Book Review - The Edge of Belonging

 It's September 1994 when homeless Harvey James finds a newborn, still covered in blood and wrapped in a men's flannel shirt. The moment the tiny girl wraps her fingers around his, Harvey knows that this child cannot be thrown away the way he has been. Each would be the family the other had not had before.

It is September 2020 when The Edge of Belonging by Amanda Cox finds its way into my hands and doesn't leave them until I reach the end of this stirring and deeply emotional love story. You know the kind of book where you know what's coming, but the real enjoyment is in the reading? If you really wanted to shoehorn me into a literary type, that might be it. Life is full of surprises; action, adventure, twists & turns are great in a book, but sometimes I just need to know that it's all going to end up well and the most stressful plot point is that the male love interest confuses the female love interest's brother for a romantic rival. There's just the right amount of tension and misunderstanding before the confusion is unraveled and everyone lives happily ever after. 

I spent the entirety of The Edge of Belonging feeling like I had it pegged and thinking I would cruise along and enjoy this one, then shelve it along with all the other cozy books I have enjoyed. I suspect the author knew that was what would happen, because she didn't let it go so easily. Amanda Cox flat out wrestled with all the stressful plot points. Some of them hit closer to home for me than others, but they are all very real and very relevant. She handled them with care to bring about a story that needed to be told and treasured. I'm all full of book recommendations, in case you haven't noticed all the blog posts, but this one gets a special spot on my recommendation list. The Edge of Belonging is the kind of book you'll want to purchase in the physical copy, because I guarantee you will know someone else who needs to read it.

The Edge of Belonging by Amanda Cox is currently available from your favorite bookseller.

Christianbook: https://tinyurl.com/yxbu76zw

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/y4szmn63

Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/yy8llwyk

Thank you to the author and to the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book. All of the opinions in this review are my own and are completely genuine.

Walking by Faith - an update

Back in March I posted about our experiences with infertility, and how God is using these experiences to prune me. You can read about it here, if you missed it the first time. I enjoy reading it - not because I wrote it and I have some ego complex, but because I love to be reminded of the work He is doing here. He is so awesome!

So here's a little update. After the surgery in December '09, I knew that He was telling me to give it up. Not my hope for another baby, but my fight against His plan. To make things perfectly clear, I do not regret all the doctor visits and the poking and the pain. They were no picnic, but they were part of a powerful learning experience. They brought me closer to the Lord, but they also brought me closer to my husband at a time when I didn't think we could get any closer. Some couples turn on each other, some couples turn to each other. We grew together. I told him that I truly believed we needed to step back for a while, and that the Lord would let us know when it was time to pursue pregnancy again. And he supported my decision - because he's super-fantastic like that. We learned to focus on each other, to focus on our precious daughter, to enjoy all that He has planned for this stage of life. The beginning of each cycle was another reminder of what "wasn't happening," but I got to the point where it didn't own me. We didn't quit trying, but we quit letting it lord over us. Every night Princess Pea Pod prays "... and thank you, God, for a baby..." My thoughts went from "How can I tell her that's just not going to happen?" to "In your time, Lord, and according to your plan."

In June I went to Hot Daddy to tell him that I felt led to pursue another HSG. Not because it was fun, but I was feeling that it was time to find out if the tubes were still blocked. He agreed. We had been told that if they were still blocked our only options would be surgery or using medical interventions to aid conception. We didn't feel led to either option, so we knew that if my fallopian tubes were still blocked then we were still nose to nose with a brick wall. Due to timing issues and doctor shuffles, that test didn't take place until last week. Hot Daddy took me to the hospital and waited as patiently as he could.

The doctor said he has been accused of downplaying the amount of discomfort his patients would experience. Since the same doctor had downplayed the amount of discomfort I would experience during my first go-round, I didn't hesitate to confirm that for him! I explained to him that the first HSG had shown my tubes to be clear in November '09, but that both were suddenly and inexplicably soundly blocked in December '09. He was baffled (which keeps me at 100% for baffling the medical minds with this one) and said that my tubes were indeed still blocked. In the middle of explaining to me that he would not likely be able to flush them, considering how long they had been blocked, he stopped. Not the kind of sentence where you want to be left hanging! But then he said the blockages had both been flushed clear. (Kind of like my sins have been flushed by the blood of the Lamb.) Hallelujah! That's MY God! (And props to the doctor, too.)

All of a sudden things that hadn't happened in 20 months were happening again! Little cycle signs that I used to take for granted. Am I pregnant yet? No. Will we be pregnant this month? Only He knows. But if we're not then its not His time yet. I love the way Missy over at It's Almost Naptime!! says they are "waiting for Isaac." God has a very specific plan with a very specific timeline, and THAT is what I want. I've learned my lesson from Sarah's mistake. She showed us what happens when you jump the gun and trust yourself instead of God. Thanks, but no thanks, sister! His plan works for me, so for now we wait and we watch, and we trust. And I praise Him for all he brought us through to get us right here. Right where He wants us right now.

Walking by Faith

I said, before I ever decided to start a blog, that I wanted to share our infertility story. Then I decided to start blogging and intended to post about it here. Then I decided that nobody wanted to hear about it because infertility is such a downer. But here's the hitch: my story isn't a downer! That is why I am writing now.
Stick with it, because there's a blessing here and I want to share it with you!

Hot Daddy and I got married on May 8, 2004 and we knew we wanted to start a family. However, we were working for a small company and did not have health insurance, so we waited. We enjoyed being newlyweds, we enjoyed having more space than we really needed, and a large office. We enjoyed sleeping in and doing what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it. But we wanted a baby. In July of 2005, shortly after our dear friend gave birth to a teeny-tiny-baby-bird-preemie of a little fella under extremely stressful circumstances, we learned that we were pregnant. We had hardly started trying. Technically, we were still in the "don't bother trying yet because your body will still be under the effects of the birth control" phase. Our lives were changing, and it was a beautiful thing!

Then came April 21, 2006. Labor and delivery went without complication, unless you count the part where the epidural didn't work in my abdominal area and every contraction peaked with me vomiting on Hot Daddy. He was such a champ! And in the end, we were holding the most beautiful little lady I've ever seen! Pale and pruny, with lots of dark hair. She was healthy, we were all happy. Princess Pea Pod had arrived!

March of 2007 brought with it the grand idea that Princess Pea Pod needed a sibling. Since conception with the principessa was so quick and painless, we figured we'd try for a couple months and welcome baby #2 around the time she turned 2. But we didn't. We did everything we were supposed to do for about 18 months and still the positive pregnancy test eluded us. We called the doctor.

In September of 2009 we met with one of the top reproductive endocrinologists (REs) in the state. By this time I was experiencing some pain and we wondered if it might be related to what they were calling "secondary infertility." I am an organized kind of girl, so I came in with nearly 2 years of specific cycle data. They poked, they prodded, they prodded my left ovary and I nearly passed out. They began to discuss endometriosis. They said things like "If this is indeed endometriosis, its possible that your first pregnancy is truly an act of God." They wrote orders for me to have an HSG to check my fallopian tubes and for the kind of tests that men pretend don't exist. We had those tests done in our hometown, since the doctor we were seeing is 4 hours from here, and returned with the results. My HSG prompted the use of terms like "beautiful" and "textbook" from the doctor who performed it and from our RE. They said things like "There's no reason here why you aren't pregnant." They said things like "Many women find that they get pregnant right after an HSG." They said "His test results are great. We see no reason why you can't get pregnant."

I was still hurting and still not pregnant, so we scheduled exploratory surgery with a local doctor in December. We needed to know if endometriosis was the reason. Now, when I say "I was still hurting," I do not mean that cramps make me cranky. I am talking about excruciating pain; the kind that would be described as "white-hot" and "stabbing." The kind that makes you dizzy and causes your knees to buckle right out from under you. The kind that would cause weeping, if it left you the strength to weep. So less than 2 weeks before Christmas, they opened me up. They found endometriosis, enough to cause that kind of pain, but they also found that my reproductive system had not been damaged. It was not that discovery that rocked my world, but the discovery of the blockages in my fallopian tubes. Remember the HSG in November? Remember "beautiful" and "textbook?" The doctor who performed my surgery told me that he had seen the video from November and was baffled that in December BOTH of my tubes were blocked so soundly that he had tried THREE times to flush them and stopped so he wouldn't cause more damage. I could see the confusion, the frustration on his face and I felt it too. But I felt something else even more.

"I know why my tubes are blocked, and its ok." Now, if you've ever earnestly told a doctor "I know something you don't know" you will get some idea of the way he looked at me. He was ready to give me a little something for depression. And if you've ever literally felt the hand of God, you'll know how I felt. You see, we had closed our eyes and our ears and run at the brick wall of infertility with all our strength. What I was only then realizing is that it isn't infertility that we were fighting, we were fighting God. In all my digging, and according to any of the doctors we've talked to about this, nobody can explain why both perfectly healthy, perfectly clear tubes were so quickly and thoroughly blocked. But by God's great grace and wisdom, He has blocked them. Because I was not leaning on Him, I was leaning on Hot Daddy. I was leaning on myself. I was leaning on a handful of doctors and nurses and technicians. And none of those people can do what my God can do. None of those people know how my story ends, but He does. He wrote it.

This is the point in the story where the happy ending goes. This is where an infertility story often says "I was patient and we were blessed with twins," or "God expanded our family and now there are six of us." This story is not over. There is still no second baby for our family, no sibling for our principessa, no son to play catch with our daddy. I would love to tell you that I am so consumed by faith that I never even think about it, but I am not going to lie to you. I am constantly reminded that my womb is closed, but the blessing is that I am also constantly reminded that He is in charge. He is carrying me through. His plan for our family is perfect. And when He expands our family, it will be with the one He chose for us.