Your will be done

Christians often pray for the Lord's will to be done. Many times when I am praying for the Lord's will, I have a strong opinion as to how I am hoping He will answer the request. For several years I prayed fervently for the Lord to give us a child. For the first few years I was praying that the Lord would work through the fertility treatments and enable us to conceive. As we pursued first domestic and then international adoption, I was praying that the Lord would bring children into our family through adoption. My husband had wanted us to pursue in-vitro fertilization (IVF) instead of adoption, but I viewed IVF as a big financial gamble and thought pursuing adoption wasn't a financially risky endeavor. In actuality we lost thousands of dollars through our pursuit of adoption. After hitting many roadblocks with adoption, I finally agreed to try IVF. The first transfer of three embryos did not result in a pregnancy. It was very, very hard to accept the Lord's answer to those prayers. A few months later we transferred the one remaining embryo that had been frozen. This time the Lord's will was to give me my heart's desire - a precious baby girl. The next year we did IVF again, and the Lord graciously gave us an energetic baby boy. We did not have any embryos to freeze that time. Last year we pursued IVF for the third time. We thought if it did not work we would accept that our family was complete with two children, and if it did result in another baby, then our family would be complete with three children. Ironically, our third round of IVF resulted in our second baby boy as well as a frozen embryo.

For decades I had dreamt of having three or four children, so one would assume I'd be thrilled to know I might be having a fourth child at the age of 42. As much as I would love to have another baby, I am petrified at the thought of being pregnant again. My first two pregnancies went rather smoothly, but my third pregnancy was an extremely difficult and at times life threatening experience. As we are drawing closer to the time when we will begin the process to transfer our frozen embryo, I find myself constantly flipping back and forth as far as my opinion on how I hope it will turn out. I do not need to have a strong opinion. It's completely in God's hands. This is one of the few times I can sincerely pray "Thy will be done" because I am not sure how to pray. I know He cares about that precious frozen embryo, and He also cares about my life. The best case scenario in my mind is that this transfer would result in an uneventful pregnancy, but His will might not involve another pregnancy or (shudder) it might involve another very difficult pregnancy. I need to "trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding. In all my ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct my paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6)