We’re one week short of when we officially tied the knot... four years ago.
I remember taking a half-day from work, stopping by the florist to pick up a small bouquet, then meeting the hubs at his place to go to the Beverly Hills Courthouse. I remember standing there in front of a handful of friends and family, repeating a set of generic vows read to us by a random judge, exchanging our wedding bands (which we would quickly put back in their boxes for safekeeping until the ceremony), then being declared “Man & Wife”.
At that point, we knew a lot of things for sure:
We knew that we loved each other;
We knew that we wanted to do life together for as long as God will allow us; and
We knew we wanted kids.
Plural.
After that, the ceremony and the honeymoon flew by, and we started trying for a baby. We told people that we were simply “not preventing,” but every time my cycle was late, there was a glimmer of hope.
Then, one day, my cycle was beyond late. All the tests were negative, but there was no sign of Aunt Flow. Numerous hospital visits and tests later, we found out that I had a cyst in my left ovary about the size of a basketball. It was obviously too big to go away on its own, so I had to get an ovarian cystectomy. I remember signing the waivers at the hospital - one for the removal of the cyst and the second in case they have to remove the ovary altogether. Surgery was set for the end of January 2018.
Friends’ voices saying, “Don’t worry. PLENTY of people go on to have multiple kids with just one ovary,” kept swirling around my head, and I remember praying for the best outcome as I drifted off on the table.
It’s been over a year since the surgery, and we are still trying. I have gone through periods of avoiding Instagram and Facebook because it was FILLED with pregnancy/birth announcements or photos of people’s babies and toddlers doing the most “gosh darned” things. It was unbearable to think that what Jin and I have been praying and waiting for, others were getting so easily… some, even when they didn’t even want it. I had to listen to other people’s excitement over a new development or milestone… and even to some lamenting the death of life as they knew it. Each time, I had to remind myself that God has His timing, and our only job is to be faithful, pray, seek, and wait.
Since the surgery, we’ve hit some more roadblocks, but thank God for modern medicine. Now they have medicine that will help your body do all the things it’s SUPPOSED to do. (Don’t even get me started on the frustration and anger about my seemingly non-functional body.)
At this point, we’re still praying that God will allow us to have even just ONE child. As it is, we’re not sure if and when this will happen. I always felt like God has given me a yearning to be a mother, as well as the gifting to match. Every student I came across - either at church or through work - felt like my own and I approached each relationship as such. And now that it feels like it’s FINALLY my turn to have a child of my own and build a family, it just seems so hopelessly far from reach…