Waiting

I’ve never really considered myself overly impatient, but no one has ever accused me of being overly patient either.  I hate to wait in line at the grocery store.  If there’s an option to self-check, I’ll go that route every time, even though experience has taught me that sometimes it actually takes more time to go it alone than it does to wait in line for the cashier to do her job.  I hate sitting in traffic so much so that I’ll go another, longer way just to keep moving and avoid the feeling of waiting.  Just today I gave a short story test to my freshmen and I thought I would die of boredom waiting on the last kid to finish so we could move on to new stuff. 

I’ve always heard to never pray for patience.  People say that with this ominous insinuation that if you do, you’ll be doomed to wait on something FOREVER.  Lately, I’ve come to the conclusion that someone else must have prayed for patience for me.  That’s the only explanation for this eternal season of waiting I find myself in.  We tried/waited nine months to conceive Levi. We waited nearly nine more for his arrival only to find out that a whole other kind of excruciating, eternal waiting would be our fate.  We’ve been trying/waiting almost six months more to conceive another baby, and some days (like today) it seems like we really will be waiting on this forever. 

Like I said earlier, I do not enjoy waiting.  I like to take action.  The time I spend bagging my groceries doesn’t bother me nearly as much as standing there watching someone else doing it.  I don’t mind the extra gas spent rerouting myself home because I am still on the move.  I’ve tackled the last few months of TTC with the same attitude.  I’ve read everything I could find about fertility.  I bought a basal body temperature thermometer.  I’ve used ovulation predictor kits.  I’ve sacrificed sleep for… you know.  And I’m still not pregnant. I’ve eaten a healthy diet, gotten a good amount of exercise, and added regular servings of  “fertility boosting” foods into my diet.  And I am still not pregnant.  I am still waiting on it to be “our month.”  I can’t even let myself think about if and when our month should come and hopefully bring with it nine more months of waiting. 

When I am honest with myself, not only do I not like waiting, I do not like not having control over the situation.  There are so few things in life that I have absolutely no control over (right honey?) and this arduous task of trying to start a family has shown me that this is one thing that I cannot plan and execute for us no matter how hard I try.  I know that God’s got this.  I know that waiting time isn’t wasted.  I know that good things work together for those who love the Lord.  I know the refiner’s fine is purifying me.  I know all that and I believe all that.  I also know that waiting is HARD and I am utterly sick of it.  And some days (like today) it just makes me feel better to whine about it for a bit.