Stories of God’s faithfulness through infertility.

By the end of the summer of 2020, after months of being confined to my home, removed from the relationships I live in every single day, I began to feel an ache around many of my long distance friendships. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I was feeling. Sitting on the edge of my husband’s side of the bed with my elbows perched on my knees, I did my best to explain. “I think you should go see Emilie,” he said.

One of the first negative emotions I ran into once we decided it was time to get pregnant was anxiousness. Not anxiety, per se. It was the sense that we should have already started this journey by now, and it was officially “go time.” Time had gotten away from us, and we were behind schedule. Since college, I had always thought I’d be a young mother. I cultivated career skills that would be flexible enough for a stay-at-home mom life. I wanted to give them my time and my prime-of-life energy.

Piled together on one third of our slouchy couch, with our white shepherd Marlowe occupying the other two thirds, we were having one of those nights where it wasn’t quite bedtime and we weren’t quite sure what to do with ourselves. Glancing at the stack of books on our mantle, I thought, I’ll read aloud from Stories of the Saints. What a wholesome way to end an evening. I opened to a page near the front of the book, “Perpetua and Felicity.”