This morning I was watching TV, and a show came on about a family
who was unable to conceive. The show was
the emotional story of this family adopting a 2 year old girl and 1 year old
boy who were natural siblings. While
watching their story, my heart again started to ache and tears began to flow
for the people in my life who struggle with having children.
Over the last 15 years or so I've spent many hours thanking my Heavenly Father that I am able to have children. When I was pregnant with John (my
third child in three years) I made a comment to a friend of mine about how
hectic it was and how I was frustrated to be pregnant again so soon. She,
being the wonderful woman that she is, took my hands and said, "Jennifer,
we've been trying to have a baby for over a decade. Please don't complain
about such a precious gift." Needless to say, I was immediately
remorseful and humbled. At that moment I realized how truly blessed I
was.
As a child and
young women, my deepest desire was to be a wife and mother. To my relief, fertility has never been a problem for me. My
first three came in 3 years and, with the 4th, I went off birth
control and was pregnant with my next cycle. Even with this pregnancy, we
chose to leave it up to Heavenly Father to decide. Before we were married
I tried to tell Mike that it wouldn't take very long, but Mike, and his engineer
brain, figured that, statistically, we had a good 6 months or more before I got
pregnant. Well, as most of you know, the due date is 2 days after our 9
month anniversary.
Throughout my life
I've met other wonderful women, and men, who have a deep longing for family and
children but are not able to conceive or are not able to have as many children
as they want. I think about my own wish for children and can only imagine
the heartache of my friends who are unable to realize that simple, fundamental desire. I know my own want for children is one of the
strongest pulls I've felt, but it is been a satisfied want.
The dilemma I have is this…I can empathize with the desire that women have for children and bigger families, I feel pain for
the heartache as time passes and a baby seems to be further and further away, but I am abundantly blessed in that one area that may cause
the most pain in their lives.
