Elephant Gestation a Big Black Dog and the Stifling Grief of Getting Back to Normal

Today I am supposed to be getting back to normal. I am still supposed to watch my activity level and check in with the still rawness of a freshly scraped womb, but I am supposed to start getting back to normal. I was for a while. I tried to start yesterday, I dressed up and held my head high as I walked into church and went back to work. I tried last night as I led a meeting for our Alaska team. I tried to talk even when the pain of being on my feet for a long time and playing youth group games took some of my breath away. I tried as I realized that I would no longer be carrying a big baby filled belly to Alaska with me. I tried this morning as I tackled the laundry that has piled up in the last couple of weeks. But I soon found myself on the couch covered in my dog and my tears, like some awful country song. It’s probably the hormone fluctuations but I think there is more too it than that. Instead of normal, today I found grief and defeat as I am sure that those who have walked through miscarriage, fertility treatments, and so many other losses have before me. 

I wanted so desperately to bring more of God’s joy and love and redemption into the lives around me. This adventure with surrogacy was supposed to do that. I knew it would be taxing and stressful, but it was the kind of stress that came with promise and hope, instead of more bills and more heartbreak. We had enough of those icky kinds of stress. Little thing after little thing with some pretty big things sprinkled in one after another for years, made me long for something different, something new. I thought we had found some of that in surrogacy. It was something cool we could do to help others, to bring life and beauty to the world, and even if pain came with it, at least it would end with joy overflowing and not a debt of yuck. It seemed to do that for a while, it brought excitement, encouragement and hope to a lot of people around us and to our two families. 

Yet here we are in the yuck. I thought once the surgery was over, and my body took a few days off to recover, my mind would be in a better place. It was for a bit, maybe just distracted with trying to will my body to strength and my life to normal. Now though, as I try to get back to routine, the grief of it all is hitting full force. The loss of that little life, the end of the adventure. Returning to normal means it really is over.

We knew this was a possibility, but it was tucked way back in our brains. It had to be, for us to try this really. We all were prepared for the embryo not to implant. I think if at the six week ultrasound we had seen no heartbeat, we would have been disappointed, but not surprised, and we would have been able to move on sooner. This though, was much harder to take, much more complicated to deal with, and delays the whole process a lot more. It wasn’t something we really took into account, and I am sure that is for the best.

Many have asked if and when we will try again, this is perhaps one of the most painful parts of the infertility process. That is out of our hands at this point. We could decide not to, but none of us want to do that. To proceed, though, my body has to be evaluated again. The parents have to be willing to wait for me to recover, everything has to sit on hold for months as we wait on my body. Suddenly the adventure that began last winter, may not end until next winter. Now it seems as if we are on an elephants gestational time table. If we do try again my body will be riding hormonal waves for a very long time to come.

Sometimes it’s easier for me to turn to music, than scripture. I know as someone who works in ministry, I am not supposed to admit that, but it’s true. Often thankfully scripture is woven into and inspires the music that makes it so much easier to digest the messages of God’s love, hope and joy in the midst of defeat. So I am clinging to this Rend Collective song today as I cling to the huge black dog that sits with me in grief. He and I take a break from getting back to normal and just sit for a bit. He puts his head up close to mine, when he sees the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes, and he helps me to find some joy, he reminds me of the message of this song, the message of Jesus, that there is redemption, that life can spring from death.

I will wait for that light of my soul to warm up this cold shadow of grief. I have been so blessed over the last two weeks to have my family and my friends remind me of those things too. Through meals and cookies, calls, texts, messages and prayers, there have been little bursts of light, there have been moments of joy and for that I will always be grateful. If we do go through with this elephant pregnancy, it’s those things that will give me the courage to continue and to embrace the rest of this adventure. So I will try to choose celebration. I will work on celebrating the amazing family and friends I have, instead of grieving so much for the little life, and opportunity we lost. I will sit in the arms of this crazy dog and try to understand that I am in the arms of Jesus himself.

Adding injury to the insult of carrying or “miss”carrying death

I share so you will get a glimpse, you will hear a note, maybe you will understand a fraction of how cruel fetal demise, miscarriage and what follows it are, because carrying death is awful. I know my story is a little bit different. I didn’t carry this baby as long as some have. I didn’t have to scoop it’s remains out of a toilet, as some have. I didn’t have to give birth, knowing after all the work there would be no reward of cries, or breath in it’s lungs. I didn’t have to decide whether or not to terminate the terminal. Women have had to do some absolutely horrible things in the wake of their baby’s death. In many ways I am lucky in other ways though, my story is the same as the women who have bravely walked this road before me. It’s filled with a pain and vulnerability all of it’s own.

The chaplain of the Catholic hospital intruded on the morning that I was trying to face without grief. I had sat with death for a week and a day, and I just wanted it to be over and it would be, at least in part, the big part. It would conclude with a Dilation and Curettage, the same procedure used for abortion. My body held on to that lifeless baby for two weeks, thankfully I was only aware of the one. My body still nauseous and tender and tired, didn’t realize that the life it was making itself sick to support was gone. My brain did though, and it was freaked out. I spent the whole week trying not to think about it, but it would always creep in, and the tears were never far behind. I was carrying death. Once it was a sweet little life, so full or promise and redemption, but now that life was gone and it was sitting in my gut like a stone. Yesterday though, I didn’t want to dwell on it, I didn’t want to cry that morning. I didn’t want to get in touch with my emotions, a room full of people were about to get in touch with my private parts.  I just wanted to suffer through the indignities of the hospital,the indignities of this procedure and go home.

But there I was laying on the stretcher with only a paper gown, some socks and a hairnet talking about baby memorial services, and carving the baby’s name on a special tombstone. Once again in this process, I was nearly naked in front of strangers, discussing a baby that wasn’t mine. I just wanted to shout at the chaplain, “What name could I give him, I’m not his freaking mother!”. But I didn’t I was polite and courteous, and just tried to get the conversation over with as fast as possible. I was offered a small blanket, which I rejected. I didn’t want to talk about the baby. I didn’t want to think about the family whose job it was to name this baby, and whose grief I was carrying too. I didn’t want to explain why I was crazy enough to try and do this for a stranger, I didn’t want to deal with the assumptions, the presumption of judgement, the embarrassment. Maybe if he was mine, I would feel different, but I doubt it. In that moment, he was in my body and he was lifeless, and I didn’t need a tombstone or a memorial service to tell me he was significant or valued, or God’s child. I knew those things all too well, but I couldn’t talk about them in hospital socks and a paper gown. I needed to at least be wearing underwear to talk about them, to think about them. I needed to at least have him physically not with me anymore before I could process him being gone.

She kept talking of the necessity of sharing your feelings, and talking to someone, but again, in that moment, I was sharing more than I cared too. My height, my weight, my medical history, my vagina were all on display or would be shortly. In that moment I just needed to focus on getting through, because truth be told I was scared and miserable, and so very naked. I was scared of anesthesia, my hand hurt from the IV. I had to stumble through the hallway to get to the bathroom in that stupid paper gown while managing an IV. I was about to literally have my insides scooped out with the surgical equivalent of a spoon and a vacuum!!! I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to grieve in that moment I just wanted it to be over, and she was dragging it out. She offered to pray, but even that I couldn’t take. I did not know her, she didn’t know me, it felt intrusive. I know she was there to offer comfort, but she only brought grief and the ugly feelings of vulnerability that played a part in this whole surrogate process. It brought out the indignity of it all, it made me feel like I did “lose” the baby, like I did “miscarry” it, because this all seemed like a horrible punishment.

The chaplain had offered to come after the surgery, but that seemed worse, and I am so glad she didn’t. After I was wearing underwear, someone else put on me while I was asleep. After I found sensors on different parts of my body, that I didn’t place there. After people were talking more to my husband than to me, because presumably I wasn’t coherent enough to take it all in. The surgery was described to him, the instructions given to him. Yet again in this surrogacy process, I felt like my body was not my own, like someone else was in control, like other’s were discussing me as if I wasn’t even there. After I was tired, after I was empty, after I was supposed to move forward.

It’s hard to move forward, to grieve for a baby that wasn’t mine to name, or to bury. How could I hold onto a blanket for a baby that I would only have held briefly? It just seems wrong. Not only was I carrying death, I was carrying the weight of knowing another family is grieving, another family is carrying this as well, and that breaks me. I can only imagine how hard it is to grieve for your own child. For some I am sure the blanket is comforting but to me it just added to the shame I had already piled up on myself for putting everyone through this ordeal. Even if it was not my fault, it felt like it. I imagine there are similar feelings for anyone going through this, surrogate or not. How do you grieve for someone you hoped and dreamed about but never got to know?

Being wheeled out of the hospital with a new baby is such a great high worth of commercials and movie scenes,but being wheeled out with empty arms and a womb freshly scraped is it’s own cruel torture. I just wanted to get back to life as normal to move forward, but I am not allowed. I have to sit and rest. I can’t distract myself with work or routine, because even changing clothes causes pain and makes me break out in a sweat. I was warned that even if I start feeling okay in these immediate days following the surgery, the pain will rebound in bigger ways if I try to go about my normal day. I may not be carrying death anymore but my body still carries the lingering effects of having carried a life and then having that life removed. There is still so much left to feel, even if the process is over, and perhaps that is the worst part. It’s cruel how our bodies betray our wishes to put everything behind us and move forward. It adds injury to the insult of it all.

Hitchhiker Adventures #3: The words "Miscarriage" and "Lost the baby" are not okay

I have felt this way for a long time, but I couldn't speak out, I wasn't part of the club. Well, I got my card yesterday, and this sucks, so I am saying something. It's time for a language change, an attitude change a change at how we look at fetal death. You really want to convince a woman it isn't her fault that a baby died, don't call it these things, because nothing says you did this, like verbs that imply miss doing something or losing something. I didn't lose this baby, I know exactly where it is, in fact my body is holding on so strong it's going to take anesthesia and a team of people in an operating room to get it out. I didn't miss carry anything. I carried it well, I did everything I was supposed to, I took shots, I ate well, I made sure I was active, I sat when I wanted to work, I slept when I wanted to stay up. I didn't misplace or mishandle this baby.

Then there is the stigma that I should have kept this a secret, so we wouldn't have to tell people that the baby died. Screw that, that is messed up too. Yes it sucks that so many people were excited and joyful and now gloom has fallen upon them as they grieve this loss too, but it would suck more if we were trying to hide it and keep silent. That is messed up. I shouldn't just now be finding out so many people have also had miscarriages. Why did they feel they had to keep that silent? Because of this stupid stigma.

There is an idea too, that it's so early, it's not really a life, or a big deal. Whatever. I have been working on this baby for close to a year now. It's been an idea, a dream, and physical work for months. Even if it wasn't a long project, it's still a big deal. There was a life and now there isn't. There were hopes and dreams and now they are gone. There was relief and excitement and a heartbeat and it stopped. There were plans, and schedules and all kinds of things in motion, now they have stopped. We are back at square one, actually we have a few months to go before we get back to square one. So we are at like negative ten right now.

I guess you could say, it's not my baby too, so it shouldn't be that hard. Maybe you are right, but it was excruciating to see that there was no heartbeat, and wait for the doctor to say it outloud and look at this woman who has gone through so much, who trusted me with her baby, and know that the lifetime she had already started planning for was over. It hurt that I was the one crying and she was strong and trying to comfort me. Our family had dreams too, we had plans of giving them this baby. I had hopes of being done with this and getting my body back by the holidays. I was almost done with the injections. It feels like I not only let down myself, and my own family but a whole other family as well.

The language is horrible and the feeling of failure is overwhelming. Maybe I have proved all the "I told you so's" right.  Maybe this wasn't a good idea. I brought misery to my house, I have put my husband's mental health in danger. I risked it all, and literally according to medical terminology lost it. Lost it like I lost my phone, or gambled it away and lost it, either way that is a horrible way to phrase it. I chose to do this, I chose to take on this risk of loss, and here we are. Add another nail to the failure coffin. So if you are in this camp, steer clear, I already see your face of disapproval in the mirror.

Now we are back to unknown. I am wondering again if I am worthy. Before we can try again, I have to get through surgery. I have to have more anatomy examinations. The doctor and the family have to discuss whether they want to move forward with me. They have to decide if I am worthy. So you can say it's not my fault, you can say I "just miscarried", but the louder message, the one screaming in my head is "maybe, you can't do this". I imagine for those that "lost" their own babies, the feeling is pretty similar.

The doctor told me I didn't have to try this again. Even though we committed, I can still say no. Honestly though, I think being told I can't try again will be devastating. As much as I don't want to be working toward pregnancy and pregnant for the next year, as much as I don't want three more months of shots procedures and blood tests, of waiting to find out if it worked, the alternative is so much worse. Going through all that I have since the evaluations started to what is coming next Tuesday in the operating room, and not having a baby for that family would feel like the ultimate failure, it would feel like a waste. Yes we have had an adventure, made new friends, learned about a whole new part of life, learned more about each other, strengthened our bond as a family etc. But right now, I can't be grateful for that. Right now, it sucks, the possibility that this is it, burns worse than the pockets of oil I injected into my hips. I am sure I will get back to a sense of gratefulness, but I am not there yet. Let me get this out of my body first.

I can't even go to the God side of things right now either. I just can't start thinking and questioning. I am so glad that at youth group this week, we have a lot of work to do practicing for a lip sync contest of all things, because I really, literally "just can't". I am glad this week is full of busy work, not big theological questions, silliness and not sermons. I don't have to explain this week, why God let's really yucky things happen when people are trying to do something good. I don't have to go there, this week.

I just wish there was a different terminology, a different way to tell a woman what happened, to label this whole thing besides misscarriage and lost. Those words don't help with any of these feelings at all, they add to them. This is death, not a mistake, not a misplacement. There is great loss, but let's not use that as a verb. If it's not my fault, if it's because something was wrong with the baby, then why did I miscarry, why will that be what they say? The surrogate miscarried, she lost the baby. That says it all. No matter what tone it is said in, or what intentions are behind it, can you see, how much blame that statement can carry?

Hitchhiker Adventures #2: Loving your neighbor is AWKWARD sometimes

I promised I would keep the interested updated on this whole process, and let me tell you this week did not disappoint in the weird, awkward but also amazing department. Surrogacy, as my one young friend put it, is weird and cool. Actually it's a whole lot of both as evidenced by our adventures this week.

This week started with the typical early pregnancy nausea and other fun. I would take a bite or two of food and suddenly feel like gagging. I took this as a sign of good news to come, and since the hormone meds had helped me pack on ten pounds, I felt okay with eating small portions. The baby and I would definitely be fine. Speaking of hormones, my mind was filling with crazy and my hips were filling with oil. I was paranoid and weepy all weekend. The injection sights on my hips were turning into large swollen lumps of unabsorbed oil, that burned like a new tattoo. All of which was frustrating, but to be expected after 88 injections. People keep asking me if it feels real, yes, it is very physically real, and has been for some time. My body has been highly involved in this since the beginning of December. The multiple pregnancy blood tests don't make it feel more real; they just give me hope that the meds will be over soon, and we won't have to repeat the process. Admittedly it all gets frustrating and overwhelming at times. I don't want it to affect my family or my work. I feel like if I am too tired, or fragile feeling to do something I will have failed. I dread the "I told you so's" from those that didn't think I could do this, and I don't want to see that knowing look of "yep, I knew this was coming". Luckily those voices and those looks are few and far between.

It's not really about me though, it's about loving my neighbor and sometimes that is uncomfortable, hard, involves failing, requires you to lay down your ego, and it get's awkward. It got real awkward. We have been talking to the Hitchhiker's parents a lot, skyping, texting emailing etc. We have only seen them once though in person. This is awkward for a lot of people. They think surrogacy is cool until you tell them you didn't know the people before, they weren't friends, then it's awkward. As one person said "is this for a friend or for a paycheck", as if they are mutually exclusive. People don't understand why you would do this for someone you don't know, and their incomprehension often leads to judgement and big fat, false assumptions. When I started calling the OB office this week, I just said I was carrying the baby for friends. It's easier that way. Truth be told, they now are friends. After all, you don't get half naked and hang out with a paper table cloth on your lap for strangers, at least I haven't. There I was though, undressed and with my feet up in stirrups for a very invasive ultrasound with the Hitchhiker's parents sitting next to me. It was bizarre, it was weird, it was so socially strange, but love looks and feels like that often.

It was in the next moments that we moved from awkward to amazing in this neighbor loving process. The doctor quickly located the teeny tiny, Hitchhiker, and you could see and hear his heartbeat. His teary eyed mom videoed the screen while his dad sat with tears in his eyes. There were whispers of thanks yous, and questions for the doctor, but it was the incredible moment. We all realized that they would most likely be parents again. There is still some risk, being so early, that the baby will stop developing, but for that moment there was hope, and redemption and love. I was still half naked with my feet in stirrups, but it didn't matter so much anymore, because we were watching a miracle of God and science, and they will soon be parents again.

Love is hard. I think that is why Paul spelled it out so much in 1 Corinthians 13. None of these qualities he mentions are easy to maintain. These are hard things to do.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.  (MSG version)

So yes, this is hard and awkward and weird and embarrassing and painful but that is what true love is, it's also beautiful, redemptive and amazing.

Why we waited to vaccinate

I have kept my mouth shut, I have bitten my tongue to near bleeding as I have watched all of the thrashing of parents who wait to vaccinate their child. I can't do it any longer though.Some of the articles and comments written on this subject are very well meaning and well intentioned, but many are sweeping, bullying, generalizations. Yes some parents aren't thinking through this clearly, and are just going on rumor, but there is a lot more to this. Beyond that, parenting is hard and scary at times. You want the absolute best for you kids, and it's not always easy to sift through everything in this world and the information overload, and decide what the best is. That is where we found ourselves when our kids were little, so the two of us, both college educated, well read, middle class professionals, decided to delay some of our kid's vaccinations.

It started honestly, with the autism link. During the period of 2000-2006 when we were having young children, the information on the link between autism and shots was not so clear. We knew a family, well educated, well meaning people, whose son didn't show any signs of autism, until after a big vaccination. We saw them struggling through therapies, and trying to bring back the son they had before. It may not have been the cause, but at the time the vaccinations looked very suspicious. We also had the makings of a genetic predisposition to autism, if such a thing existed. We had a family member on the spectrum. So it seemed to us, if autism was in our background and shots potentially turned something on inside some individuals that activated this in kids, we didn't want to take that risk.

We didn't just decide this for ourselves based on rumors, or feelings, we discussed our family history with some awesome pediatricians and they recommended a slow delayed plan of vaccines. Eventually our kids received all of their vaccines, but they were not complete until after our youngest turned three. This meant that for our oldest, we were filling out documents for daycare,preschool and kindergarten to exempt her from vaccines. The form said we were doing it for religious beliefs. As a Christian who is called to love others, I couldn't put my kids in what I thought was harms way. I also was aware that other children were vulnerable. We weighed the risks,and decided that delaying was the best option. At one point we were going on a trip and our doctor recommended the MMR before that trip, so we followed her advice and made sure we weren't giving any other injections at the time, so as not to overwhelm their systems. The vaccine we held out the longest on was the varicella otherwise known as the chicken pox shot. These decisions were not easy for us, I agonized over them, and it was embarrassing to have to fill out those forms, and to get exclusion letters from the school warning that they had to be turned in by a certain time.

And those statistics about the number of exemptions in each school, that you might be freaking out over, they probably aren't totally accurate. Our kids were fully vaccinated to the school's requirements five years ago, yet a few months ago we received a notice, saying we had to provide notice of vaccination or resign the form. It was a clerical error.

I share this all to say,  please stop shaming and judging these parents. You don't know them, you don't know the experiences they have had or the advice they have received. Don't lump them all in with the people that are being negligent and aren't doing their homework. Saying things like "is autism risk more important than risk of death", aren't fair. Calling these parents stupid is not okay. Better education is required, but just like with anything else, compassion is a better way to approach it than judgement and hate. Ultimately fear drives people to make this decision and bullying people is not going to help them overcome that fear.

Sermon: The Satisfaction of Surrender

The master story tellers at Pixar made an amazing short Christmas special this year called Toy Story That Time Forgot. In this film they illustrated one of the basic and yet hardest concepts of Christian faith so incredibly. In the film, the toys are living with Bonnie, and she has a triceratops toy named Trixie. Bonnie plays with Trixie all the time, but not as a dinosaur, sometimes she is a horse or an alien or a reindeer, but never an actual dinosaur. Trixie starts to get really frustrated by this, after all it seems like she was created to be a dinosaur, and all the other toys, even Slinky Dog and Buzz Lightyear have been pretend dinosaurs. After Christmas Bonnie takes her toys over to a friend’s house. The friend has just received a whole set of battle dinosaurs, that he hasn’t even touched because he has been preoccupied with a new video game system. Bonnie joins him playing video games and her toys start to explore the dino world and Trixie is excited to finally get to play as a dinosaur. They soon find out that these dinosaur toys have never been played with at all and don’t understand that they are toys. She thinks she will finally get to fulfill her destiny.

We often feel like there is something we are meant to be, to be happy or to be our true selves don’t we? We strive to do and get new things to make us happy and give us the life we want. Oprah even has a new tour, the Life You Want Tour.

We lose ourselves in that pursuit of comfort sometimes, in the pursuit of having the life we think we are supposed to have. Living in this country it’s easy to do, there is the idea of the American Dream that we think we have to have or deserve to have. A certain sized family, house, cars, savings account, retirement fund etc. While those things aren’t inherently bad they can at times eclipse the real purpose of our lives; who we are made to be as followers of Jesus. A woman named Jennie Allen describes it in her book, Anything. She had all those things, a house in a safe neighborhood with good schools, a full two car garage, all the little comforts, and she started to become disillusioned with it all, she felt God calling her out of it. She said this, “It’s too easy in this country for blessings to become rights, for stuff and money to become what calls the shots in our lives and before we know it, God’s gifts have replaced God himself.”

We replace our passion for God and for others with the passion for acquiring and protecting this dream. These things, these parts of our life that we do desperately want to have and want to bring us peace, can’t do that. The reality is they can all slip through our hands at any moment, really. In the last decade we have seen people that have built careers, pension accounts, equity in their houses only to have them all slip away when things crashed. None of them are as secure and as satisfying as we think they are, but like Trixie we think that is what we are supposed to have and if that is what we have we will really be happy. Jennie Allen found that she wasn’t happy. She sums it up so well in her book, Anything, “We all want joy, passion, love and peace, instead we are marked by fear insecurity, apathy and restlessness.”

In the Toy Story Special, Trixie finds this to be true as well. The Battlesaurs are just dinosaurs, not reindeer or unicorns. No one has ever played with them and infused them with imagination and wonder of something more. They are so focused though, they are missing out, and they can’t accept Bonnie’s toys. They mock them because they are owned, and have to submit to someone. The leader of the Battlesaurs is threatened by Bonnie’s toys and decides they need to be destroyed. To save them Trixie has to convince one of the Battlesaurs to put himself in the hands of a child and accept that he belongs to someone, and can be something more if he allows himself to be played with. Trixie realizes that she is more and her life is better when she submits to Bonnie. There is a pivotal scene where she is trying to convince him of this. She tells him he needs to trust his child, and she tells him all the things he can be, all those things she used to think weren’t good enough. He needs to let go, and he does. The Battlesaur says, “it’s all about surrender” and falls into the hands of a child. Surrender is a hard word for us. We don’t want to submit, or yield anything, especially our stuff, our hopes, our dreams, our will. Things are so tailored to us as individuals right now, that we have a huge problem even submitting bits of our comfort. Fights have broken out on airlines recently over little devices that prevent someone from reclining the seat in front of you. Neither person is willing to yield their personal space for the comfort of another.

In this passage of Matthew 16:24-28, Peter is restless, like Jennie Allen described. God has just told him he will be the rock on which Jesus will build the church, he should be excited, satisfied to be given this position. As Jesus begins to describe how Jesus himself will have to suffer and die before being resurrected, Peter freaks out. This is too much, this is too uncomfortable, this cannot be how things will be done. Peter doesn’t want to suffer, or have Jesus suffer, he doesn’t want to sacrifice, but Jesus tells him, we read it earlier, but here it is from the message. “Self help is no help at all, Self sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want and lose your soul? “ (Message version of verse 24).

Jesus himself sacrificed and suffered for us. He gave up his comfort, his place, his perfection. That is what he calls us to as well. He calls us to lose our lives for him. But he promises that in this we will find our trues selves. Over and over again in scripture Jesus warns us that we will have to give up our personal comfort, stuff, family, our ideas of what is right, our ideas of other people and more for him, but in return we will have life in abundance, our true heart’s desire, salvation, love, grace, purpose, the ability to be a part of something so amazing.

The Toy Story storytellers nailed this. Trixie thought her life would be fulfilled if she could finally be a dinosaur, because that is what she was supposed to be right? But she learned that it was in surrendering that to Bonnie, and playing at whatever Bonnie decided to make her that she was truly happy. It’s in the surrender, as she taught her friend.

Are we willing to do that though, are we willing to fly that white flag, and say, not my will but yours be done, as Jesus said in the garden the night before he was crucified? Are we willing to pray to God, Anything, take anything, as Jennie Allen and her husband did one day? Are we willing to spend our days pursuing what God would have us do instead of what we are worried about and what we want, even if it means we might not be comfortable? Are we willing to take that risk?

I have been thinking a lot about surrender lately as we have been on this journey toward surrogacy. I promise I won’t talk about it in every sermon for the next nine months, but it’s so raw and so fresh right now, and such a part of a big journey God has us on. This couple has surrendered their embryos to a laboratory, and now to us. They have to give up that baby, and allow us to care for it. They have to sit back right now and let us take over. I can’t imagine. It was hard enough to surrender our kids to daycare and babysitters, let alone, let them live with someone else for nine months, trusting their decisions. It’s not comfortable, yet if they don’t do this, they have no chance of bringing this life into the world, they would miss out on a child and a sibling for their son.

What adventures do we miss out on, because we are holding on too tightly or too worried about things that don’t matter, when we should be focusing on what matters most to God? Are we so worried about achieving comfort and security that we won’t take any risk with God?

When I first started telling people about my plans to be a gestational surrogate, people brought up every fear that had been nagging at my brain. A lot of them had to do with my vanity. What would happen to my body, what if I gained a lot of weight and couldn’t lose it because I was older. That was a huge fear for me. Then there were questions of the emotional toll, bonding with a baby and then giving the baby to its parents. Then there were questions about enduring the sickness and the fatigue. The more people asked though, the more my fear dissolved, because when I heard it from their mouths instead of my own thoughts, it sounded more ridiculous. It really did. I thought, seriously, I would let these things stand in the way of helping someone bring a kid into the world? I would let these stop me from loving my neighbor? They seemed so selfish, and so inconsequential. Jesus gave his life; I could give my vanity, my comfort and some emotional sacrifice.

It’s been uncomfortable. It’s hard to tell people you are doing this, it was hard to tell all of you. I am sure people are judging me, and thinking this is silly, especially when I tell them it’s my way of trying to follow Jesus and obey him. It’s hard as someone that hates medicines and putting stuff in my body to suddenly be taking handfuls of things and injections everyday. It’s been emotional already, and we just transferred the embryo on Thursday. There is huge risk still, this is not a healthy, viable pregnancy yet and it’s far from over, but we have already found so much reward, so much adventure. We have great new friends in the intended parents. We have learned a lot about our own family and how we communicate, we are connecting better and talking more. We are more grateful for the things and people we have in our life. I am starting to get less worried about the small stuff. I am relying more fully on God to get me through everyday. Instead of waking up and praying through my worries, I am waking up and asking God to give me strength to serve him better, and show me how to love those around me. I am a work in progress, but at least I am making progress. I feel tired, but I feel so alive and infused with purpose and presence. I feel inspired and invigorated in new ways.

When we step out and surrender to God, we are more dependent on him. We have to pray more frequently, we have to rely more on him then ourselves, we see him out in his word more, and we get to see him at work. We get to see him up close, and that is awesome.

There are so many stories in the Bible of people who were asked to risk it all with God. Abraham was asked to sacrifice his child, but God himself came and stopped it. Noah had to build a floating zoo and saw God’s creation close up and personal, but also saw God provide and act in big ways. Mary risked her life, to bring Jesus into the world and treasured it all in her heart. The disciples left their fishing and Pharisee careers behind and were a part of miracles. They all were mocked, they all were frustrated, they all suffered, but they all experienced the presence and power of God.

One of the people that really inspired Jennie Allen to pray and offer everything and tell God he could have anything was Katie Davis. Sylvia has talked about Katie and we had her books, Kisses for Katie for sale at the gifts fair. Katie was a Tennessee teenager that had it all. She lived in a big house in a fancy neighborhood, had a convertible, was homecoming queen, had a boyfriend. She could afford to, and would be accepted at any college she wanted to go to. She was all prepared to get herself a piece of the American Dream as an adult. Katie went on a mission trip to Uganda during Christmas Break of her senior year though, and those ideas of what she should be were shattered. Her heart broke for the poor and the orphans of Uganda, and she decided to take a break and not attend college right away and spend a year serving there instead. That year has turned into a lifetime calling now. Katie tried to go back, she tried to go to college and get her piece of that “good life” but her heart took her back to Uganda. Now at 23 she is the mother to fourteen girls and runs Amazima ministries, which feeds and provides education to thousands of kids in Uganda. She found happiness unmatched by anything she had in America, by surrendering to what God wanted for her life and allowing him to use her as he saw fit. She is the Mother Theresa for a new generation and she has grown to know God in such deep and intimate ways.



We need to start seeing our lives as less about our comfort and our success, what we think would be good, and more about what God sees, how we can bring his kingdom here to earth. John talked last week about Proverbs 3:5-6 and trusting God, putting our future in his hands. We need to put today in his hands, we need to offer up everything and see what he can do with it.

Who knows where he will take us, what he will do. Not everyone will get called to Africa, but you might get called to new people, new adventures, new opportunities that you never dreamed of. It requires obedience. It requires surrender. These things may be mocked by our society, obedience and surrender. We value individuality and fame and fortune above all else. We have to die to ourselves everyday, and in the most mundane ways sometimes to allow God to really work in our lives. We have to serve the people in our house well, before we can hope to serve others. It might be in the everyday things, that you are called to serve. Can you use your home to host your neighbors, or your car to help someone out? Your daily interactions with your kids to help them understand the love of Jesus and share that with others? At school, maybe you need to branch out and try new groups of friends or new classes, where God has a whole new opportunity. Maybe you need to spend less time on social media and more time hanging out with people, talking to them face to face. Oh the horror of small talk!! Maybe it’s a more basic car, so you can free up some money to give to something that builds God’s kingdom, or maybe it’s learning to just be content with what you already have. Maybe it’s sacrificing the comfort of a night or weekend off and volunteering somewhere. Maybe somewhere you would never have gone before, maybe youth group at the Open Door or a homeless ministry, or a hospital ministry, a prison ministry. What are you willing to risk, what are you willing to surrender?

We have to be willing to die to our own selfishness everyday. Challenge your insecurities, look at what you worry about the most or hold the most dear and see how those places, those things, those people can be given over to God. If you take them out of God’s hands and put it in God’s what is the worst that can happen? God promises you and abundant life, he promises you love, and grace, mercy, and that things will go well with you. Maybe not your definition of well, but his, and he has way bigger, way better ideas than you. After all he is the guy that created sunsets, and the platypus. And if you want to see something mind blowing I can show you a picture of a six day old, microscopic embryo that hopefully in nine months will become a seven-pound baby.

God is amazing, and he can make every part of your life so much more amazing if you just surrender to him. It may not be the life you thought you wanted or needed, but it will be the life you were meant truly meant to have with God.

Hitchhiker Adventures #1: that crazy click clack point of the roller coaster

It is beyond weird to think that next Thursday I could be pregnant. I am going to walk into a medical office and let them put a baby in me. I can't even tell you how exciting/anxiety producing/freaky that is. I wanted to give you the details though, and I have struggled about how much to post with the surrogacy stuff. Not because I am embarrassed by it, or don't want to share the details, but because I don't want people to think I am showing off in anyway or trying to draw attention to myself. This isn't about me, it's about doing the right thing. In my case that looks like following Jesus call to love others, and put my selfishness to the side. It isn't heroic, it's just doing what you are called to do to help someone out. It's putting back into the world the love that has been shown to me. I want to post not so you will look at me and go, man she is awesome ( I will list for you the 1000s of ways I am not if you say that) but I post because 1) If you were doing this, I would want to know all about it, this stuff fascinates me, and I know it fascinates some of you too! 2) Awareness leads to greater acceptance-fertility issues are hard, and a struggle that a lot of people feel they have to suffer through in silence, and there are many ways to go about solving those issues, the more we talk about them, the less stigma involved, 3) we have friends all over the place that might care and I want to keep them involved, 4) Maybe there is something you are good at, capable of doing for others that you might not have thought of before to do and our journey might just inspire you too.

So basically for those interested, I will update, I call the baby the Hitchhiker (affectionately) because he is going on a ride with us and we are just picking him up for a while to get him to his next point (or her). I won't include details about the family, but I will give you details about the process.

Right now the process is at that scary point of the roller coaster where you are slowly moving up the hill and it's clicking and clacking and counting down to your crazy decent and the start of the fast, whip your head around, maybe make you sick part of the ride. We are just days away from the FET- frozen, embryo, transfer. That is when they take the little ball of frozen human (understand that this too is affectionate and I am in no way demeaning his little cryogenically preserved life), and they thaw him out, and use a catheter to put his little microscopic self into my uterus. This week the two of us have quite the preparations to undergo. He has to thaw, get examined, washed, and chosen to be strong and worthy for transfer. I have already been chosen, but I have to kick my body into high gear with handfuls of meds, and shots. I go in next week not pregnant, after deciding we were done with having our kids, Valentine had a vasectomy we were that done, and I walk out hopefully pregnant with a baby that isn't and will never be ours, but part of our extended family of friends.

Tonight I take the meds to the next level. Now instead of one little insulin needle everyday, and a bigger needle twice a week, I have one big needle a day, and two additional big needles twice a week. The shot process becomes a little more involved, requiring more care, effort, and bigger risk of mood swings. I also go back on the antibiotics that wreaked havoc on my digestive system earlier in the process, and start a steroid to help avoid inflammation that would cause the Hitchhiker or myself to reject the other. So far, the meds have not been that bad with the exception of the antibiotic. The biggest symptom has been sleepiness. I am not the night owl I once was. I have a feeling in the next week it will get a little more intense.

I have learned so far that I am the lucky one. I was able to have two healthy kids without enduring any of this. When I go in for blood draws and exams, I sit in a waiting room full of couples that are desperate of the outcome I have had twice, with a way more fun method. I take the injection and swallow the pills knowing my body is already capable of doing what it needs to do. I don't have the pressure to perform. I am just enduring the side effects, not the roller coaster of emotions that those couples have to live through. So honestly, it has not been that bad for me, being on this side of it. It's more weird than bad.

The pressure is really on the embryo. The Hitchhiker has to be healthy, hatch and hitch on. Next week I will be on bedrest for two days after transfer to try and allow him to do just that, although there is no real scientific evidence that what I do, effects his ability to implant.

So for the next week especially, and a few weeks after, I would appreciate prayer, good thoughts etc. for the Hitchhiker, myself and our families. We won't know for a few weeks if it worked, and we will still have to make it through the first trimester to make sure he is healthy. I will continue on shots and other forms of hormone doses for the rest of the month, so pray especially for Valentine as he is confronted by a wife on waves of high dose hormones. There is still risk of miscarriage if he does hitch on. There can still be loss for our families. It's not a done deal yet.

the first time I was pregnant

I am sure there is a roller coaster of emotions ahead of us all  I will keep you posted on the ride.