By the time....

By the time our second year of seminary came along we hoped we'd be pregnant. By the time Christmas came that year we hoped we'd be pregnant. One year had gone by and we were scared. But not as scared as we are now. We were sad, but the sadness then didn't run as deep as it does today. By the time internship rolled around we hoped we'd be pregnant. By the time we were two months, or even a month, into internship we hoped we'd be pregnant. By the time internship was over...but it was over 4 weeks ago and we still are not pregnant. By the time graduation comes we wonder, not so much as hope, we just wonder. Summer visits home, Christmases, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes....all come and go so fast leaving us with empty arms and people around us without words. This is a journey and it's a sad and fearful one. We cling to one another and we cling to God. Because in the safety net of both we can pour out our deepest darkest fears and know that the other person gets it, feels it, dreads it and yet still holds us tightly. The sadness is overwhelming, it's depth beyond anything we could have ever imagined. Tears are falling and our hearts break a little more each day. We can only pray that the brokenness will one day be whole again.
We wanted to share some words here from Former First Lady Laura Bush on their struggle with infertility:
George and I had hoped that I would be pregnant by the end of his congressional run. Then we hoped it would be by the time his father announced his presidential run, then by the presidential primaries, the convention, the general election. But each milestone came and went. The calendar advanced, and there was no baby. The English language lacks the words "to mourn an absence." For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful, some not. Still, we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only "I am sorry for your loss." But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent, ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?