When Your Announcement Just Isn’t Coming

Last year, I ordered a shirt on Etsy. It was one of those adorable “I’m Pregnant” tank tops. If you haven’t gone through infertility you’re probably wondering why I would torture myself that way. Let me explain myself.

First of all, I am a compulsive Type-A. I like having all my ducks in a row and then I typical order at least one set of back up ducks into a line just in case. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold in the news of the life inside of me long enough to order a shirt and wait for it to come in. If I wanted to share the news that way, I needed it ahead of time. Secondly, we didn’t know were were infertile yet. We’d been trying for a few months but kept assuring ourselves that it just takes tine. Finally, it was Christmas time and hope filled the air. When you live in Hawaii and your family is on the East Coast, you prepare for every opportunity you might have to tell them anything in person.

I wish I could tell you that shirt was the only thing I bought but it wasn’t. In the back of my closet next to that grey tank top also sits a navy “Daddy in Training” shirt and about 20 little boxes I was going to use to announce our, surely any day now, pregnancy to my husband and our family. Less than a year has gone by but everything has changed.

This morning, I took the last pregnancy test I had stashed away under the sink. It was a feeble attempt to stay hopeful. After the news we received last week, the words that broke our hearts, I knew the two pink lines would mean a certifiable miracle had taken place. Truthfully, I was hoping we would need to call the Vatican. I believe in a land of extraordinary miracles, but I also believe in the ordinary, everyday miracles of doctors with great skill. I try to remind myself often to be open to whatever miracle the Lord has to offer me, even if it is the miracle of the Holy Spirit equipping me with patience and joy while the answer remains no.

Of course, the test was in vain but there was a sense of relief in finally throwing the last one away. Holding onto this “maybe one day” item, it seared a hole into my heart every time I noticed it in my bathroom cabinet. The news played through my mind freshly and I realized, that dream, it was gone, anew again. Throwing it away my mind of the rollercoaster of wondering if this month is the month, if my nausea is morning sickness, if my hope will be fulfilled, even if the taking it and seeing only one line appear hurt like hell.

There are still the shirts in the back of the closet and I still pray against hope that one day, I will pull them out. I know now that, it won’t be unexpected, crying in the bathroom with a stick I just peed on, experience, but a very planned experience that will involve doctors and labs and many people I never dreamed of being apart of the intimate baby-making my husband and I dreamed of. But today, I hope against hope and I pray for a miracle, any way I can get one.