Manifesting a Family

There are things that happen in your life that you have no idea the impact it will have on your life.

I had no real relationship with my biological father.  Which lead to a behavior in relationships that would by all natural thoughts say there is no way I would have a long term relationship with a man let alone marriage.  I could never see myself in a committed relationship because I thought men were unreliable.  Honestly I gave them two options you buy me things or you better be good at sex.  You fail at any one or both of those things and we were done.  You attempt to harm me physically and there are a whole other set of consequences and this was the first conversation I had when someone would call to get to know me.

I didn't start my menstrual cycle until I was 15 and would only have a cycle once a year, twice if it was a good year.  One day my mother realized that I hadn't asked for a replenishment of feminine products and asked me about it.  I told her I didn't need any.  She asked me what was I doing and how was I getting them.  I told her I still had the ones she bought me initially.  That lead to a whole battery of questions that landed me at the doctor.  When I told him I started when I was 15 and now at 16 I hadn't had another one.  He ran some test and suggested that my mom put me on birth control pills so that my cycle would regulate. Well that worked only as well as I took the pills...I was always forgetting to take them and thus the cycle of no period continued.  By the time I got to my twenties I prayed a prayer.  "Lord when I meet the man I'm going to marry and we are going to have a child let my cycle regulate."  Not knowing the power of my words.  A few years later, I started declaring that my body is not a baby making factory.  I made that declaration so frequently it became my tag line.  I demanded that a man wear a condom not because I was concerned about getting a disease but because I was not going to get pregnant.  Fast forward twenty years and now in my forties, watching all the reality shows about pregnant women having children.  Something rose up in me and I decided I wanted a baby.  At my next ob/gyn appointment I tell my doctor and he compassionately tells me it's not going to happen.  He told me because of my age and that I only have one cycle a year, he wasn't sure that I was ovulating. He explained to me, if I'm not ovulating there would be no egg to fertilize.  With no fertilized egg there could be no baby.  I went home and started praying for a baby.  I told my sister that I thought I wanted a baby.  She looked at me like I was crazy for wanting a baby and I was 40.  I told her I was going to have a baby.  When I told my mother she called my sisters and told them to talk me out of it because I was too old to have a baby.  A year later I go back to the doctor and asked him again about a baby.  He asked me about my cycle and I told him nothing had changed.  He looked at me with a lot of compassion and reminded me of the conversation about ovulating.  I hate when people tell me I can't have something I want.  I looked defiantly at him so he gave me this paper with a lot of red squares and told me I would need to take my temp every 15 minutes to see if there is any fluctuations so we could see if there was a chance that I was ovulating.  Then he looked at me with a grimace on his face and repeated to me that my age, weight and cycle frequency are indications that I would not be having any children.  I told him that I had prayed and I was going to have a baby.  I talked about it all the time.  Then another year goes by and no changes with my cycle and my weight had gone up.  By medical standards I was not going to have a baby because I was approaching menopausal age and had started to exhibit premenopausal symptoms.  Well I was dating this guy and told him of my desire to have a child and he decided he would be the donor.  We tried as much as we could but another year goes by and still no cycle and no baby.  By now I started talking about getting married and having a baby.  So I ended the old relationship that was just a shell of a situation because I had gotten to a point that all I wanted was a baby.  Then I called my mother and told her I had ended the relationship and wanted to get married.  I didn't say anything about a baby at that point because the conversation may have taken off in a different direction.  No questions asked my mom prayed with me and then told me no to be caught up in what things looked like.  I didn't think about what that meant I just said ok.  This was on the January 13, 2007 and I was 43 years old.  I'm older than I was when the doctor first told me I was too old to have a child, I was about 20lbs heavier and still no regular cycle.  I figured at least if I get married it would be easier to adopt.  Not that that process was a walk in the park.  Let me say something right here.  There were a lot of nights that I would be in my bathtub crying for hours because I figured since I was having frequent sex with no protection there was no reason that I shouldn't have gotten pregnant.  Thinking maybe the doctor was right.  But no that can't be right because the Bible says be it unto me according to my faith.  Other nights I would ask God why is it with everything else I'd prayed for I had received but my husband and baby.  There was no reply.  It was as if the heavens were closed and only I was hearing my prayer.  Those were some of the most agonizing nights and sometimes days of my life.  I would get text messages from friends that were engaged and that made me sad but I kept my game face on and tried to celebrate with them.  I knew that Bible said rejoice with those that rejoice.  So I was doing that even through the pain.  Well back to the day my mother prayed.  I went about my day and just praised God for my husband.  Exactly one week later I met the young man on the bus that I thought was rather cute.  He spoke to me and we started small chit chat.  Something I would never have done normally.  Nothing about this was normal.  When I asked him his age and he told me he was 30 I walked away quickly.  He came after me and asked why I was running.  I told him he was some one's child and I was 43.  He looked at me and told me age wasn't anything but a number.  We hit it off very well.  We would talk everyday.  Something that I had prayed back in my twenties happened.  My cycle started on January 25 and came on the 25 of every month after that.  I didn't pay it any attention though.  After about 5 months he asked my father if he could marry me.  My dad gave his consent.  We decided to get married the upcoming November.  We started marriage counseling in September and I told him of my desire to have children.  I told him what the doctor had been telling me for the past 3 years.  He looked at me and told me he had a low sperm count.  That was a blow to all of my insides.  Then I asked him if he would consider adoption if we couldn't conceive.  He told me that wasn't something he would do "too fast".  I knew that was his nice way of saying no.  The following Saturday we went to marriage counseling and I brought up the subject of adoption.  The Pastor's wife was all for it and thought it was a great idea.  The Pastor suggested that we only consider adoption after all medical options had been exhausted.  Which sounded good to my fiancé.  After the session I asked my fiancé if he knew how much those medical options cost.  He admitted that he didn't and never thought about it.  He just knew that he had been telling his family for the past 10 years that when he met the woman he was going to marry the he would have a baby. I looked at him and told him in my very fussy tone, "Dude do you know those medical options cost more than I make a year?"  He wasn't the least bit concerned.  About a week later I was talking to my sister and telling her that I had a strange cycle in the month of August and hadn't had one the month of September.  She said, "You haven't had a period...You're Pregnant!"  I told her I was always missing a period and she insisted that I go to the doctor.  I said, "I am not going to he doctor because I missed a period.  He knows that I don't have them all the time and would send me home.  As bad as I would like to have a baby, I'm not getting ready to go pay a copay for him to send me home disappointed. Besides I have my annual next month on the 12th so I'll tell him then."  She rolled her eyes at me and that was the last we discussed it.  The following month, I go to my appointment and tell him what I told my sister.  He gave me a head nod and didn't mention it.  We proceeded with my pap exam and I met him in his office for my consult as we always did.  He walked to the edge of his desk and told me the pregnancy test was positive.  I looked at him in disbelief and started laughing.  He asked if I was okay and I just laughed.  There were lots of things running through my mind but it wasn't really real to me when he said it.  Then he told me of all the things that could go wrong with me and the baby.  He gave me a brown bag of vitamins and told me to come back the next week for an ultrasound.  That was the most difficult week of my life.  I called my cousin, my best friend and my sister to tell them I was pregnant.  They were excited and I was stunned.  I wanted the baby but I was in shock.  I finally called my fiancé to tell him I was pregnant.  He was working, so he just said okay.  I sat at my desk staring at my computer.  Nothing got done at all.  Later that evening I saw my love and he was sloppy drunk saying he had never impregnated any one before.  I was in shock still.  He wanted to call his mother but I asked him to wait until I could wrap my mind around everything.  The next morning he was going to his mom's and he said he wouldn't be able to keep it from her so I told him to go ahead and tell her.  I sat in the bathtub for hours that night because I was in awe of the faithfulness of God.  I finally got up the nerve the next day to call my parents to tell them and they asked if we were happy.  I told them we were and they said congratulations.  We got married November 10, 2007 and moved to Atlanta the following week.  I got under a doctor's care immediately and was given the same information regarding being high risk and what was probably going to go wrong.  I told the doctor that I wasn't going to have any issues.  I had to go to my regular ob appointment and once a week I had to go to a "High Risk" clinic.  The first visit to the high risk clinic the doctor told me I should have a amniocentesis.  I told him my husband and I had discussed it and would pass.  He told me that there was a 76% chance that the baby would have downs syndrome and I told him I had been praying and there wasn't going to be any problems.  He proceeded to give me all the medical information.  I asked him what the risk of having it done would be and he told me the sac could get ruptured and I would miscarry and I told him I would respectfully decline because I had prayed too long for my child and would take what I have.  I went back every week and I enjoyed it because I got an ultrasound every time I went.  About a month before my due date he released me saying, "There is nothing wrong with you or your baby."  I was so happy but then I realized that I wouldn't be getting another ultrasound and the next time I see her would be when I delivered.  I never had a sick day during my pregnancy.  I cried a lot but that was about it.  According to my husband I was a little hostile.  I had a healthy little girl and she came on the original due date without any help.  She is healthy and beautiful.

Here a pic of the family!!




Here's a collage of my daughter on each of her birthdays from the her first day until her 5th birthday.
 
And of course this is one of my favorite of the millions:
 


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