Infertility Awareness Week...

It is Infertility Awareness Week.  I could write a book on our experiences in growing our family because of the infertility we experienced.  It would be a happy book.  Okay, ther first couple of chapters would be sad.  It was hard.  It felt like all of my friends and family were getting pregnant while we were trying.  And not to be too specific, but "trying" to get pregnant is only fun for about the first week or two and then it's just not fun at all.  In fact, it was probably one the most difficult times in our marriage for both of us.  Medications, hormones, disappointment, sadness and anger led to many arguments between Sean and I.  It was pretty terrible and we felt like there was no hope that we would ever grow our family like we thought we would.  And you know what?  There wasn't!  We were not supposed to grow our family like we thought we would!  We were supposed to grow it like God planned we would.

Infertility is what brought be to God.  I am SO THANKFUL for going through infertility because I was forced to lean on God and He showed himself to me.  I fully gave my heart to Him when I felt as though there was no hope and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, I had hope.  I knew I would get my family.  At that point, we stopped "trying" and followed what we knew was God's plan for our family and pursued adoption.

Adoption has blessed us once and is in the process of blessing us 2 more times!  Without infertility we would not have our boys, we would not have had our eyes opened to the beautiful gift that is adoption and we wouldn't have grown our family through Tate's birth family either.  I cannot imagine his birth family not being a part of our lives!

I will say though, no one could have made me understand this while I was going through it.  No one could have convinced me or made me understand what a blessing it was.  I would have thought they were insane!  Only God could do that.  Only He was able to show us what a blessing our infertility was.  He works in mysterious and unexpected ways!

I have such a heart for people going through infertility or people who have gone through it and either were able to get pregnant in the end or were blessed with adoption.  I feel like we have a connection.  I am dedicating extra time this week to pray for those who are experiencing or have experienced infertility.