Sitting in church on Sunday morning with tears streaming down my face as my pastor preached about doubt: This was not unusual. By that time, we’d been on our infertility journey for over six years. I’d lobbed more than my fair share of questions and accusations at God, wondering why this natural thing that we wanted so badly was being kept from us. But that morning, all that emotion was crashing over me—and I was literally holding my newborn daughter in my arms, the answer to all my doubts. Yet still, I wept.

That’s when I started to understand the scars that had been left behind, and not just the scars on my stomach from a laparoscopic procedure to remove endometriosis. The scars in my soul, the ones that still twinge every once in a while.

Like most infertility stories, ours had its bumps along the way. Living in a rural area over an hour from specialists—plus a limited budget—we waited close to two years before seeking help outside of our small town. Then, we worked on treatment for my husband. From there, it was several rounds of fertility drugs and an attempt at artificial insemination. At every stage, the waiting. The endless waiting. Would this month’s trial work? No? Okay, let’s give your body a cycle to rest, then we’ll try something else.

Finally, the surgery. We didn’t know I had endo—I had zero symptoms except I wasn’t ovulating correctly. But that was our doctor’s best guess, so we went for it. As it turned out, my abdominal cavity was covered with lesions which excrete a hormone that can interfere with ovulation. Honestly, I know I’m fortunate. Endo is a terrible, debilitating disease for many women.

Six months after the surgery, still nothing. Our doctor suggested we consider IFV.

That was a hard one. We felt in our hearts that we were supposed to be parents. We considered adoption, but never felt like that was our path. But we struggled to know if the expense of IVF was worth it. Finally, we decided to go for it, but to wait a few months so we could work on saving up some money.

In the meantime, we both came to a place of acceptance. We wanted to do what God had for our lives, whether or not children were a part of it. That was a deeply painful thing to come to grips with. I think we both cried that day.

Two months later, we found out we were pregnant.

That was 2013. Our lives since that day have changed more than I could have ever dreamed. Six months after our daughter was born, we went off birth control, because what if it took us another five years to have our second child? Uh, as it turns out, we are very fertile people once our medical issues got ironed out. Our son was born ten months later. So, if you’re keeping track, in the space of two years we went from feeling like there was little hope we could ever become parents—to having two children under sixteen months.

What gifts. What incredible gifts.

And the thing is, the story of our lives keeps going. A chapter may come to a close, but the story arc continues into the next stage, and the next. The painful, but valuable, lessons we learned in walking our infertility journey—patience, commitment, faith, and grit—follow us into this new chapter. Lessons we have leaned heavily on recently as we’ve gone through a job loss and working through my son’s learning issues.

And that’s what brought me back to that Sunday morning. To this day, even as I revel in Mother’s Day, part of my soul aches for our sisters who long to have babies and feel like there is no hope. And to be honest, I don’t want that ache to go away. I don’t want to forget where I’ve come from. Heaven knows, when I’ve been in the throes of potty training (why are boys so hard??) and meltdown-diffusing, those years seem so far away.

God is so gentle with me; I don’t deserve it. He gently helps me remember and renew my gratitude. He gently shows me how He has been helping me grow in order to deal with what life has for me today. For me, there’s an also element of identifying pain to pain—knowing that God showed up in the depths of one pain, and trusting that He will to show Himself in another.

It’s not over yet. There are no neat bows to wrap around my story. But wow, what a view from here.

About Rachel

Rachel Elwood is a freelance marketing copywriter based in Marion, Indiana. She grew up in Bangladesh as a missionary kid, and married her college sweetheart, Steve, in 2003. They have two young children, a very old cat, and a running dog who won’t quit. Follow her family’s antics on Instagram at @rachelmelwood.