To All Who Wait

It seems to me, from the time I was born with the maiden name "Waite" I was destined to live a life of waiting.  And (because of my name) no one ever wanted to let me forget it.

The orthodontist I saw during my teenage years cleverly told the same joke every month for 26 months: "Hey, Waite, have you been...waiting long?" to which he'd chuckle and probably congratulate himself on his wit...TWENTY-SIX TIMES.

Walking through the junior high halls, one teacher would always yell, "Wait!!! Wait, Waite!" and then laugh and laugh and laugh.

You see, everyone seemed to have a joke about waiting--and everyone was sure they were the first one to ever tell it. 

Awesome. 

When I was very young, my mom used to read me a book called "Leo the Late Bloomer" and at times, I felt like that was me. Because, often it seemed that everyone around me lived life while I waited for it.  I was one of the youngest in my class, which meant I was the last of my friends to go to dances, to drive, to date.  Some of my friends were married before I had my first kiss.  Some of my classmates had four or five kids before I was even married.  People my age had finished their families before I had even started one.

I have reflected recently on waiting, and have realized that waiting is one of the most common human threads that binds us ALL together.  Indeed, all of us, in one way or another, get the opportunity to learn how to wait.

We are all waiting.

Waiting for marriage.  Waiting see two lines on a pregnancy test.  Waiting for our child to see what matters most and change.  Waiting for a sick loved one to have improved health.  Waiting for our loved one who is suffering to pass on. Waiting to regain our own health.  Waiting to overcome a bad habit. Waiting for a first chance at love. Waiting for a second chance at love when the first one didn't work out. Waiting to get our degree, to find a job, to get out of debt, to own a home.  Waiting to see those we've lost again someday.

I think it is easy when we see someone waiting to want to help them, reassure them.  During some of my most painful waits, people offered a generous amount of well intentioned consolation.

"It's all going to work out."

"It's just because there's something really amazing in store."

"Remember, if it doesn't work out now, there's always the next life.  You'll get everything you want eventually."

I know that no one was trying to patronize me.  They weren't trying to make things worse.  But please tell me, if it is feeling difficult to wait almost ten years for a husband, how is waiting until I'm DEAD supposed to be comforting???

I KNEW that it would all work out someday.
I KNEW that there was something good in store.
But sometimes, even knowing all of that, it was the waiting that still made it hard.

For everyone, everyone, who has been in that same boat at least once, or happens to be sailing along in it now, I want to share my own very personal story of waiting.

It it not to patronize you.
It is not to say that everything will work out.
It is not to give you hope for some distant eternity.
It is simply to share my own experience because I feel it is right and it is time.

I have a hard time sharing personal things.  Most of them I feel are called "personal" for a reason.  In a day when people publish everything from their dieting journeys to their exact steps to getting pregnant to the fight they had last night with their spouse, I feel I know far too many intimate details about my neighbors and acquaintances than I had ever hoped to know.  Some of them, in fact, I wish I could erase forever.

In addition, I am more comfortable laughing at life or joking about the difficulties than talking very seriously and openly about them.  It is hard to be real when acknowledging the challenges we sometimes face.  Nevertheless, I feel I should share a piece of my own journey of waiting, in the hopes that it will help someone else along their own journey they are on. 

As most people know, it took me awhile to get married (If, of course, you're measuring my life in "Utah years").

When I was in high school my peers predicted I was going to go to one semester of college, get married, live in a house with a white picket fence, and immediately have six children.

I didn't.  

I went to college.
I lived in Alaska and Guatemala.
I served a mission.
I eventually graduated.
I taught school for four years.
And then, at the age of 27, I got married.

Now, to anyone outside of the Rocky Mountain West, that sounds about right.  But to me, it felt OLD.  That almost decade I was away from home was interspersed with wedding announcements, long weekends with no dates, being a bridesmaid many times over, terrible set ups ("He's single...you're single..."), great dates who said they'd call back and never did, baby showers, and people who stopped asking about my dating life and started asking about my career, as though they'd already given up all hope.

During all that...waiting...I remember distinctly sitting in church one day and listening to a story the speaker was telling.  It was about a woman whose daughter wanted a ballerina jewelry box that they happened to be giving the little girl's cousin for her birthday. She was crushed that her OWN MOTHER was giving someone else what she so desperately wanted herself, unaware that the mother had already saved an even larger one away for her daughter as a Christmas present.  The story ended with her turning to her daughter and saying, "You never know.  You might be next."

The words, "You might be next" entered into every part of me and filled me with an overwhelming peace and reassurance. 
God had not forgotten me. 
He had a plan for me. 
And who knew? 
Perhaps I was next.

Within a month, I met Paul.

As soon as a person gets married, the next question all the people who have been wondering if they'll ever get married want to know is "When are you having kids?"

By the time I got married I didn't have very many reasons not to go ahead and have kids:
I was graduated.
I had a job.
I had no debt.
I loved children.
And, on top of all that, based on my family history, I knew it might be difficult to get pregnant.

Paul and I would frequently discuss the topic and try to decide when the "right time" was.  I distinctly remember going on a walk one evening and telling him that it felt like the right time.  He agreed, and we decided to start a family.  It was a somewhat scary decision that required some faith, but I was positive that because it was right, it would happen.  Besides, it was perfect timing.  If we started our family then, I'd be able to have a baby at the beginning of summer, which would really be ideal.

I was so sure things were going to work out, I started scouting KSL for deals and even bought a crib and changing table.  I mean, haven't you ever seen Field of Dreams?  If you build it, they will come! 

And yet, the months passed.  And passed.  My brother and his wife announced they were having another baby.  My friends started having their second babies.  One friend announced a third, another her fourth, and even one her fifth.
And I was living in a house with a crib and a changing table.
And still no baby.

After a year, I went to see a specialist.  I went through testing.  Paul went through testing.  Once all the results were in, I went back to see the doctor. I remember sitting there, nervously, as he walked in.

He looked exhausted, as though he'd spent the entire night delivering babies.  He probably had.  He flipped open my file, scanned it, and then looked straight at me and matter-of-factly said, "Well, it doesn't look good."

He went on to explain that both of us had some problems and that while there were some options available, "Doing nothing (was) not an option."

I was crushed.  I had wanted him to just give me a simple problem and then give me a doable solution to fix it.

Shortly after that, we moved to Logan.

Do you know how difficult it is to explain to the people helping pack your moving truck why you're moving a crib and changing table when you don't even have a baby?  
Awkward.

And so, we moved, and our lives moved on.

According to my doctor in Utah County, I was supposed to have a specific surgery before we tried any fertility treatments--and with my knee surgery this December, moving schools and grades this year, and having Paul studying all day and night--it looked like that wouldn't be happening until summertime. 

Besides that, who has an extra $10,000 sitting around to pay for treatments (since clearly, having difficulties having children is not a medical condition, so it isn't covered by insurance)?

Fall passed.  The holidays came and went.  Spring began to peek its head around the corner.  I was looking forward to Spring Break when I'd get to see one of my best friends in North Carolina and surprise her for her birthday.  (Her husband flew me out.)

It was during that week in North Carolina that I realized I could be pregnant.

I texted Paul on Friday and asked him to pick up a pregnancy test for when I got home.
"WHAT?!" he replied.
"It's probably nothing," I reassuared him, not wanting to get our hopes up. "Traveling probably threw me off."

I arrived home Easter morning.  The first thing I did was run upstairs and find the pregnancy test (actually, there were four of them.  Leave it to Paul to want to be sure...).

As I was waiting for the lines to appear, I just knew it was going to be positive.

It was.

So there, on the day that we celebrate the Savior Jesus Christ and his Atonement, the day we remember miracles and new life, and the day we focus on the grace and mercy of God, we received our very own miracle.  And then we cried.

It still makes me cry.

Sometimes God, in his infinite mercy, grants us the wish of our heart.

A few people told me I "deserved it."
"Deserving" has nothing to do with anything.
I know plenty of people who have waited much longer and deserve a child much more than I do who are still waiting.
And, I also know plenty of people who don't even deserve to adopt a dog from the pound who nevertheless have a houseful of children.
See, life isn't about what we "deserve." 
But it certainly is an opportunity to be thankful for what we've got.
And I am very thankful.  

I told my aunt and uncle the news when they were in Logan one weekend, and my uncle asked an interesting question: "Who are you now or what have you learned that you would have missed if you hadn't had this experience?"

I thought about it for several weeks.

In the nearly two years of waiting, what would I have missed?

1. I would have missed the chance to come to know God through the people around me.

2. I would have missed my self-proclaimed, non-religious co-worker telling me that she was praying for me...and then reminding me that it was a really big deal.  I was so touched by the image of her praying for me at night.  I am still touched by it. 

3. I would have missed a friend who also had a difficult time having children wrapping her arms around me and and simply saying, "I love you.  And I will pray for you," and feeling that love fill me. 

4. I most likely would have missed some of the children I taught and was able to give my whole, entire heart to.

5. I would have missed the moment when someone I love very much informed me that they had been saving part of their paycheck every single month to pay for me to go through fertility treatments.  Who does that?  I mean, we all see people who struggle, but how many of us step up and give our own resources to actually be the answer to their prayers?

6. I would have missed the extra time I had with Paul, and coming up with crazy date nights every week (don't worry...those will continue).

7.  I would have missed the time it gave me to simply become more than I was before.

And what might I not have learned during the periods of  waiting that I've done the last decade of my life?

1. I might not have learned as deeply as I have to have faith in God's promises.  I may not have known for myself that He will always, always follow through.

2. I might not have learned to find the purpose in every stage of my life (even if I never expected the stage to last so long) and to make contributions wherever and I am--despite where I might wish I were instead.

3. I might not have learned that happiness comes from choosing a happy life more than it comes from objects or events, and that we can be happy wherever we are on the journey.  

4. I might not have learned that "Happily ever after..." the way we imagined as children may not exist, but choosing to be happy, productive, and fulfilled today always does.

5. And finally, I might have missed the opportunity to learn so intimately how to be compassionate toward others who struggle.

Because ultimately, that is what this entire lesson has been all about: how we treat each other during times of struggle.    

In our struggles, we always want to one up each other, as if to prove no one REALLY understands us, because we have it worse.

I mean, how DARE someone talk about how difficult it was to get married at 27!  They don't know what it's like to be 35!  Or 45! Or to be trying to get married AGAIN, the second time around. 

Or, who has the gall to talk about how sad it is to not get pregnant for 2 years.  Try seven, SEVEN!  Then you'd understand what waiting means.

Don't pretend we all haven't done it in one way or another.  I mean, once after church, I told Paul that the next pregnant person I saw, I was going to kick in the knee.  Hard.

I see now that life is not about one-upping each other in our difficulties or accentuating the fact that nobody understands what we are going through.  If there's anything I've learned, it's that nobody has to truly understand our own journey to still be willing to hug us, to pray for us, to love us, to lift up our hands when they hang down, and to work God's miracles in our lives for Him.  As we let ourselves be loved--even, and sometimes especially, by those who never, ever will understand--we see miracles unfold.

So perhaps my story isn't really a story about me, but rather a story of all those who blessed me along they way.  It is a story of how I (and each of us) in turn can lift that hands that hang down and be an answer to the prayers of those around us.  After all, we all wait. 

As we wait, let us lift those who wait beside us, whatever "waiting boat" they may be in.

And let us never be afraid to let others love us and lift us and help us--even when they may never truly understand.  Because if we do, we may miss some of the most beautiful miracles of all.