How did we get here?

Starting a family.

Let’s just say, I’m quite the planner. From the moment I graduated High School, I had a 10,15, and even 20 year plan.

When we got married, our plan was to enjoy 5 years of marriage kid-free, then start trying towards the end of our fifth year.

But, if you’re a believer, you’ve surely heard this saying

“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”

It’s funny that even through everything God has shown me, I still thought my plans would pan out.

So for me to tell you how we go to October 2018, celebrating a year of life for our precious daughter, we have to travel to the Middle East.

Yes, Jordan.

If you’ve known me for a while, you know in 2016 I applied and accepted a fellowship with the United States Department of Education to study in Jordan and create Social Studies curriculum for Teachers in America. This time in Jordan was rich, and opened my eyes in many ways, but this was something I didn’t expect.

As you may know, the Middle East is cradle of civilization and also where Jesus and his followers began. We were blessed to visit many sites the disciples and even Jesus himself walked and experienced. My roommate, Allie, and I would visit these biblical sites and pray over each of them as we came and went.

One day, we were fortunate enough to take a tour separate from our entire group, and the lead lady was so kind to take us to the prison where John the Baptist was beheaded.

Allie and I looked in amazement, and prayed. Allie is quite the photographer, so she walked around, took photos, and held a conversation with our tour guide.

I stood there with a churring I never had before that moment while I was here. Each biblical landmark stirred something up inside of me, but at this prison, I felt the need to ask God:

“What do you want from me?”

“Start your family.”

“Yes, I will, but what else do you want from me?”

There I went bargaining with God. We were in year 3 of the 5 year plan, kids will come later! So WHY did I need to start now?

By now, it was time to head back to the city where I suppressed this interaction with God until October when my Pastor hit me with some deep stuff.

“Delayed obedience is disobedience, and disobedience is sin.”

Welp.

After church, my palms were sweaty as we carried on conversations I couldn’t focus on because of my conviction after the sermon.

I knew what I had to do

Joe and I got in the car and I immediately said:

“I have to tell you something. We need to start our family now.”

I don’t think there’s an emoji to explain how Joe felt in this moment. So finally, I gave him the context and told him the exchange me and God had back in August while in Jordan, and my sweet husband, the logical, numbers man, was stumped. We decided to pray and solicited the help of fellow friends/prayer warriors.

The week prior to Thanksgiving, Joe told me he was in agreement and we could start trying for a family.

That Monday, I was enjoying the presence of friend on our patio, enjoying our break from work, suddenly I heard someone in the house. Joe was home, and way too early.

“Hey! Whatcha doing home already?”

“I got laid off.”

I left and asked my friend if we could have time to process what happened.

How could we start a family with this news? The rest of the week we kept this sad news from our family as we hosted our first Thanksgiving in our home.

After the holiday, we told family how Joe had lost his job, and we didn’t talk about growing a family for a couple of weeks. For our anniversary, we already planned a cruise to the Bahamas, and while we were on the cruise, we knew God didn’t want us to to keep us from starting our family, so we decided the next cycle we’d try. 

The week we came back from our cruise, happy and still unemployed, we went to church where Joe helped with greeting guest, and after service, his played with a family friend’s child. While chasing each other outside, Joe fell and broke his elbow.

Yes, you can break your elbow, y’all. 

So, we hop over to our ER and spend our chilly Sunday getting checked out, wrapped up, and meds up.

Today say we didn’t feel defeated was an understatement, it just didn’t make sense to us! Because we weren’t sure the side effects of his medicine, we decided to wait yet another cycle to let his body heal and detox whatever he had in his system.

Finally, Super Bowl Sunday came, and well, the rest is for many other blog posts!

Be good,

Sydney