It was during this week 4 years ago that Thomn and I completed the Camino de Santiago. Four years ago we were struggling to have a baby and when I had become pregnant at the end of the previous year it had ended in a devastating miscarriage. We had heard of the Camino and how thousands of people take on this pilgrimage across Northern Spain every year. In passing we had joked about how incredible walking the Camino would be. Slowly the joking turned into a reality…well, that and our love for Martin Sheen convinced us that this was the next adventure in store for us. Has anyone out here watched the movie, The Way? You should. It, of course, stars Martin Sheen.
Nothing could have possibly prepared us physically or mentally to walk the 300KM portion of the journey that we had planned. Even the preparation for the walk was impossible to prepare for. It took us days to pack, unpack and repack our bags. Oddly enough, by the time our bags were packed for the final time, Thomn’s bag seemed considerably heavier than mine. By the way, have I mentioned that I have a pretty awesome partner in this thing called life? 
We flew into Madrid and took a train to our starting city of Leon. Late into the evening and with weary bodies from traveling we checked into our hotel and did the only thing imaginable. We asked the concierge for recommendations for a restaurant. After a short walk down and around the corner, we found the best leg of lamb ever made. With that and a bottle of wine we reflected on why we were in Spain and what we were hoping to accomplish and find during our hike. I remember sitting there looking at Thomn, thinking that we were two of the luckiest people out there just to have found each other, but that during the next few weeks I needed to find some peace to quiet my heart and my mind from all of the hurting.
The first day of walking was just a short hike to ready our bodies and shake off the remaining jet lag. 3 miles into the hike that day I ran out of water and was sure that I should just turn around and return to the hotel in Leon. We still had a mere 295KM’s to go…what were we thinking?! But as I turned into the sleepy little town and felt the cobblestones beneath my feet there was a sweet aroma of climbing roses wafting through the air. I felt my mind and my heart take a deep breath and begin to relax. Walking the Camino was the right decision.
After a few days of walking you begin to learn the rules of the road. Get up and leave the albergue / hotel / church early in the morning and walk with the rising sun. The cool morning mist will be welcome as the late morning sun grows hotter and hotter. When you want to be by yourself, put your headphones in and no one with bother you. Befriend others on the path – you never know when you may need them or see them again. It was this last lesson that lead us to our friend from India. We met him at one of the albergues we stayed at and found ourselves talking with him and others in a common space outside. I am not sure what came over me, but he was the first stranger that I had met that I felt compelled to tell the real reason that we were walking the Camino. We wanted a family and it just didn’t seem to be in the cards for us. In that moment he looked me in the eye and said that God was compelling him to tell me that we should try again in September and we would have a beautiful baby girl. I am not a religious person…at all, but I can promise you that I chanted those words to myself a thousand times all the way until we reached the Santiago de Compostela at the end of our road. 
I found a renewed sense of hope and self during our long walk down the road. I held onto the hope of September and was pleasantly surprised to find myself pregnant in August after we had returned home. I wish I could say that our friend from India was right and I had a beautiful baby girl, but it was not meant to be for us and I had miscarriage number 2 in September. Hanging onto the hope of the Camino, perhaps one day I will wake up to find myself pregnant in September. 
