When we got married, Jack and I knew there was a chance we could conceive pretty much right away (assuming everything with our fertility was normal), and in our prayer with the Lord, we felt called to surrender and trust. If Jesus wanted a life, there would be one, and if now was not the time, we would not conceive. Jesus knew, and wanted us to let Him be in control.
Lo and behold, a week into our two week honeymoon I started to feel incredibly odd. To save the gory details, things weren't operating normally, and we just figured I had gotten some kind of food poisoning (directly following my stress rash from our wedding that had JUST disappeared). Well, our honeymoon in Puerto Rico came to an end, and we spent the following week over in Portland where our best friends were getting married the following weekend. That week, I didn't feel any better and I was convinced I had gotten some weird parasite in Puerto Rico...or I was pregnant.
Jack wanted to wait until after our friends' wedding to find out if we were pregnant so he wouldn't be distracted/would be able to keep it a secret (if he knew, he wouldn't be able to hide it). I asked him what he thought about me finding out first, and he jokingly said "you would NEVER be able to hide it from me..."So begun my master plan.
While Jack was at his work HQ, I went to Safeway by myself, bought a test, and, not being able to contain my excitement, I went across the street to a local coffee shop where I figured I'd take the test and then plop myself down and sew regardless of the test outcome. The beautiful thing about Jack and I knowing there was a chance we could have conceived and waiting to find out was that the Lord used that time to flood us with more excitement, desire, and a sense of readiness than we had ever experienced before. He knew what He was doing...
What a mysterious feeling, waiting for the test results. I felt so young, so naive in some ways, as I waited for the first pregnancy test of my life... never having been heartbroken before by negative results, never having gotten my hopes up before and had to wait for the next month, and in that moment my heart sympathized deeply with the women who had experienced these things.
The moment I pulled the pregnancy test out of my purse up in the balcony of the coffee shop, and as soon as I saw the two pink lines, my heart melted. My heart changed. I was deeply, mysteriously aware of the life that was hidden within me, that I now had a child, that I was not forever this child's mother.
Next my heart turned to Mary. I was struck in that moment that she had experienced this same feeling at the annunciation, though it was God himself hidden within her. I couldn't fathom the beauty, that mystery, and yet somehow I felt I was being drawn into it in such a real way, that I was somehow so close to it.
I have talked a hundred times about being "swaddled" by Mary in her scapular -- her garment, about being held in her Heart, her womb...and now there I was, experiencing a glimpse of that love in my own heart. Could it be that God loves us so deeply, perfectly, entirely that He almost couldn't help but to give us Hi sown Mother so we might have perfect mother in heaven who loves us, holds, us, gazes on us in this way?
Well, back to part about telling my husband he was a father...
I took the test on a Thursday evening, and perfectly hid our little secret, pondering these things in my heart until Saturday night after our friends' wedding. We went back to the place we were staying, and I gave him a little birthday gift that I told him I bought in Portland (his birthday was a just a few days later). As soon as he opened it and saw the test, he was overwhelmed with joy and just began laughing. I think we just laughed for several minutes in a kind of shared disbelief and joy. We were parents, and we were going back home the next day as newlyweds and as a family of three.
The adventure continues as we move about, testing out different towns in the West to live and make our home in. We very much are traveling with the Holy family as we don't have a permanent home and are following the Lord as He leads us to new and unforeseen adventures. Just as with the possibility of pregnancy and surrendering our own plans to the Lord, so with our living situation, the Lord has a plan for our little family; we can't wait to share with you what it is!
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