God Has Heard.

Part Three.

In our years of infertility, before our son moved home with us, as I wrote my book, blogs, started my podcast, and began sharing the growing pains of miscarriage and infertility—many women would share their own stories with me. Or they would share stories of relatives or friend-of-a-friend’s fertility histories. I never minded and I enjoyed hearing how other women would fight their way to their babies.  But I would always ask a final question as they would tell me of a decades long battle for children, “And how many kids did she end up having?’’

I’m not sure if that was a great question to ask, but it was my way of clinging to hope—for myself and for each woman who has known the whiplash of losing pregnancies and negative tests month after month. I was always delighted and took a huge sigh of relief when they would answer me, no matter the outcome.

“They ended up having twins!”

“She has a daughter. It took years to get one good egg, but hey, that is all you need.”

“They adopted!”

“She stopped trying. She found her purpose and joy in other things.”

A woman who works for my sister once told me of her devastation with infertility and laughed through tears as she delivered her answer. “We had triplets! God gave me three babies at once!”

Were these women any more whole now that they were mothers? Were they more satisfied with their life? More thankful to God because He had heard them. Were they more confident and more secure in their own skin because they wore this badge of honor with pride—they were someone’s mother.

In the days after our adoption was final, I kept beating myself up because I thought there was supposed to be this visible change in me. This noticeable difference was supposed to shine through me like a ray of freedom. “She is different now because it is finished.” But it didn’t work that way. I wasn’t lighter. I wasn’t freer. In fact, I maybe felt a bit heavier and more tired.

Like the woman who recently went viral at the finish line of the Iron Man. You would think the pure adrenaline of having accomplished such a feat would carry her past the line, but no.

She collapsed with exhaustion at what she had already achieved. How we make it to the finish line shouldn’t reflect the whole journey. She made it. Even if she finished withered and shaking, crawling on her hands and feet—she made it.

The finish line isn’t everything, you know. I’m understanding that more now. We have convinced ourselves that once we accomplish one thing it will encourage the next.

Once we make it past this season and things calm down, then it will be different. Once I lose the weight, then…once I get that job, then…once we finally adopt our son and I won’t have to sleep with one eye open, then I will feel better. Once and then..once and then.

Motherhood is an oddity of contradictions that I will untangle every day for the rest of my life. Being his Mama has absolutely bewitched me. Nothing about me as a mother is what I envisioned, not even my way of getting here. It’s different. And better. And so overwhelming that I’m often paralyzed at the thought of my love for this little boy.

Our arrival here is a contradiction on its own. I became a mother overnight. With one phone call our prayers were answered after years and years of heartbreak. The longest road, the fastest overturn, the unexpected miracle. But that wasn’t the finish line, that was the launch pad.

Being pregnant is ground zero for creating a human, not for being a mother. It is the honor of my life to be his mom, and it was the most beautiful season to carry the six that came before him.

My baby boy, who isn’t quite a baby anymore—brought home rocks the other day.

They were stuffed down into his pockets, and he showed them to me with such mischievous pride. He smirked and giggled with excitement as we looked at his loot from the park. I soaked in the joys of being a boy mom in that moment. Rocks in pockets is a milestone, a rite of passage. And then came the reminder that we’ve missed some steps already. Milestones gone.

There was a longing I felt inside of me for years. Like I was walking with my arms out in front of me waiting to embrace the thing I knew was coming, but just didn’t know what it was. My life was whole and complete, but there were blank spaces that were reserved. A room to be filled, a love to be given, millions of kisses waiting behind my lips for him. For my boy.

The moment my arms found his, I wasn’t made any more whole, I wasn’t awarded a medal, and I certainly haven’t been well rested since, but there was a peace unknown that was more present, palpable. There was a love granted that could stop your heart, and there was an understanding that no matter the suffering—not the amount of pain or the amount of time I spent lamenting for a child, it was all heard by God.

God heard me even when I thought He’d forgotten me.

I was driving in the rain when I got the phone call about our son. As I turned on my blinker to head home, God whispered a name to me that I didn’t understand. Samuel. Who is Samuel?

Samuel in Hebrew translates to God has heard.

He heard me, and He hears you too.