As I drive home from yet another doctor’s office with a bag full of healthy scans and a body full of ails, I realize the thing I’ve been avoiding.

I had to get an ultrasound to check for cysts on my ovaries. While they sound scary to passerby’s, they’re quite normal for us with PCOS. I’m told they are harmless, but my aching abdomen tells a different story. Ibuprofen and a heating pad should put it to rest–I try not to roll my eyes.

You see, I have a love/hate relationship with the entire medical field. I love that God created mostly intelligent people to be in this piece of the world. However, I hate needles and being told what to do, so, you can see the rub.

For the last ten years or so, I’ve gone through a cycle of invisible…”illnesses” from IBS to unexplained infertility, post partum to chronic migraines. Many little oddities with few straightforward remedies. I feel a bit like an unintentional collector of broken body parts. To the naked eye, I look very normal. In general, I can manage a very normal life. And yet, for the inner circle of my life, my insides are a mix of hidden landmines and poorly timed, usually chain explosions.

So, today wasn’t different in many ways–another hike over to the ER to see what was going on this time. But going through a TV ultrasound wasn’t something I’d had to do in years (many gracious peaceful years without Wanda)–probably since I had Oliver almost four years ago.

I can’t explain it really–but it was this quiet whisper–a quiet answer. As I sat watching the nurse’s face scanning my monitor and reminding myself it wasn’t another and heartbeat but mind that I could hear. I felt the answer to a question I’ve been asking for so long.

Will we have another child?

You see, for the last few years before I started getting really sick again, Anthony has been sure we’d have another, then I was sure, then we were both sure, and then, my migraines started…we put a pause on this to focus on my health. So, I visited the specialists, tried the diets (again), drank the water, slept the sleep, did the workouts.

Now, a year later, with little progress made on the healing front, the boys becoming more self-sufficient (can I get a shoutout for NO MORE DIAPERS?), and me rounding the corner of 30, I have felt strongly that we need to make a decision.

To be honest, I thought it would just happen. I hoped I wouldn’t have to make a decision. After 3 years of brutal, intense pursuit of a family, you’d think I’d learn that it doesn’t work like that (except when it does like it did for our youngest).

Now, I’m a year off birth control and facing two paths.

Walk through secondary infertility. Don the title once more that I’ve avoided at all cost. Go through the treatment again. I called our infertility center last spring, tired of waiting for my migraines to subside, and talked through the logistics of another transfer. I got off the phone and was hyperventilating. The idea of going through it all again transported me to the worst season of my life. I had to step away, I just didn’t know if it would be forever or not.

Or let go of that stage of motherhood. Donate the baby clothes that I’ve kept saved, “just in case.” Clear the closets of pack and play. And focus on the truly beautiful family I have as a complete unit, not a growing one.

And what I think about the paths.

Infertility didn’t just challenge me, it broke me, mind, body, and soul. I truly don’t believe I would’ve survived without the mercy, kindness, and grace of God holding me even when I hated him. And there is a part of me that feels weak for not going back in. For not taking up that title that brought me pain, and grief, and scars, but that also brought me community, truth, and refinement. I wonder if fear drives me, and I feel ashamed for it.

Of course, on the other side, I look at my sons. The love I have for them is of heaven–I’m certain of it. It builds me and breaks me in ways nothing else could have. It pushes me, pulls me, gives me breath, gives me belonging I’ve wished for my whole life. I look at the father my husband is. He is the best. The absolute best, I’m convinced–and anyone who sees him with our kids knows it to be true. He was born for it. We have long been convinced that we’d end up being those people with a Sprinter van just to fit all our children. And yes, there was a sliver, a small piece of me that hoped for a daughter (more to come on this topic). Not because my boys are not enough, not because if we did get pregnant and it was a boy I would not be thrilled–but because I think as a woman it’s normal to desire to pass parts of yourself–the good parts to your daughter. To share your life with her and your heart with her in only the way a mother and daughter can. The future I’d drawn. The dreams I’d sewn together when all I had was dreams.

They were beautiful dreams. But they were our dreams. My dreams. My plans.

In church last weekend I was jotting notes down and wrote what was on my heart during worship, “Do you trust God enough trade the plans you’ve made for the ones He’s made for you?”

My first, honest answer was, “no.” Because my heart aches for my plans. Because I fell in love with my plans. Because they seem so right and so real and so close I could touch them. I don’t trust God enough, but I desperately desire to.

And today, I felt that whisper in the doctor’s office become louder and my soul felt something I can only describe as loss. Loss of what I’d built out of invisible bricks. This verse came to mind:

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30

His will. His purpose. His plans. His dreams.

Not mine.

I felt the loss of me. I felt the loss of something I fell in love with. It may be the lesser thing, but it felt like mine. Even if it was just a ghost–just a misty vision–somehow, I felt I could hold it. And that all-too familiar feeling of missing someone so much you’ve never known pulses in my chest.

Visions of that thin baby hair under my nose. Visions of oversized bows and ballerina slipper socks. Visions of my husband helping her through her first heartbreak. Visions of her asking me questions about my life–eventually–when I was her age. Visions of my husband looking at her and back at me and saying, she looks just like you. A vision of her being the best parts of me and probably some of the hard parts of me, and then, something all her own.

And yet also, visions of another little diaper booty in the rompers his big brothers used to wear. A vision of watching the boys teach him every good and bad thing they know. A vision of more wrestling, and more digging, and more unending love. A vision of Anthony teaching yet another young man how to be both strong and gentle.

They are beautiful visions.

And I have found more and more peace in parting with them. In trading them. In remembering this isn’t my world. In knowing that God’s plan is better. Maybe not prettier, easier, or softer–but better.

So, for now, I’m following His lead. And so, I did all I could. Prayed for a changed heart and said the prayer I didn’t want to knew I needed, I prayed to let go.

Perhaps God’s plans will line up with mine. Perhaps they won’t. Either way, I want it to be His plan–even if it hurts right now.