A long one, but a good one.

I got this email today from a very sweet friend on the subject of my last post, primarily, adoption.

"Are you going to elaborate? I know of people that have adopted, but I have no idea what all it involves. Seems a little scary to me. Also, I was wondering what brought about the change of heart about having more children. I was reading in the Voddie Baucham book, um, Family Driven Faith, where that's what happened to him and his wife, too. I was just wondering what set of events God might have used for you. (I would completely understand if you don't feel like sharing all that.)

May the Lord bless you and keep you and give you peace."

I share that so that I can answer it here on my blog because this is not the first time I have received this question. I fail to talk about it sometimes on the blog because I feel like I have talked about it to everyone I am near sometimes and that maybe everyone is sick of hearing about it. Guess not, though, huh? Sooooo since, at least, one person has not heard why my husband and I feel the way we do, I am going to dig into it again :)
I will save the adoption question for another blog post that I am planning to write soon. So for now I will briefly tell of how my husband and I came to want more children, even after we had one boy and one girl, the PERFECT American dream (*dripping with sarcasm*).
My husband and I were married at 20 and 19. I was 20 and had a 4 month old little girl that I brought to the marriage. If being married young, with a child already (who was not biologically his) was not hard enough, my husband was in the army and we were married just 3 months after 9/11. But we were living on love folks! We greatly enjoyed (well most of the time) our first 10 months together at Fort Hood Texas. It was ignorantly blissful until we started noticing some not too fun habits in one another. He avoided conflict and hid things from me. I, in my pathetic need to always feel loved smothered and controlled him. We were making it though. Then my husband received a telegram (yes, they still send those) and it stated he was to report to a one year unaccompanied (meaning he cannot take wife or children) deployment to the Demilitarization zone in South Korea. We had heard of many soldiers being deployed there so it was not a total shock, but it was devastating. He moved to Korea 2 months shy of our first wedding anniversary and I moved back home to California. Over the phone over the next few months we discussed having another child. We had a "hey, why not?" attitude about it. We were a little nervous, a little excited. He came home for a 28 day visit after being gone for 9 months. A week after he returned to Korea following his brief visit, I found out we were expecting. I told him over the phone. We were excited. For a little while at least. I quickly got very sick with morning sickness and had to move in with my mom. By the time his deployment was up I was four months pregnant. For many reason that I cannot disclose at this time, our marriage was falling apart. We held on to the hope of it all working out but made the decision, based on morning sickness, stress, and family pressure, to have a vasectomy as soon as my son was born. And we did. Now, skip forward 4 years. We almost divorced many times, and barely hung on. But then my husband committed his life to Christ. He had known the Lord before, being raised in a Christian home but he had not committed to him. He was so different and so was I. We both started to learn what it was like to walk with Christ, not just sort of notice him in the background. At that point He got deployed to Iraq. Another one year deployment. I was so concerned it would kill all the progress that had begun. But I was wrong. God did many miraculous things in Jake's heart during that year. Mine too actually. We grew closer to God and each other during it. But God started to stir a desire within me for more children. I am not kidding when I say i would lie awake and talk to God saying "Surely you don't want US to have more kids?!?! I mean a baby would be cute and all, but you were there, you remember how much I puke! And Jake, well he loves you and all but He doesn't ever want more kids. He can't wait until these two leave for college!" I went on and on having conversations with God like that. Over and over I would tell him of my confusions over my little flame growing within me, but still it stayed. So when he got what the army calls his "mid-tour" (meaning his trip home to visit in the middle of his tour), I sat with him at a coffee shop and asked him point blank
me: "would you ever consider having more children?"
him: *cough cough* *spit out a little coffee* "no! Why do you?"
me: *eyes looking down, ashamed* "well sort of, only a little though"
him: "well sweetie, maybe one day we will adopt, but as you know, we cant have anymore ourselves and I don't want a reversal"

The conversation was left there. I did not want to spoil our only time together in 5 months. So that was it until one of the last days he was home before he had to return to Iraq. I was watching something and it had a lady who was going to have a child on it and I burst into tears. It was pain. It was raw. And he had no idea what was going on with me. I told him again, that I had a desire to have more children, and that although I respected his decision, it still hurt to loose that hope. He looked deeply sad to see me hurt, and I knew the old Valerie could have taken advantage of that situation and manipulated him into making some sort of decision that would make me happy. But the thing was, I didn't want to just make me happy, I wanted to please the Lord and I knew it would not please the Lord for me try and "get my way" or even to speak about it again. He was calling me to leave it to him. I knew that in order to affirm this desire was from God, then He would have to come through my husband. So not another word was said about it and we had a fantastic few days together before he left. I did not bring it up again. Although I always had a cheerful attitude with my husband, and was working really hard at leaving it in God's hands, my womb still cried out for a child. One month later God answered my prayer. My husband informed me he was sad about the vasectomy and that God simply "would not let him be!" (his words exactly). He said he did not know what to do about it, but that he was going to pray about it. I said "OK". My heart soared with hope. One month after that he said, very casually, "why don't you look up some vasectomy reversal stuff and see how it works." So I did. I reported to him what I had found, including a Christian doctor only and hour and half from us that did reversals incredibly cheap, as a christian ministry. My husband said, "OK make me an appointment with him as soon as I am scheduled to get home." And I did. He got home, we got the reversal done, we got fantastic results and the doctor gave us a 96% chance of conceiving (although he was clear to point out it was God who decides).
Now it is a year and half later and still no child. But we are different people. WE love children as we have never loved them before. The desire to have more children had led to us loving the two we have even more. It lead us to our decision to homeschool. It led us to our decision to adopt and maybe even foster. It lead us to love children in such a passionate way that it brings tears to our eyes. There is nothing more sweet than to watch my sweet husband get on his knees and plead with his heavenly father to bless us even more. He desires for more children, but we love and know God enough to do our best to be content with what he has given. But we will never be the same. The vasectomy was by far the worst decision we have ever made, and the one we regret the most. Our children even cry for siblings they may never have. And it was all our doing. God gave us a precious gift, a LIFE giving gift, and we threw it back at him and said "thanks, but no thanks". OH what I would do if I could go back again. But I cannot. So for now, I will love all children that God brings my way, be it biological or adopted, or even just kids I meet at the library or in a store. For they are a precious gift. So apart from my sadness at not having yet conceived and the fact that babyshowers can sometimes be serious cry fests for me, the reversal was a wonderful gift from God, but his greatest gift was the reversal that took place in our hearts. For truly we are changed for the better.
Oh God let us never despise your good and perfect gifts!