Back when I wrote about the name Irene Annabelle, I forgave! I forgave God for me never being pregnant. I told God that I will still love Him if He never takes away my reproach. And then next thing I know, a few months back, I was installing the "pre-mom app" and had bought pregnancy test strips because we were trying to conceive again...
The worst part about it all is that I knew before I installed the app, or bought the pregnancy test strips, that the real reason I wanted to get pregnant right now is because I've been depressed. I ALWAYS fall back on wanting to be pregnant when I get depressed. The excuses for wanting to be, the reasons behind "why" this time around might be different, BUT I have a huge habit of wanting to be pregnant when I get depressed and I know it and knew it before installing the app or buying the tests. I knew better, but anyway....
Trying to get pregnant is a mental distraction from whatever it is that I'm not wanting to think about. Let me just focus instead over here on test strips and timing and envisioning what it might be like to feel a baby moving around inside me and my kids getting to feel the baby kick and me needing to buy pregnancy clothes and nursing outfits and....
Satan is good at what he does, and I'm not good at fighting off his words. He knows my weak spots. This time around he came at me with fear that maybe I haven't NOT been getting pregnant all these years, maybe I have been and I've just been early miscarrying this whole time. Terrifying thought, absolutely terrifying. I tested at least once a week every week for the last several months and never saw two lines. My cycles were all over the place, one of them definitely seemed late, but I tested several times and there was never two lines. This fear that maybe I HAVE been getting pregnant all these years??? The stress was horrible, because then I felt it was my fault if I miscarry. That it was my fault if I've been miscarrying. And if I see two lines, and don't rush to the doctor fast enough to get on some sort of medication then I'd miscarry again and it'd be my fault...
You hearing the fear? Alongside the fear, I was also excited at the thought that maybe I could get pregnant? Maybe this could really happen? Maybe...
No, just, no. Why do I allow Satan to come at me in ways like this? I should EXPECT when I'm depressed that he'll come at me again in some sort of way to make me desire a pregnancy once again. And no matter what the reason is, I should throw it out the door.
I'm getting older! I wanted to be done growing our family by the time I'm 35, if I were pregnant now I'd be 35 already when the baby is born... Last chance to try! Running out of time! My timeline says...
God doesn't care about my timeline. He knows it, and He cares about it some because He knows I care about it, BUT! But my timeline?!? It means nothing. God can do what He wants, when He wants, and it'll be better than any time that I myself would come up with, right? And look at Abraham and Sarah, or Issac and Rebecca, or Zechariah and Elizabeth..... I don't think God was very concerned about THEIR timeline for things to happen. God made things happen in HIS good and perfect time.
Irene Annabelle is a name for me. The name speaks life into what I want for myself. A promise from God for this particular "feeling" I've dreamt of having for so long that I've had a taste of for a moment here and there over the years but never get to keep. That feeling is coming and it is going to stay.
Irene = Peace
Anna = God is gracious/His grace is sufficient + belle = God is my satisfaction
Nickname:
Ira-belle = Answer to my prayers
God will give me His peace, that longing for more will go away. God is gracious, and His grace is enough! He has blessed me already with MORE than I ever deserved, and if He NEVER blesses me again I will be ok because His blessings are more than enough already. My desire to mother WILL BE quenched with the satisfaction that can only be found in God. The answer to my prayers is that I will feel that my family is "complete". That we would feel whole. That I would have this peace and contentment in the size of my family. I have felt it, here and there over the years. There are these moments that stand out in my mind where things just felt "perfect". I looked at my family and was filled with so much love and joy and contentment and... I don't know! Things just felt perfect in those moments and I felt I could be happy for the rest of my life with what I already have right now.
I miss the others. Our kids other siblings that we used to have. This is the hardest it has ever been to move on. I cried Monday over a few sets of clothes and their water cups that I still have for "just in case...". A couple of their old blankets... In moving on, do I toss the clothes? Do I toss their old water cups that are matchy to our boys cups? Do I...
I put it all back and walked away. I need to move on, but it's so hard!!!!! Maybe they'd fit in these few outfits still, I've already tossed so many that I know would already be too small, but these.... These clothes are my hopes and dreams of their return. My hopes and dreams that they'll be back in time to wear them before the season turns again or they age another year.
I forgave God for me never being pregnant and told Him I'd still love Him if He never takes away my reproach, but then I think I un-forgave Him as I tried again and begged for Him to make me pregnant. But moving on from dreaming and hoping and wishing that their other siblings would be with us again some day.... It is so much easier to try to accept and forgive God for me maybe NEVER being pregnant, but to accept and move on that their other siblings might NEVER be here? That is so much harder, so very much harder.
Irabelle. Irene Annabelle. If I can focus on the truths in that name. A new name God had given me. If I can learn those truths... I'll get there. God help me get there.