I'm not even sure where to start except that I know God has called me to tell my story to reach other woman out there that are struggling with the same thing I am.
I grew up in what I considered a "perfect little world". My mother and my father got married in 1987 after being high school sweethearts. They built a house out in the country on a nice piece of land. Actually it was the house that "raised me" providing I lived there for 19 years. (Sometimes I feel like I have lived in a bubble my entire life when people talk about how they have lived in 400 million places.) Anyways my mother was able to stay home with me when I was little and when I was 7 I had a new baby brother. We grew up never needing anything and most of the time always getting anything we wanted. My parents made it a priority to spend as much time with family as they could. We were always at the dirt track races and when we were not there you would of found us at the lake. My parents were very invested in our lives and made my brother and I their top priority.
I attended Republic High School and dual enrolled at Ozarks Technical Community College in hopes to get a head start in my career. My dream was to always work with children, although at that time I wanted to be a teacher, now I have found an amazing passion for working in the before and after school program.
The summer before my senior year I was working at Ruby Tuesdays in Republic.( I will never forget interviewing for this position one year before that. A younger gentleman interviewed my friend and I. He told us that they only hired blonde pretty girls... I think that was illegal.)
One night after my shift I met up with some friends in the parking lot. I remember there was a nice car, a dodge charger, and a handsome man standing next to it that stole my heart that night. Trevor and I have been together ever since.
I graduated high school with a scholarship for two years of college which I attended to finish off my 198 college credits in four years. Minus the math classes (I'm still willing to pay someone to take them for me- I think this is also illegal) I got married a few weeks before I turned 20 and our lives seemed to fall directly into place. I had been working at Republic's before and after school program for two years and had just been promoted to site leader. Trevor had just graduated from the Sheriffs Academy and had received a call back to work at the Greene County Jail.
Shortly after we bought are first home in Clever it was a quiet little neighborhood in the middle of the tiny town and we loved it.
So why did I tell you all this? Not to tell you how great my life was or to tell you that I had no problems growing up but to tell you where my testimony began and when I realized that all of this was my testimony. I guess I had always assumed that you had to have something tragic or terrible to happen to you for Jesus to use you. This indeed is a lie.
So the title of this blog is Broken to Blessed. So where is the broken part? This is where things began to shift.
In 2010 a few weeks after Trevor and I got married I had strep. My mother had drove me to urgent care in hopes I could get an anti-biotic and I would feel better by the next day. I paid my co-pay and they called my name. The nurse took me back to get my vitals only to be followed by her yelling for help to the doctors and her asking me if I felt okay...and I kind of thought well that is a little ironic considering most healthy people who feel okay do not come to urgent care... but I told her that I didn't feel bad. They did an EKG or 3, mainly because they thought the machine was broke, and she informed me that my heart rate was 232 beats per minute, I ended up in an ambulance to the hospital a block away. They stopped my heart twice that night. (I even have the EKG flat line to prove it) The nice gentleman of a doctor (insert sarcastic remark here) explained to me, several times, that I had SVT (Supra Ventricular Tachycardia), which basically means a rapid heart rate. I have learned a lot about this and learned how to cope with it and have not had to take a single emergency medication since.
In high school I always considered myself to be the pretty girl...blonde hair, blue eyes and a little over 100 pounds. But something had changed after high school. I gained weight. Not just some weight but almost 50 pounds of weight. I honestly did not think to much of it, I mean I was concerned but I did not realize how much weight impacted how people think of you. I had "friends" tell me that I wasn't like I used to be or people would say "you were a lot different in high school" I knew what they meant. I have always been able to read between the lines but some of these things were said to me like headlines in a newspaper, as if I wasn't supposed to feel anything when people said things. I had gone to the doctor and they did blood work several times to not really tell me too much of anything. So I learned to let it go. I wasn't huge and I knew Trevor loved me either way.
In 2011 Trevor and I decided that we did not want to prevent from having a baby anymore and that it might be the right time to start a family. I consulted a family member who is a midwife and when I had disclosed the information about not having a period since 2008. The weight gain and some other spontaneous symptoms made sense and she told me that I had PCOS. (polysictic ovary syndrome)
This confirmed my worst night mare. If you are unaware of what PCOS is, it is the leading cause for infertility in women. PCOS is the highest cause of miscarriages and out of those over 62 percent carried almost full term. I started to question God about why he would do this to us? Remember I lived this life in a bubble. I didn't drink or do drugs I mean after all what is the woman's most important roll on this planet but to conceive and deliver a baby.
I was put on metformin which was a prescription drug used for diabetes but is used for patients with PCOS so that they will be able to ovulate. Except this didn't happen. I faced a point in my life that I had never had to deal with, pain.
We were hopeful for a while, planning sex, and then the mind tricks would start a few weeks later. I would feel nauseous in the mornings and would begin to text my friends who have been pregnant if they thought it might be this time but it never was. I began to stock pile pregnancy tests in my bathroom draw and in some cases would take tests 3-4 times a week, but they all said the same thing. No matter how many times I would pee and pray. With each test thrown in the trash can the deeper the pain inside me grew. It wasn't fair. It effected every day of my life. I grew to believe that there was no baby for us and my sex drive dwindled as I would cringe at the thought that I might think I was pregnant again. Every night of sex meant disappointment in just a few short weeks.
Three years went by and family and friends advice grew stronger. I heard things like "Something bad needs to happen and then you will conceive" or "You just need to not think about it" or the best one "Just relax, it will happen". I even began to joke back about saying"I don't have any eggs" Maybe that was my way of coping every time someone would ask if we were going to ever have a baby. But I'm here to tell you that when you struggle with infertility it doesn't work like that. It haunts you. I'm sure my family is going to ask why I never would go see a "doctor" about it, maybe in fear that they would confirm what I knew in the back of my mind was never going to happen.
I never have struggled with depression. But I know pain. I know what it is like to think your God given calling is to have a family and I think we forget that its not our own way but God's way. He has a plan for your life that is bigger than any of your dreams. I know what it is like to not feel like a woman, I know what it is like to want something with all your heart that seems so effortless to other people and I know that many woman struggle with this.
I was given a calling to minister to young woman who are struggling with infertility, to give them hope. God has taken my brokenness and is using me to bless others. After all that is what it is all about.
