Two pink lines.
Positive.
Pregnant.
It’s the only thing some of you are wanting this Christmas. To see a ray of hope in the long journey of growing your family. To experience the joy of life after the sorrow of waiting–or the sorrow of loss.
To make a precious Christmas announcement for all of your friends and family to celebrate with you.
To buy the tiny “My First Christmas” outfit and make plans for the year ahead.
It doesn’t even matter that there’s a pandemic going on and you’d have to adjust your birth plan accordingly. You would be flexible. You just want to see those positive lines.
I longed to see those markings on a pregnancy test for two years. 764 days to be exact. Many of those days were spent watching (what seemed like) everyone around me get what I wanted. I saw cute birth announcements pop up on social media and had friends and family gently break the news to me that they were expecting, knowing that I longed for that moment too.
I wanted to see those lines and plan for a sweet baby. I wanted to make a holiday-themed announcement with pumpkins or turkeys or stockings. For 764 days, I experienced the ache that waiting brings.
For some of you, you’re at the very beginning of your journey and two years feels like an eternity. You can’t imagine waiting that long. For others of you, you’re well into your journey and two years is nothing. You’d gladly have waited only two years. Many of you have been waiting years upon years and are still waiting.
That’s the funny thing about waiting. It could be 1 day or 100 and we’d still feel like it was too long.
There’s something about the holidays that makes me remember that ache. Six years later, I now have six children. Two through adoption, three by birth, and one due to be born in May. During those two years of waiting, I never could have imagined that I would be here. I am daily reminded of the blessing that each one of our little miracles is. But each one of them is also a reminder to me of the days of waiting that came before they did.
As the Christmas season unfolds and celebrations are had, I want, no, I need you to know that you aren’t alone. You are seen. Your desires to grow your family and celebrate new life are not only valid but important and recognized. Your long days of waiting and questions of “Why me?” are not in spent in vain.
I don’t have any peppy words of wisdom or overly optimistic lines (what someone recently described to me as toxic positivity) to feed you. Words in the waiting are often too much. Instead, I offer you understanding and permission.
Permission to feel all the feels. Permission to sit in the sadness. Permission to look forward to the day when you do see those two pink lines.
Permission to continue to hope. Because that’s what we really need in the waiting.
