"So is their still a possibility you can have your own kids?"

I am going to skip a few things for now, about our adoption process, so that I can give you a little history. If that makes sense.

I occasionally get the question "So is their still a possibility you can have your own?" I used to get it more when we adopted Kyler but now that we have Charlie I get it a little less. Maybe because two is the magic number (fyi it is not our magic number). Well to be honest, when I get that question I have to pause and refrain from being rude. Kyler and Charlie are mine. I would rather have someone just ask me if their is a possibility I can still get pregnant. I know it is probably not meant to be rude, it just is.

What I hear is, yes you have two kids but don't you want your own? As if my children aren't good enough. So here are my thoughts. No I did not carry them for 9 months, but I prayed for them everyday even before I knew them or about them. I did not know when they were conceived, but my God did. For years, I imagined what they would look like. I loved them, I wept for them. I couldn't wait to meet them. I wondered if they would be a boy or a girl. Really when you think about it, I did everything another mother would do. No I didn't get to feel them move or kick, or be there when their sweet faces came into this world, but I didn't need that to validate my undeniable love for them.

So to get back to answering the question "is their still a possibility I can have my own?".

"No"

And I am so thankful.

I had a hysterectomy, against my doctor's suggestion, in my twenties and I have not regretted it for a day. I remember making a doctors appointment specifically to tell her it was finished. It was such a liberating appointment. See I had had at least three surgeries within a couple of years and our doctor wanted to start invitro and start me on hormones. Dave and I knew that this was not the route we were going to go. Maybe at some point I will share a little more about that...but for now it is not relevant. Dave and I were ready to move on. We were done waiting and in our hearts we had already closed the door. This hysterectomy was going to have to happen and I actually really wanted it. At the time, I was tired of being in pain. But by having the surgery it forced the doctor and family to allow us to move on. We had. We needed them to move on with us.

Although this ended up being the most complicated surgeries of all of them, God was so gracious. It was my least painful surgeries and I recovered the quickest and He sweetly broke me one last time.

What do I mean, He allowed me to be sweetly broken...When I woke up from surgery I kept wondering why I would hear babies crying. I thought I was hallucinating. Was I loosing my mind? When I finally asked my family why I kept hearing babies I saw all of their faces change. They asked if I needed to be moved. I guess when you have a hysterectomy they put you on the maternity ward. Kinda weird huh? So every time I had a nurse come and ask how I was feeling they congratulated me first. Asking if I had a boy or a girl. Which annoyed me only because I knew they never looked at my chart. So after a few days in the hospital, babies, new mothers all around and being congratulated several times a day I remember crying just one last time. But it was a different cry. I was so overwhelmed with joy and relief. God had always been with us and He saw us through. My brother told me before the surgery.."this too shall pass." And it did. We could see the end of our grief and I could see how allowed one door to close so that another could be opened.

Most of you know this verse but here was the one I always think of during this time "For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11. God never lost control, He knew all of this before it happened. He just carried us through it.