person to hold him.  I was the first to feed him and kiss his head.  He was so soft, and smelled like baby, and it was real. I held my baby.  My faith in God was restored. The Lord God had planned and orchestrated it all, while I thought he had forgotten me.

Looking back, the pain and the heartache needed to happen.  We needed to feel loss in order to be open to a different path to our little guy.  It was 7 years ago that Timothy Oliver was brought into our lives. In our doubt, we were not prepared to be parents. We didn’t even have so much as a diaper for the baby we were going to bring home.   Everyday God has taught me something through the adoption process and through Timothy.  I have learned patience and the power of prayer. I learned to be humble, but the most important lessons I have learned are grace and mercy.  God graced me with the gift of motherhood, even when I doubted him, he showed me his mercy.  He had a plan for my life, he had a plan for Dan, and God most definitely had a plan for my precious boy.