It's good enough

I always wanted to be a mother. But becoming a mother was not an easy road for me. Although I was healthy and young, it took a good three years to get pregnant with my first son. After months and months of testing, praying and wasted pregnancy tests, I had to ask myself, how bad do I want to be a mother? How many dollars am I willing to spend? How much am I willing to put my body through? How much am I willing to put my marriage through? And I came to terms with believing “it is good enough.”

My life “is good enough” if I am not able to have a baby. For many, the mantra “it’s good enough” sounds like it is settling or giving up. For me, it was a ticket to freedom – free to not live with expectations beyond my control; free to let go of what I want and be open to what God wants; free to embrace the possibilities that I wouldn’t have given the time of day. It’s good enough. That freedom must have affected my body because before I knew it, I was pregnant with my son.

A couple years later, my husband and I tried again. This time I had the opposite problem. I could easily get pregnant as if it were a contagious disease, but I was never able to carry to term. In 2007, I was pregnant three times and miscarried twice. I’ll never forget my first miscarriage. I was twelve weeks pregnant when I found out, but the doctor said that I may have miscarried as early as nine weeks. I instantly thought of my mother-in-law who had suffered through thirteen miscarriages. I could barely get through this one let alone thirteen. The odd thing was that deep down inside, I think I knew all along that something was wrong but didn’t want to believe it.