Society stinks.

Junior high and high school kids are a bunch of nuts. (seriously sit down and have a conversation with a few one day, I promise you will leave not really knowing what just happened) But I love every one of them.

Josh and I are super blessed with our jobs. He teaches at a Christian school and we both coach almost every sport at the school! While I find so many blessings that come from coaching, one of the biggest blessings comes from the parents and kids themselves. All 3 of our miscarriages have been while we have been at the school. Most parents and kids knew as we experienced every single one of them. I have had more support from moms walking me through what they went through and letting us know that they are praying for us, than almost anywhere else.

Not to mention, we have about 50 kids that we get to love on daily during the school year. It is hard to focus on what we do not have, when we have the blessings of excitement on their faces when we see them and encourage them in athletics. It is honestly one of my favorite things that we have done together, ever.

Sometimes what our society doesn’t realize is the pressure we place upon women to have children and be a mom. I mean think about it. If you are a single woman, how many times do you get asked when you are getting married? Or engaged when the wedding is? Or married…. When the babies are coming? We have almost been married 3 years, we get asked all the time when we are in one person’s words “going to take the jump over married life as free spirits into being married parents?”  Hmm. You just made that sound so simple. Praise the Lord if your jump was as easy as that last sentence sounded.  Josh and I are trying to build our own parachutes from scratch, while some are just making the jump.

Naturally if you don’t have children or can’t have them, you will feel like a failure in our society. The same way those of you feel once you have kids, that everyone has an opinion, we all on the other side of the jump feel the same. I can’t tell you how to parent your children because I haven’t been there. I don’t know. One year as a nanny doesn’t qualify me to tell you how make a decision to bottle feed or breastfeed your child. The same way you carrying a pregnancy to full term doesn’t qualify you to tell someone going through a miscarriage how they should feel.

One thing I have learned this miscarriage is that the shame and guilt I put on myself hurts more than any words from the “society”.  I turned to josh and several occasions during this last miscarriage apologizing to him that this time didn’t work either. I don’t know why I was apologizing. He certainly doesn’t blame me and I have never felt like he did. I just had this overwhelming feeling like I needed to apologize to someone. I watched as my husband went out (a lot) to get me food I was craving or helped around the house tons, all because that was his way to serve me during this time. I saw the disappointed look on his face when we were told there was no baby developing. I wanted more than anything else to take that pain and disappointment away from his heart. But I couldn’t.

But why do we do this? Why is there the need to apologize to your husband or family or other kids in your family?  Why do we carry the shame and guilt? For me, it was a little bit society and where we fit in it. I felt terrible that when we were asked again from random stranger when we want to have kids, we had to say some awkward excuse as to where we are at in life. A little were the plans that we made, that yet again, were thrown away. A little were the diapers and wipes I got for free (couponing! whoo!) that I just knew they were too early to buy. A little was the story. Seriously I wanted to come on here and give every woman looking for a light at the end of the tunnel hope. I wanted to be the I DID IT YOU CAN TOO woman.

I feel the pressure from society to get moving on the baby making. (ha.) But I refuse to let society win. I am going to allow God to work in my life, regardless if it is EXACTLY what I want. I am finally thankful that I am NOT in control. Let me encourage you through your journey and lets stand up to not allowing society to put pressure on us. No story is the same. Otherwise we would all be really boring. Blogs would be lame because we had all been through the same thing.

Society will mean nothing to you if you truly allow God to work in your life.  In the moments where my heart hurts and I want nothing more than to break down, I get a blessing. I laid in bed one night, knowing that I had to explain to a 15 year old girl, that we coach, that I was no longer pregnant, how in the world do I do that? She told me that she had taken it upon herself to pray every day for me until I am holding my baby (tears...) a few weeks before I miscarried. I decided to explain to her that I wasn’t giving up and that we were going to lean on God during such a hard time. She texted me back with something I will never forget.  She told me that she promised me to pray every day until I held my baby and that she didn’t just say through this pregnancy. She told me that she was determined to be a prayer warrior for Josh and I. Wow. What a blessing during such a hard time. She isn’t giving up, so I can’t either! Kids, sorry teens, can teach us so much!

What if all along she (and possibly you) have been praying for our child…. And that child is currently in someone else’s womb. Wow. Isn’t that an incredible thought? Forget society’s plan, I want to be a part of what God has planned if that is what we have all been praying for!

Our adoption road has started. We meet next Friday with a lawyer to discuss our options. (in fact it is the lawyer that helped mikki’s mom many years ago. If you have no idea what I am talking about read my previous post) In our new, but equally as rewarding, journey we will be posting a blog entirely dedicated to josh and I. It sounds weird I know. But we would like to place a blog out there that could be easy for you to share with others. It is our hope to get the word out that we are looking to adopt and pray that someone knows someone who knows someone! Ha! That way they have all of our information at their fingertips and it is easy for people to share the link with others.

Remember to love on others today, you don’t know what they may be going through. <3