Life is full of surprises...

As long as I can remember, I always knew I was going to have kids; I remember I was never a little princess girl in pink, but more a tomboy climbing up trees. Even though, I knew I wanted to have kids some day. My sister is 15 years older than me so when she got her first baby at 21 and moved back with us, I was really happy cause finally I could practise being a Mom. Well, that was just the beginning of helping to raise my 3 nephews and 1 niece, along came a whole bunch of kids from friends and neighbours, plus church, sunday school,ect.I think I have been changing diapers and putting kids in bath since I was 7 or 8, and I 'm about to be 33; so just do the maths yourself.
Anyway, my love for children never went away, at some point in my tweenties, I remember telling my Mom that I wouldn't mind if God didn't give a husband, I was going to go for artificial insemination,that's how serious I was about having kids(of course coming from a traditional home my Mom freaked out!)
Then I began to live every girl's dream; I found my prince and we got married. Even before getting married we talked about having kids, and picked possible names. We decided we were going to wait a year before kids will come. After coming back from our honey-moon, we thought even though I was taking precautions that we were going to be surprised with a baby, just 9 months after we got married. But after a few weeks we find out that it was a false alarm; that made us think that we didn't want to wait and that's when everything started...
After almost a year of trying and going to the doctor, hearing everybody say how normal it is that it takes between 6 months to a 1 year to get pregnant, having abnormal periods/cycles though I had always being "normal", something in my heart started feeling that there was something wrong with me.
I remember being afraid, horrified by the thought that maybe I could never have kids.I also remember feeling terrible for bringing "this" into my husband's life, who was also dreaming of having kids.
We were sent by our doctor to a specialist in Gasthuisberg. Then I had 3 months of test, some of them very painful, but most of them just made me feel ashamed cause something was wrong with me. By then a year had gone by since we decided to have kids; a whole year of crying, of not knowing wat was wrong, of negative pregnancy test every month, of not knowing how to react to the help my husband often offered me, of wondering what was God doing?, of why me? of why some people can have children so easy? sometimes even people who I thought were not ready for kids, or didn't deserve to have kids.
Some of you may think.. So what's the big deal? adopt? Or: no kids means no problems...
But to me, it meant the biggest dream of my life not becoming true. I had found the one person God had for me and we loved each other so much and there were not going to be kids coming out that love?!.
After the 3 months we went back to the hospital to be told that I had something rare called P.C.O.S( Policistic Ovarian Syndrome). A desease that affects 10% of world wide female population but only 5% actually knows that they have it. Something so new, it has been found in the last 10 or15 years, that the doctor could not really explain how it's possible that I have it.
Some theories say that it's genetical, others think it has to do with the enviroment where you live, or what you eat,etc. Well, at least in my case they could not really explain how I got it, or if I always had it and it just became "alive" when moved to Belgium, and my life and eating habbits changed.
Basically, my body makes too much insuline, so the extra insuline makes sure I have more male hormons than normal and too few female hormons, which are required to ovulate and be able to get pregnant. Some of the symptoms are: in some cases overweight( though there are women who are really thin and still have PCOS), extra growth of the facial hear, changing of voice,etc.I was told by my gynecologist we had 50% chance of ever having children, and in case of a pregnancy 40% more chance than a normal woman to have a miscarriage.
I could start a treatment right away, that included losing about20 kilos,excercising, taking medicine meant for diabetic patients(which by the way I have to take for the rest of my life) to try to regulate my insuline.That we were going to try for 6 months going every month twice to the hospital for a blood test to check my hormon levels and a ultrasound to see if there were any possible eggs growing.
When we went home, after the shock I felt relief. Relief, cause I finally knew what was wrong with me, then of course sad, upset, angry, depressed, alone and in the next few moths, all the possible emotions that you can imagine.
It was october 13th, the day I felt my life was falling apart and there was not much I could do. I also felt I was draging my husband with me.
I went from a stage of rebellion against God for what He was doing to me, to a stage of anger and bitterness, of course in between I had these tiny moments when I wanted to believe everything was going to be fine, God was going to do a miracle and cure me or do something, then after a few days of just holding it together I will collapse especially cause that year; everybody around me seemed to be getting pregnant. These stages repeated over and over again for the following months. Then at some point I started reading in my Bible the story of Hanna; Samuel's mother, and I guess because of my situation I identified myself with her. Then I started believing that God was going to answer my husband and mine, we were going to have a baby, I just didn't know how long it was going to take. Well, it only took 3 months after I started my treatment, I lost 15 kilos and went in for 3 months check, when the doctor told me to come back the week after for a pregnancy test at the hospital, of course after doing so many test at home I didn't want to have too many expectations to just be dissapointed one more time, but I went.
When the nurse told me the test was positive I could not believe, I actually asked her if she was sure that it was my test,funny eh; all these months believing God was going to do something and when He finally did, I asked the nurse if she was mistaken.
Well, the rest of the story is pretty nice. I had a normal pregnancy, besides having to take my medicine for the first 12 weeks.
On December 7th, 2004, our beautiful, big and healthy boy was born. First through a normal birth and then finally with a cesaerean (cause he was to big).We called him Sean "Gracious gift of God".
Then after another 27 months of crying, praying, and these time even having to take hormons cause my PCOS had gone worse, our second son: Sjoerd "Protector of the Victory" peed on the hands of the gynecologist that got him out mom's belly by cesaerean cause he also was too big for his Mom).
And now 10 months and 2 weeks later I'm carrying their 11 weeks old brother or sister inside me.
So God did something, He didn't cure me, which I actually don't mind since I never asked Him to do it, He gave breaks in the midst of my sickness so I could fullfil my dream of being a Mom( that rocks!!!!)
I will live with PCOS until the day I die, that means everyday I have to excercise, I have to take medicine, and I have to check what I eat. I feel like a patient all the time, I have bad days (when I wonder if I'm ever going to borrow my husband razor for my beard) and good days, but God has given me a great supporting husband who deals with my condition as if it were his, 2 almost 3 beatiful healthy children to raise and enjoy, a loving family that supports me a big bunch of nuts friends who understand me and sometimes just accept me.
So just life is full of surprises, but I must say it's good to know God has walked with me hand by hand every step of this last 4 years, cause He has been able to deal with them when I couldn't.

This is me....

My name is Leda Menheere. Well, it is now, it used to be Leda Argentina Rojas Guadamuz.
Pretty long eh?! Well for those who don't know me and are maybe interested in knowing, I come from Costa Rica, a beautiful (if you want to have a idea how beautiful, just watch "Jurassic Parc"), small (actually a bit bigger than Belgium) country in Central America. My country is known by its bananas (Chiquita banana) and Coffee (we are number 2 in World wide Coffee production) but another really peculiar thing is we are the only country in Latin America (and maybe in world, I'm not really sure about it) that doesn't have an army.
Every time I mentioned this the next question is how is that possible? Don't you guys have enemies? or problems with other countries? Well yes we do but Costarricans are peaceful people, we always try to solve our problems by talking, we avoid fights or discussions, we are farmers, who don't have much and are mostly content with what we have. We enjoy life, we work to live instead of living to work. Family and friends come first, even before possesions.
We love to gather together to eat, dance and tell jokes and for that any excuse will be valid; birthdays, Christmas, easter, graduations, mother or father day, just because we feel like being with family,or because we are bored....
It's a nice, little peace of heaven where you can enjoy beaches with black sand, rain forest, white sand beaches, mountains, but at the same time the voices of those selling fruit and vegetables in the streets of the capital where I come from.
I come from a small town called Tibas, about 10 minutes drive from San Jose (the capital) a nice valley, surrounded by big mountains that provide the perfect weather; never too cold never too warm. Just 2 seasons: winter and summer, that makes life pretty easy when it comes to clothing since we get to use the same clothes, we only change from sandals to boots, to protect our feet from the rain. Oh, and we might need a thin coat for the cooling 12)C breeze of the evenings.
Now, I could go on and on about this little piece of heaven I came from but by now you are all wondering why on earth would I come to live in Belgium with the terrible weather we can get here some times...
Well, it's actually an easy answer... God and Love!
Almost 8 years ago I met the craziest Dutch man that ever put a foot on this earth,while I was serving on the Logos II (how and why is a very long story to write down...) Just as God brought him to my life He also brought Belgium to my life or I must say He brought me to Belgium.,which meant leaving a great loving family:Dad,Mom,2 brothers,1 sister,a whole bunch of nephews,nices,cousins,aunts,uncles,grandmother,etc....back in my country.
In the last 8 years many things have happen in my life, some of them nicer than others, but I have learned from all of them. I'll be sharing some of them and maybe somebody will learn something out of my experiences and others may just have a good laugh, either way I believe nothing happens in our lives by coincidence, nothing happens to God's children that has not been pampered by His tender blanklet of love.