Miracles.

Honestly, I don't even really know how to begin writing about this.  Life really just works out according to God's plan for us, and sometimes those plans really take us by surprise.  Over and over again I feel like He teaches me that He is in charge, He is capable of miracles and most of all that He wants to bless us in His way and time, which also is what's best for us.  But so unpredictable. 
One Friday morning at the end of September, before heading to one of our final adoption interviews actually, at the insistence of Kevin I took a pregnancy test.  (I honestly didn't think I'd ever take one of those again.) I'd been feeling incredibly sick for about two weeks by then and nothing really explained it, Kevin said we were going to have to go to the doctor and they were going to make me take a test anyway so I may as well do it and get it over with.  I really didn't want to, "why would I be pregnant?" I asked him over and over.  We were so close to being approved for adoption and honestly, I'd moved on past thinking about pregnancy as an option (at least for a while) and I was doing really well.  I was so shocked when the test read positive; I was literally shaking, just shocked, not happy, just shocked.  We got a doctor confirmation the next week that I was indeed pregnant and about 7 weeks along. 

Today we just found out that we're expecting a boy in May and I still have a hard time believing it.  I don't doubt God's ability to bless us with pregnancy but it was so unexpected.  I've been through such a wave of emotions; scared, anxious, guilty, nervous, excited, and fearful to name a few.  I just wasn't expecting to have a baby naturally possibly ever.  And my heart aches for those people I know still waiting, and I feel somehow like I can't be part of their support system anymore and vice versa. I also built a protective wall around my heart about having babies and I've dealt with a lot of real fear with accepting and being excited that we're having a baby because of it. 

I am excited, in a "it's hard to believe this is actually happening to me but I still want to be a mom more than anything" way.  I can't wait to be a mom, May could not come any slower than it already is.

One day I was reading in Alma during my lunch break at work, about a week before finding out I was pregnant and I read Alma 33:20;
"...Now the reason they would not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them."

 and I remember distinctly feeling, "Michelle, you need to believe that God could bless you with a baby through your own pregnancy".   I realized that I needed to make sure that my protective barriers didn't block the way for my belief and testimony in God's ability to bless us with miracles, bless me with them.  I realized too that it's a lot easier for me to accept that God allows hard things to happen to us to shape us than that He wants to bless us.  He absolutely wants both, it's easier for us (or at least me) to see and accept the "shaping" situations. The right thing isn't always going to be the "bad" thing. 

I realized how unfairly I've sometimes "judged" pregnant women too, I never stopped feeling sick around the clock from mid-September throughout the following months and dealing with that as a full-time student, part-time employee almost did me in, or at least it felt like it would.  I realized that feeling sick all the time is hard for anyone to bear, even while feeling the tremendous miracle it is to be pregnant.  It completely is a miracle to bear a child.

I have also felt incapable of expressing my gratitude, I am grateful for this unexpected experience in a way that I haven't been able to find a way to express in words but I know that God is in charge and His Love is real and personal. Kevin and I never could have known that the same way we do now without what we've learned with infertility.  God's greatest miracle and gift to us however really is His Son.  In the times of trial and rejoicing I have felt such a need for my Savior's help in pulling out of either the despair or anxiety or keeping proper perspective.

I (we) am so grateful for all of you who have helped me feel lifted and not alone.  So many of you have been God's literal angels sent to help me, I have felt such a tangible help from the love and support and comradery.  So, thank you and I hope this season has been and will continue to be a time filled with the spirit of Christ's love for you as well.