Generally speaking, taking six months to conceive is basically no time at all. There are couples that struggle for years, and I don’t take for granted the fact that it took my husband and I a fraction of that time. Still, knowing that we weren’t getting any younger, and having already waited so long for this (we’ve been together almost 13 years), I can’t downplay the disappointment that came with each month of negative pregnancy tests. Those stark white, empty circles that I stared at from every angle, under every possible lighting. My husband and I had decided during the summer of 2018 that 2019 would be the year we started trying to have a baby. We knew that it would never financially be the “right” time, but we were better off than when we first married, and we knew that we could responsibly bring a child into the world with what we were working with. So I started asking Jesus to bless us with a child, but only if it was His will, and only when it was His timing. Not when we wanted it to happen, but when He wanted it to. Because He knows better than we do, and I trusted that. January through May were unsuccessful, and even through the disappointment I reminded myself of my constant prayer and took solace in the fact that it clearly just wasn’t His time for us. Still, I wanted to take that prayer a step further. And I’ll be honest, maybe my reasoning wasn’t the most important one, but it was important to us: I knew that if we conceived the following month, the baby would be born in February. February has always been a special month for my husband and I. It’s our favorite for reasons that are irrelevant to list here, but nonetheless, we held out hope that once again February would prove to be special for us. My husband even said it himself once I presented him with May’s negative test, “maybe everything is pointing to February.” Knowing that a February baby would be so meaningful to us, we both started to say the Novena for Couples Hoping to Conceive via praymorenovenas.com. We had hope, but still knew in the back of our mind that His timing would always take precedence over our timing. Luckily, we were all on the same page. On June 9th I found out that I was pregnant, and that my due date was the same day that my husband and I started dating almost 13 years ago (one of the reasons for our love of February). Sometimes God answers prayers. Sometimes He answers them in a huge way. And for us, this due date was huge. It was our sign that this baby was a direct answer to our prayers, picked just for us, just at this time. Are novenas some kind of magic answer to our petitions? No, of course not. But they help us persevere in prayer as we spend these nine-day periods with a deep focus on what’s in our hearts. It’s our Upper Room; our version of where the Apostles remained in prayer during the nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost. Novenas have been a source of great blessings for me. Not only this particular one, but on two other occasions I’ve received clear, nearly immediate answers. From a novena to Our Lady of Loreto which found us our home in the most coincidental way ever just two days after the novena’s end, to a Christmas novena to St. Andrew that repaired a seven-year-long issue in two months, I’ve been blessed and am so grateful, but I know that is isn’t always going to turn out that way. That’s why we pray first and foremost for God’s will to come before ours. Always. Still, there is so much to gain from novenas even when they aren’t answered the way we hoped for. The Novena for Couples Trying to Conceive can be found here. If you’re like me and prefer a paper to read from, I’ve put it together in one simple page that you can download and print below. The purple sections are what you begin and end with, with the daily changes in the middle. Please share your favorite novenas with me in the comments; I love to hear all the ways in which God works in people’s lives. And for all of the couples hoping to conceive, I pray that you’ll get your miracle at the perfect time. Download here:
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AuthorCatholic. Wife. New Mama. Trying to figure all of this out one step at a time. Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from Him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
-Proverbs 127:3-5 Archives
December 2019
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