Memorial Box Monday ~ Brogan: Special Delivery

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Brogan: Special Delivery

Summer of 2002. We were returning to Texas, after a wonderful summer vacation in Michigan with our families. Nearing home, we passed a billboard. An odd billboard. Perhaps only seen in Texas.

I did not take a picture of it at the time . . . but you can find just about anything on the Internet (including this picture). Obviously someone thought the billboard was "photoworthy", and since a picture is sometimes worth a thousand words -- I'll let the billboard do the talking . . .

So we are driving along and my dear husband says, "Maybe I'll do that for my 40th birthday."

Me: (In a slightly shocked tone.) Really?

B: Yep. What do you think?

Me: Sure. (Honestly, I'm not sure if that was my exact word. But, I will tell you I didn't spend a long time pondering.)

Fast forward a couple of weeks. My sweet man walks in from work and says, "I'm on the list!"

Me: What list?

B: The reversal list.

Me: Really? (Sorry to be repetitive.)

B: Yep, they ask me a few questions and said, "Sign up here, we'll give you a call".

Approximately one month later, and just days before Bry's 40th birthday, I receive a call at home. They have an opening for the surgery. Can they schedule him? Well, you could if he was in the state. But he wasn't.

No problem. We'll call again.

A little background. We were stationed at a base with a very large training hospital. Think residents need practice. Think free vasectomy. That in and of itself could be a great MBM post, since Goo*gle tells me the cost is between $6,000 to $15,ooo, and insurance generally does not cover it. Incidentally, ten years prior, the military had done for free, the very thing they were now going to "undo".

Fast forward a couple more weeks. Another phone call. This time Bry is available. He's on the books.

I will say for the record, that we didn't completely fly into this without praying about it . . . but our prayer was quite simple. . . "Lord, if this is Your will, then You make the way."

He made the way.

I must also share that well before this decision was made, the Lord had made the promise of Teddi's adoption to my heart. I had already been praying for her by name for nearly three years. I knew that if God made the reversal a success, and we conceived, it would be a boy. I can't explain it, but I just knew. I knew there would be no confusion between the child who I had long been praying for, and the child I would give birth to--if God so choose to bless us that way.

The day of surgery came. Afterwards, the surgeon said all had gone well . . . but, our chances of success were on the low side. Bry was over 40. One strike. It had been 10 years since his initial surgery. Two strikes. We continued to trust.

I had no idea what the statistics were until tonight when I looked them up -- 44%. That was our chance of conceiving since we were beyond the ten year mark. Hmmm . . .

Within six months I was pregnant.

The "average" time to conceive after a reversal is 12 months, but it can often take two years -- at which point I would have been pushing 43 years old. Again, I just looked this stat up tonight . . . we were going on faith. The more I know, the more I stand in awe of His goodness!

I was six months past my 40th birthday, I would be 41 when I delivered. I was of "advanced maternal age". Statistics would say that I had a much higher chance of delivering a child with birth defects.

Trust . . .

On March 23, 2004 at 9:23 p.m. Brogan Elijah Winder entered the world. On his due date. Perfectly beautiful -- every single nine pounds and eight ounces of him!

As with the addition of each and every one of our children,

our lives would never be the same!

Who could have known?

God did . . . before time began!

He had given us the desires of our hearts, in a most joyously, grinning way.

Who knew, that the daddy who said, "We're done",

would have his heart stretched in a way that only God could do . . .

to be filled in a way that only God could fill it?

Brogan and Teddi are a little over nine months apart. I like to think that at the same time God was bringing Brogie into the world, He was creating Teddi . . . an answer to the long prayer of a mama's heart.

Trust.

We will add to our Memorial Box this day, the positive pregnancy test stick from 2003, a reminder that statistics mean nothing when God is involved. Brogan, our special delivery, is certain proof of that!

Blessings from our five times blessed nest ~

Tina

"Love is the response of the heart

to the overwhelming goodness of God."

~ Richard J. Foster