All of the tragedies and hardships in my life somehow point back to God. Cancer is the easiest one to label and the first one that comes to mind for many that know me. It was the one that brought me to God in the first place. Getting cancer at 24 years old has been one of my biggest life events, full of struggles, loss, and immense blessings.
I will undoubtedly discuss this in upcoming posts, as it’s an important story to tell, as it is not so much a story about finding a lump as it is about finding faith.
It’s not the story I’m going to discuss today though.
Indirectly, it does have a little to do with cancer. When I was going through treatment, I was told that, because of the severity of the treatment I had endured, I had gone into early menopause at 24 years old. The fertility specialist was eager to discuss alternative options, but my not-yet-married-or-engaged brain, just fresh out of cancer treatment, was not ready to engage in that discussion. I was dating my future husband, and we had some discussions about whether he wanted to continue the relationship with this information. Thanks to God and Mike’s amazing soul, he did.
Some time later, I received a call from the fertility office, and the woman on the other end said, “Guess what.” That’s not really the kind of message you expect to hear from a doctor’s office.
I tentatively said, uh, what?
She happily exclaimed that I was pregnant. I burst into laughter and said, uh, no, I’m not. And she proceeded to argue with me, upset that I was not happy, frustrated by my laughter.
Then she started to argue to herself and said, there can’t be another person with the same name that has … and she trailed off.
There was. There was another woman, with the same name, that went to the fertility clinic. I told her she’s lucky it was me she called, as any other woman would have experienced horrendous heartache at that call, blessed with pregnancy only for it to be retracted. She apologize profusely. It was really God’s grace that she happened to call probably the one woman at the fertility clinic who had never had sex and therefore couldn’t be pregnant regardless of the cancer.
God has a sense of humor.
I was laughing again a few months later, sitting in the bathroom of my childhood home. Looking down on the toilet paper after I wiped, for whatever reason we do that, I noticed blood. Menstrual blood. That time it was more like a chuckle and a shake of the head than a full-on giggle fit but still. God’s humor nonetheless could be felt.
It was also the second time I distinctly heard God’s voice. Clear as if He were sitting there (awkward, as I’m pants down in the bathroom). He told me that day I would have a baby. Funny how life works, considering for so much of my life I didn’t want children, until I was told I couldn’t have one, and then God said you were meant to anyway, whether you like it or not.
If I would have gotten cancer, would I have gotten to that point? Of wanting to have children? Would I have even gotten to the point of ever finding my path, my purpose, my walk with God? I can’t say, only God can.
And He did, when I found myself with a positive pregnancy test in late 2012. The pregnancy itself was rather unremarkable, except for gestational diabetes, which I diligently managed. I prepped, I read books, we got the house prepared, picked out names. We were ready as we could be.
The birth, however, was far from unremarkable. I guess that’s what happens when the world continues to tell you you’re not meant to have a child, but God says yes anyway.
Good Sky 
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