Hope

Tonight my husband and I started a new family tradition – lighting an advent candle each Sunday leading up to Christmas. The advent theme for tonight was “hope”. When reflecting upon this timely theme, I can confidently say that today, I have hope for the present and hope for the future. Through all of life’s trials, I have tried to remain hopeful.

However, going through years of infertility can cause you to doubt your faith and to lose hope. At least it did for me. Some days I had very little hope. Some nights, some doctors appointments, some lab results felt hopeless. One loss right after the other. Grieving multiple miscarriages can drain your hope in becoming a mom. Each positive pregnancy test would renew my lost hope, only to get taken away weeks later.

But through it all, I held onto the belief that someday, somehow, we’d build our family. I didn’t want my hopeless days to dictate everything and turn into a hopeless life. I wanted to believe in a bright future of possibilities. Over the past year and a half, since our last loss, my hope has come back, and come back stronger than ever. I have learned so much about life, about myself and about my faith since going through infertility, and I am undoubtedly hopeful that I will be a mom. It’s hard to explain how my hope grew, but I think I really never lost it to begin with. It was buried under piles of grief and guilt and pain. But with time, prayer and support, hope has remained a constant strength to keep pressing on.

Today I am more open, more excited and more hopeful about not only growing my family, but about life in general. I’ve learned that without hope and a positive perspective on daily events, I would be lost. Now, this isn’t to say that we are pregnant, or anywhere close, but our years of loss aren’t going to steal my hope. And my hope for YOU is that you find joy, strength and support in hard times, because I believe hope is what anchors us in today and in our tomorrows.