Natural Family Planning Part Two: God is Good

So remember that bit I wrote about how the "cancer" word tends to change your perspective quite a bit? Well as we said in the first NFP post, we want to be parents with all our hearts. And while we weren't actively trying before the diagnosis, we had been talking about how we had less serious reasons why we felt we needed to wait. I was finally done with school, AJ working for a supportive company in a stable job, we've gotten out of the tiny apartment in Seattle so we felt we were in a much better place to start building a family.

We really believe that God has been watching over us because when we got the diagnosis, we knew where we were in my cycle and our likelihood of being able to get pregnant was good. So after thinking, talking and praying we decided that we did not have a truly good reason not to and every reason to try to start building our family.

So after being a bit impatient (for all you NFP savvy people out there we just couldn't wait for 18 days after temperature rise) and three home pregnancy tests later, we finally saw a positive little plus on the test stick. WE ARE HAVING A BABY!!!

We could not be more thrilled and are absolutely on cloud nine. We know that many people might not think that this was the best timing but this whole experience is further opening our lives to life and love. And it is going to be challenging at times. We have all the stress of cancer treatment (more stress and less time and energy than normal), and we have a new puppy (and yes, we knew that we might have a baby on the way when we decided to get Nikki).

But as I said before, we talked and thought and prayed and decided that God had given us an opportunity in letting us discover what we were up against when we were at a time when we knew we might be able to conceive. (Another plug for the beauty of NFP; we didn't need to wait until the effects of a Pill wore off before be able to get pregnant.) While it may seem like a lot to dish on our plate at once, we know that God is the ultimate author of life and that He would not give us more than we could handle. He has been working in our lives to help us create new life just as He is working in our lives to heal the life that we have.

Are we excited? You bet. In fact, the word doesn't even begin to describe how elated we are to be expecting a little bundle of joy. We have already begun brainstorming baby names (and yes, they all sound Uber Catholic) and can't wait to make the extra bedroom upstairs into a nursery. Of course, we've got plenty of time.

Obviously, it is still very early in the pregnancy. In fact, right now our baby is about the size of a sweet pea. Our estimated due date is July 31st. While many people wait until after the first trimester to share the good news, we want to shout it to the world so that we can have all the people who are already praying for AJ's healing to begin to pray as well for a healthy pregnancy.