Selah's Story

A lot of folks have asked about our story regarding this pregnancy. So here is our story. :)

In May as most of you know my Mom passed away. It was a very difficult time for me as it was so unexpected. I felt in my spirit something was going to happen for some time as God had been working on my Mom's heart toward me. For instance, we had an awesome Christmas. Our relationship had been strained, but now we were moving toward each other like never before. She had even asked for forgiveness for some past hurts which was such an awesome thing to have. Not many people get to do those things before they leave this place.

At any rate, when Mom passed God opened some doors for Robert and I and released us to pursue adoption and infertility. Now, this was amazing in and of itself because of the recent peace I had with the size of our family. And those of you who know us, you know that this peace has not come without great cost and pain to us after 5 miscarriages. The last miscarriage was perhaps the hardest in retrospect because I actually remember the physical pain of dying to self (giving up my own desires for God's desires.) Oh, I thought God and I had settled this issue long ago...and maybe we had settled parts of it in my wrestling matches with Him over the size I thought my family should be...LOL. Also, very important to this issue is the fact that adoption would come up at all. As most of you know my adoption story (which I may post here later if you don't know all of it) has been an interesting one to say the least. What it has shown me instead of meeting up with my birth family in some kind of Oprah made for TV special, that God had plans for me from the word go. He has given me rare insight into the path HE chose for my life...specific and planned out. He redeemed me and set me on a high place. With all due respect to my biological family, I am so thankful God gave me my adoptive family - the only family I ever knew. And it was all on purpose. How many other people get to see the path they were on that God plucked them from and then be able to live the life on the path that God purposefully set them on???? What a gift!!!!!!!!!

But I digress....so with that adoption story, adoption was not my favorite subject , but here was God telling both Robert and that we could actually pursue adoption without life going haywire. The funniest things happened over the last 7 years whenever we tried to adopt. Funny, crazy, nuts, hair-raising...those all describe the chaos that would ensue whenever I would get the adoption papers out. There was even one time when I was being phone interviewed by one agency when Noah, who is always very obedient when we are on the phone, went completely haywire ballistic over something which I don't recall. I just remember the shocked terse responses I was suddenly getting from the adoption coordinator who said she would call me back at a later time....and never did. And then whenever I would put the papers away (either in the file cabinet or more often that not in the round file), life would return to normal. Whew...we would always say.

So here was God telling both Robert and I separately that not only were we to pursue adoption but also fertility at the same time!!!?!??!?! Rather nuts I said out loud on more than one occasion, but God's ways are not our ways....so with that in mind we faithfully set out to see what God was going to do. It all really started when Robert and I married - we married in September and were pregnant in December. We thought having a large family as we both wanted would be easy, or mind you we just took for granted that it would happen effortlessly. Boy were we wrong! After Noah was born, we tried again fairly quickly and lost our first child. Then we tried again for a year with nothing. Then we sought fertility treatments - 2 more miscarriages with one set of twins. Fertility treatment was scary to us to say the least because of my failed Sarah like attempts at it in the past. I am ashamed to admit that I wanted more children so badly, I am certain in retrospect that the fertility treatments we had pursued in the past were nothing less than feeble attempts that were nothing short of getting ahead of God's will for my life. I am not saying that fertility treatment is wrong - after all God was now telling us to pursue both options at this point. I am saying that I was not careful in my consultation with God regarding this in the past. In short, I never asked Him what He would have me do regarding our infertility in the past. I just rushed ahead into "getting more babies." After all more children is a blessing from the Lord, right? If I had listened to God I am sure I might have heard Him say "wait on me." At any rate, with that said, here we were...calling a fertility clinic to set an appointment and filling out adoption paperwork.

As if I needed any more confirmation of God's release for us to pursue these options, some other amazing things were happening which add to this amazing miracle! In June, Rachel (my best friend in Nashville) called me and asked if I was sitting down. She was on her way to the doctor....and she was pregnant!!!!!!!! This is significant because she and her husband Steve had been married for 15 years with no children yet! So this was a huge miracle. I immediately called another of our dear friends, Rebecca, and told her to call me ASAP. When she called, she said her news was better and she had to tell hers first....she was pregnant!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe that both of my dear friends were pregnant and that I was finding out on the SAME day!!!!!! What was God doing????? It was so exciting to me. I remembered that Noah had prayed for both of these friends as well as myself and one other friend (Jennifer) - that we would get pregnant. I suddenly was so overwhelmed with God's mercy and grace that I was on my knees praying and asking God to forgive me...I needed His forgiveness for not believing God could do this same thing in my life. But more than that I needed to tell Him that He would be my God even if He never did the same thing again in my life. It was my Shaddrach, Meshach, and Abendego moment. Those 3 kids were placed in a fiery furnace, but before hand they declared that God would and could rescue them from this, but that if He didn't, He was still their God. God was always my God, even in my darkest moments, but I stopped believing somewhere along the way that He would and could part.

Ok, so we have God telling us to pursue adoption AND fertility at the same time, 2 friends pregnant at the same time after Noah prayed for all of us (Noah actually laid hands on me and anointed me in February), and Robert and I wondering what was next. What was next was on Friday July 25th, one of the adoption agencies called us to say they had received our application but they couldn't accept it because of my age...LAUGHING OUT LOUD SO HARD....I was going to be 40 this coming year and they had an age limit. So I called the other agency I had been working with...no they had an age limit of 45 (we were cool there) but they could not adopt to someone who already had children. We could of course do foster to adopt or international, but those were not options we felt called to. We were actually excited about this news because we knew God was up to something.

On Monday July 28th we went to our fertility appointment. The doctor had all our files and tests and lab work. His medical opinion after reviewing each of the 5 miscarriages and the details of our history was that we would have to go with donor eggs. Donor eggs??????????? Did I hear him correctly? And Robert just sat there so calmly. The doctor who was a believer asked me what I wanted if I could snap my fingers and dream big. I t1old him I would like two more children, just two more. Just another pregnancy that was happy and healthy and normal. he told me he could help us achieve that with donor eggs. I checked out, leaving Robert to sit next to me listening to what was next while I numbly asked God if this was it, was this what He has us go through all this for? I was having serious issues wrapping my head around this, but my husband said we were going to march out the plan God had for us one step at a time because God was not done. The next step according to the doctor was to wait for my next cycle for one more test which would be August. Ok, I could do that I told myself. I couldn't help but wonder what in the world this was all for though. What on earth was God doing? The loud bang of the closing doors were hard to hear, but we continued in our faith. Never before had I felt such a sense that God was about to do some thing so huge, everyone would know only He did it.

The next morning, July 29th, my life verse shows up on my daily tear away calendar - Jeremiah 29:11 - I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord...plans to not harm or destroy you, but plans to give you a hope and a future. This verse has shown up some how, some way during every critical time in my life. Something big always happens when this verse shows up. I took the verse out to show Noah who commented : "God is up to something!" I knew...but was still afraid to believe and more importantly even more afraid to hope - but how could I not. The telling signs from God were right in front of me!!!!!!!!!! And so with the faith my child Noah had helped me to have, we waited on the Lord.

Then August came and almost went. I was smack dab in the middle of a basement finishing project in which I was the general contractor. If any of you saw our basement before and have seen it since, you know this was a huge job to say the least. I was having fun, but could not for the life of me understand the hard core full court press I was under (and putting all my subs under) to get the basement done. (Now I realize I was nesting and needed an extra room for the baby!!) Now, I might not be the most laid back person ever, but this was funny. My subs were scared of me, I am certain. :) They thought I was nuts at least to expect this big a job done in 6 weeks.

Then the doctor's office called...I had missed coming in for the tests we had agreed to. Well, I told the nurse, my cycle wasn't here yet. To which she responded by saying I was well over a week late. To which I responded by laughing and asking her if she had any clue as to what kind of stress I was under? No, she said, but she noted that I was ALWAYS regular and on time with my cycles per my medical history. Well there is a first time for everything and I told her what I was in the middle of not to mention just losing my Mom and traveling and on and on. She pushed and wanted me to come in for a test. I laughed and told her I was not driving all the way into Atlanta to take their expensive test only to start the second I left the office...been there done that bought the tee shirt and can't give it away in a garage sale. But I agreed, if Aunt Flo didn't come by the end of the week, I would go take a store test.

So, Thursday comes and still no Flo. I ran to the drug store with Noah in tow. I was so nervous I was standing there with tunnel vision. Noah was picking up tests and asking how you take them, by mouth?? I started laughing thinking what in the world am I doing with Noah here??? LOL....

So I get home with the tests. I realized when I got home that I had purchased a buy two get one free kit. The free one was digital so I took that one first. HA!!!!!!!!!! It actually had the word PREGNANT on it after 3 minutes. I grabbed the test and went running to the garage where a friend and Noah were painting baseboards for the basement. I was screaming such that both asked if I was ok. Yes Yes was all I could say...and I handed the test to Matt our friend and asked what it said. He of course stated the obvious. Noah was grinning and laughing. I was crying and laughing. Then I went back in to read the directions. Surely I did the test wrong. Nope - two more tests later....I was pregnant!!!!!!!! I called Rachel and Rebecca and Melanie and Stacie and Phyllis...but not Robert - this was going to be his birthday surprise! I put all three tests in a gift bag with the verse from my calendar and took them with us to dinner for his birthday that night. He opened the bag and took them all out, one at a time....so EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So there you have it...here we are due in April. Praising GOD!!!!!!!!! To God be all the Glory as only He could have orchestrated all this, making sure every last detail was carried out in perfect timing - arranging for three friends to be pregnant at the same time (yes, I have another friend who found out she was pregnant around the same time the Rachel and Rebecca found out they were pregnant who just told me she is expecting in December!) What are the chances? It is not chance, but God in His sweet purposeful timing showing me how to hope again. And not just to hope in circumstances, but to hope in Him.

There are a lot of us in hopeless situations - we find ourselves in jobs that are ending or terrible at best, we find ourselves in financial situations that seem like bottomless pits, we find ourselves in relationships that are troubled, marriages that need a touch from God lest they spontaneously combust, raising children that are prodigal, dealign with elderly parents in their later years of sickness and poor health, dealign with family at all can be heartbreaking sometimes. But I say those are all situations which require hope that only God can give. Not just hope that God will get us out, but that God will BE the hope that is in us that tells us everything will be ok. If you have some situation that you are in like the one above, pray for God to give you hope - He is the only Hope there is.

Watch this video clip from the movie Facing the Giants. If you have not seen the movie, rent it for Family Movie Night ASAP!