Awaiting answers and how it changed me

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1) 

My husband and I went through multiple seasons of awaiting. Awaiting every month's pregnancy test, hoping against hope for those two lines. Awaiting the results of endless blood draws and other medical tests to manage and resolve my hormonal imbalance. Awaiting my surgery to better understand why we had not been able to conceive after a miscarriage. Awaiting our Green Card, because without it we could not adopt. Awaiting the phone call that we had been matched with a birth mother. Awaiting her signature on papers that placed our child in our arms. Each of these seasons broke something. And in that breaking, each season transformed my relationship with myself and with God.

Becoming a mother was all I ever wanted. As a kid, I would play “mom” like a pro. I prayed for the day I’d meet my husband so we could start a family together. It was such a simple, beautiful dream. But God’s plans were nothing like the ones I had dreamed up for myself. Looking back from the pit of infertility, these fairy tales seemed ridiculously out of joint from the vocation I hoped for.

My husband and I met in our thirties. My biological clock wasn’t gently ticking—it was pounding in my soul as I deceived myself that I had time. The day the clock would stop would soon arrive. But this was the time of life when God brought us together, and I had to trust that His timing was not an accident.

We knew things might be harder due to our age, but nothing prepared us for what lay ahead. Less than two years into our marriage, we miscarried our only biological child. We were soon diagnosed with infertility. That cross dropped onto my shoulders so violently, it crushed me spiritually, emotionally, and physically. And from then on, our long seasons of awaiting started coming.

During fertility treatments, we awaited insurance approvals, better doctors, blood draws, and “perfectly” timed intercourse. When I finally received clearance for surgery, I was relieved the awaiting was over. I truly believed God would “fix” me, I’d conceive, and I’d make my husband a dad. But after the surgery came even more waiting—waiting for my cycle to return, waiting to see if my body would finally cooperate.

After six months, rounds of medication, and a lot of unusual bleeding that may have been another miscarriage, we stopped hoping for a natural conception. It felt like surrender. It felt like death. But looking back, it was also God quietly redirecting us. It certainly did not feel like that at the time, though. It felt like He was not listening to our prayers, like He let us down.

Then we awaited the adoption, another daunting, exhausting, and deeply vulnerable season.

First, we waited for an answer from the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Department about our Green Card. We had to have background checks and have physicals to prove we were “good” candidates for the Green Card (yes, it really is green). As Canadians living in the United States with a visa, we needed it to become eligible to adopt.

More than six months passed before we were approved. I still remember screaming when I saw it in the mailbox. It was a moment of joy—but far from the end of the waiting. Now we moved on to meet with adoption lawyers. Within three months we filled out mountains of documents, met with a social worker, submitted more documents, got a bunch of reference letters, were interviewed again, got new physicals, made an adoption album, and then: awaited that phone call. Hurry up and wait was the name of this game.

The call came on Monday, December 11, 2017. I was working from home when I saw the lawyers’ number. I spoke running up and down the stairs. We were matched with a birth mom. She had chosen us. It was one of the most perfect days of our lives. We were closer than ever to becoming parents. And then came another season, awaiting the baby’s birth and birth mom’s final decision. Nerve-wracking and exciting as it was, we chose to put ourselves through this twice more. 

But awaiting taught me lessons I never would’ve learned otherwise. Had I never had to wait, I don’t think I would have understood humility. How humbling it was to be the only woman in my family who never carried a pregnancy to term, to celebrate pregnancies while my heart and womb were empty, to be asked when we would get pregnant when I knew I couldn’t. This gave me a better appreciation of what it is like to be scourged when you are powerless, to drink from the bitter cup representing someone else’s plan for my life, and to accept that through this ugliness a good I can not see will come.

Had I never had to wait, I wouldn’t be as grateful for the three beautiful children God entrusted to us through adoption. We were chosen by strangers three times within 26 months—something I still consider a miracle. So many couples wait and wait, praying to be chosen and never are. For whatever reason, I am thankful we were.

Had I never had to wait, I wouldn’t have learned empathy the way I know it now. I used to have sympathy for people’s suffering. Now I can sit with those suffering and accompany them in it. Awaiting stretched my heart in ways only God could’ve done. That is why I became a mentor for the Sisters of Hannah to accompany women struggling with infertility so they feel less alone in a pain I can connect with. To my husband’s chagrin, empathy is now burned into my bones.

Had I never had to wait, I would never have found The Fruitful Hollow. I had to endure my darkest season alone. My husband coped by trying to forget the pain, and not many around me understood what I was going through. Here at The Fruitful Hollow, I found my community. I didn’t want anyone else to suffer my kind of loneliness.

Had I never had to wait, I would never have discovered the strange, quiet beauty hiding in suffering. I know it sounds impossible that beauty could be buried inside something so brutal. But suffering revealed things about myself I never knew. It showed me a strength I didn't know I had. Others might have isolated themselves, snapped back at thoughtless comments, and be consumed with bitter envy. But I kept showing up. I kept going. I kept fighting through the darkness because I couldn’t forget the deepest truth: I wanted to be a mother. And somehow, in the long nights when I begged God for answers, He turned my suffering into something holy, something that made me softer, stronger, and closer to Him.

Questions for reflection 

1. What answers are you currently awaiting?

2. What seasons of awaiting have you gone through? What season of awaiting are you currently in?

3. How are these seasons transforming you and your marriage? If you are single, how are you being transformed in your seasons of awaiting answers? 

4. Reflect on the following passage: “Fear not, for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. For, I the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I will help you.” (Isaiah 41:10,13)