My Journey

Motherhood. It's what I've looked forward to my whole life. I excelled in school and have been told and felt that I could really go places in my life. But the only place I've ever had a desire to go is motherhood. My mother has always been a stay at home mom. One who did a fantastic job of bearing 10 and raising 9 children. And she always stressed the importance of family - not just through her words, but especially through her actions. I always felt motherhood as the purpose of my life, just as it was for her.

I always knew it would be the purpose of my life. But occasionally there was that nagging thought - what if children never came? When I was 14 I received my patriarchal blessing (A recorded blessing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "which provides inspired direction from the Lord," and which is given by one who is called, set apart, and given authority to pronounce such sacred blessings upon those who are prepared and worthy to receive them. You can learn more about them here, and I'm always happy to answer questions as well!) A part of that blessing talked about my children and grandchildren. A sigh of relief. Now I could put that occasional nagging thought away for good.

In high school, especially my senior year, I would have lengthy conversations with my close friend Miranda about how ready and excited we were for motherhood. We were so done with high school and ready for "real life." And a huge part of "real life" for us meant being mothers and raising a family.

My older sisters were having children, and even as a teenager, I would find myself yearning to someday hold my own children as I held their precious babies in my arms.

I started college. I chose my major, pre-accounting, based on the fact that I enjoyed math and that I could easily work from home and still take care of my children full time as a CPA. But I hoped I wouldn't ever actually need to, because I wanted to be a full-time mom, without any other responsibilities vying for my time and attention. And then I hated my pre-accounting classes. Now what? Nothing else peaked my interest as I reviewed and considered the other majors. Then my brother Keith asked if I had considered doing a Family Studies Major. "I know it's cliche`, [especially at BYU] but maybe you would enjoy it." So I thought about it. And then I read this quote from Elder Henry B. Erying in my Eternal Marriage Student Manual:

There are important ways in which planning for failure can make failure more likely and the ideal less so. Consider these twin commandments as an example: "Fathers are to...provide the necessities of life...for their families" and "mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children." Knowing how hard that might be, a young man might choose a career on the basis of how much money he could make, even if it meant he couldn't be home enough to be an equal partner. By doing that, he has already decided he cannot hope to do what would be best. A young woman might prepare for a career incompatible with being primarily responsible for the nurture of her children because of the possibilities of not marrying, of not having children, or of being left alone to provide for them herself. Or, she might fail to focus her education on the gospel and the knowledge of the world that nurturing a family would require, not realizing that the highest and best use she could make of her talents and her education would be in her home. Because a young man and woman had planned to take care of the worst, they might make the best less likely.

That was my answer. Family was my passion. Family was my life. It only made sense that family would be my major - even if it was cliche`. So over the next few semesters I began my Family Studies classes - Strengthening Marriage and Family, Home and Family Living, Introduction to Family Processes, Human Development, Preparation for Marriage - and I absolutely loved them. I couldn't imagine studying anything else.

Schooling went on a hiatus as I moved back home to Missouri and felt impressed to stay. The yearning for marriage and children grew to an almost constant ache. After a year and a half at home - the blink of an eye in retrospect, but an eternity at the time - I began dating and married my husband, Gabe.

We weren't sure we wanted children immediately, but neither were we completely opposed to it. So we left it up to what some would call chance and what we felt was the will of the Lord. The first few months felt like a fun guessing game: was it pregnancy, or just PMS?

7 months. "Why isn't it happening yet?" I knew it would be okay, but each month was starting to hurt more and more.

1 year. Infertility. What a horrible, frightening word. We now fell within the general definition - not being able to conceive after a year of trying.

I reached out to my sister in law, Jenessa, who was struggling with her own fertility journey. She recommended a book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. I soaked it up and began tracking my cycles. But our sleeping habits were inconsistent, and so my temperatures were as well. After a few months we moved to St. Louis and Gabe began his Doctor of Chiropractic degree at Logan University. Our schedule became more consistent and I continued my tracking with a renewed hope.

5 more months. Toni said it should only take 4-6 months to conceive if you are tracking and timing things accordingly. What now? Everything seemed normal, but nothing was happening. We began to consider alternatives. Perhaps Gabe should be tested. We looked up our options in the area and began to call around for prices. Money was tight, but this would be worth it. Right? It made the most logical sense as our next step, and yet for whatever reason we were not actively pursuing it. Maybe this wasn't the right direction.

Christmas break - time to visit home. We approached my dad and asked for priesthood blessings of healing for each of us. A sacred experience. Peace. Our time would come, and we felt it was near.

A few more months passed - over 2 years now. Still nothing. The frustration returned. "I thought the time was near?" I didn't get it. "The Lord is in control. It will happen in His time - whatever that means." Slowly I began again to accept His plan. I trusted it would happen eventually, but had no sense of what "eventually" meant.

Since moving to St. Louis I had been serving as a temple worker - an opportunity only available to women without children currently in their care at home. Perhaps this was a part of why the Lord had waited to bless me with children. It was an opportunity I was beyond grateful for. But it had been nearly a year now. Surely that was long enough? Then they asked me to serve as a coordinator. Another new experience. Did this mean the Lord had another year of work for me before children?

I started babysitting 2 girls once a week. It was refreshing to be with little children. Then I realized if things had happened as I expected as a teenager, these children at these ages could already be mine.

Nearly 3 years. I was experiencing regular nausea and lowering energy levels. Perhaps there were health problems beyond infertility. I began going to a chiropractor who had worked with infertility and had success. I felt hopeful. But it was expensive for us students, and we quickly felt like he wasn't helping. So we worked instead with the school to order a blood panel. Everything came back normal, except for extremely low blood sugar levels. We adjusted our diet and I could feel my blood sugar normalizing. Gabe began applying what he was learning in school and in his seminars and we focused on improving our health in manageable ways - diet, exercise, occasional herbal supplements.

Waiting was growing difficult again. I thought of the parable of the unjust judge and the importuning widow (Luke 18: 1-8). Perhaps, like this widow, I just needed to ask more often. My prayers became a daily pleading that I could have children now. But that didn't last long. Quickly I felt the impropriety of demanding the Lord to do things my way. So I began instead to pray daily for the help to wholly accept His will, to be able to accept it unquestioningly. And I learned firsthand that "prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other" (LDS Bible Dictionary - Prayer). I began to feel in my heart what I already knew in my mind. That God knew my longing and my desires, but that for reasons I didn't yet understand, His timing was more perfect than mine. And finally, my heart was satisfied with that answer, even if it meant years more of waiting.

I continued serving in the temple and began to realize how greatly it was strengthening me during this time of waiting. Sacred experiences there, both great and small, reminded me that the Lord knew my heart and was watching over me. Conversations and relationships with others about their experiences helped me know I wasn't alone and continuously renewed my hope. I began to recognize that serving in the temple was giving me a new spirit, the spirit of the temple. The overwhelming feelings of peace and love that I felt in the temple were making their way into every other part of my life as well.

3 years come and gone. And yet somehow 3 years felt easier than 1 as I was learning to truly give my burdens to the Lord. That summer I was asked to speak in Sacrament meeting about temples. I briefly shared that serving there had reminded me of my covenants and increased my patience in waiting for children. Almost immediately I regretted opening up - sharing something so personal with so many people isn't an easy thing for me to do. But before church was over, the kind words of others changed my mind. I already knew that "a joy shared is a joy doubled," but over the next few weeks I also learned for myself that "a burden shared is a burden halved" as friends and others from church reached out to me in love.

Then later that month one of my closest friends told me she was pregnant with her first. Of course a part of me wished I was, too, but I truly was happy for her. A couple weeks later we visited family and one of my closest cousins told me she was pregnant with her second. My own wanting grew even more poignant, but still I was happy for her as well. We returned home and I saw my sister in law Jenessa's blog post that she, too, was pregnant. She had been waiting longer than myself, and struggled harder and dealt with miscarriages, clearly she deserved this blessing. But having three such close friends tell me within such a short time was painfully difficult. I went to bed that night with more longing than I had felt in a long time. But the Lord was merciful, and all the learning and growing I had done over the past three years returned. I awoke the next morning accepting again my own situation and circumstances, able to be happy for my friends and family while being content with my own life.

4 years.

The next May we moved back to Springfield. A friend who has also struggled with infertility invited me over for an evening of sharing with other women. Everyone's experiences were so different, and yet we had so much to gain from listening to each other. The longer I have to wait, the more I see others who have dealt or are dealing with similar things. The pain is real. But so is the healing - no matter the answer you receive. Adoption, foster care, fertility treatments, miracle babies, accepting things as they are and living your life childless. Each experience unique. Each experience an opportunity for growth, an opportunity to open yourself up to possibilities you never would have imagined otherwise.

5 years last month. I never imaged it could take this long to start my family. But my husband and I have grown accustomed to life as a family of 2. We still have no greater desire than to raise children of our own. And yet now we can be grateful for the opportunities inherent to life without children. We can look to the future with hope, while experiencing joy now. My life is not what I expected, nothing like I planned, and definitely not what I would have asked for. But I see now that it's exactly what it should be. I see now that the Lord undoubtedly knows what I need.

"If thou art called to pass through tribulation...know thou, my [child], that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good." (Doctrine and Covenants 122:5,7)

I don't know when we will have children to call our own. But I do know that when it happens, it will be right. I may not always understand His ways, but I can know with a surety that with His help, whatever I have to face can change me for the better. Because it has. I am not who I was 5 years ago. And I am not who I would be if everything had happened my way. But I am who He wants and needs me to be. "[He] is the gardener here. He knows what he wants [me] to be." So, "thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me." (Elder Hugh B. Brown)


"When you are filled with the Spirit of God that spirit satisfies and fills up every longing of the human heart... When I am filled with that Spirit, my soul is satisfied." - Eliza R. Snow.