What it’s like…

A painfully honest look at what I’ve learned through the spiritual journey of infertility.

The first time I thought “I may not be able to carry a baby” happened when I was around 13 years old. I was sitting in the back of my grandma’s van with my cousins. We were discussing how many kids we would have when we grew up or something along those lines when my mom made the nonchalant comment, “That’s if you’re able to carry a baby.” I remember my world suddenly coming to a halt. Besides the fact that I couldn’t (and still can’t) raise myself from a laying position to sitting without rolling sideways or using my legs for momentum, I felt like a normal kid. This new concept completely caught me off guard, and I immediately started bawling. My mom assured me she wasn’t trying to be hurtful in her statement – just honest (which I now greatly appreciate her always honest evaluation of my health situation and never sugar-coating anything). 

I grew up with the fear lingering in the back of my brain, but I wasn’t too concerned. That situation was far in the future, and I knew God would work it out if it were meant to happen. Well, life goes by pretty fast, and the next thing I knew, I was twenty-one years old and engaged. The health care professionals in my life all had the same outlook – I might be able to carry a baby, but it would be risky. My abdominal surgeon said I may be able to do it, but ALL of my previous corrective surgeries would be ruined in the process, and I would necessitate a massive surgery to fix the damage. My cardiologist said I might require heart surgery before getting pregnant to correct the hole in my heart. My OBGYN was the most optimistic but said they might need to take the baby really early if my uterus wasn’t able to grow to full capacity. All of these factors combined really freaked me out, but I told myself if God wanted me to carry my own baby, He would take care of it. He had gotten me through 14 surgeries at that point and I knew he would continue to take care of me. My fiancé, Michael, wasn’t worried about my potential situation, at that point neither of us was sure we even wanted children. 

Two months before our wedding, I had major surgery to repair a huge hernia… and it was rough. What was planned to be a straight-forward hernia operation turned into more than four hours of scar tissue removal. I spent 5 days in the hospital before returning home to finish my recovery. But instead of feeling better, the pain became unbearable and I threw up anything I attempted to put into my body. I was admitted back into the hospital. During that time, I literally felt like I was dying. I’ve never told anyone that, even to this day, but I wasn’t sure if I would pull through. I felt absolutely miserable, had zero energy, and was wasting away to nothing. I knew I had my wedding coming up and an exciting new life to start, but I could barely walk down the hall for just a tiny glimpse of the sky. Thankfully, God gave me the strength to endure, and I was able to return home six days later. 

After that experience, I decided that carrying a child was not going be the path for me (unless God sent Gabriel to tell me differently). For the first seven years of our marriage, we didn’t think about children. We were too busy with Michael’s ministry and my schooling to worry about it. But when the time came, we started praying for a surrogate to enter our lives. Through a long process that would be an entire blog post in itself, we had someone from church volunteer – who didn’t even know we needed a surrogate! We were ecstatic that God was taking care of everything so smoothly. All we needed to do was make some embryos and we would be good to go.

We optimistically sat in the fertility center, waiting for the results of our initial lab work. I’ll never forget the feeling of my stomach hitting the floor as our doctor gave us the bad news. Basically, I had the ovaries of a fifty-year-old woman, and my IVF journey would be a long and difficult one. I would like to say that this did not detour me in the least and that I stood on the promises of God and laughed at the frightening lab results. But inside, I was freaking out. I fully believed that God could produce a miracle in my life… I’d seen it over and over, but all of the “what ifs” clouded my clear vision of a loving God who wanted the best for me. 

 So, I started doing everything in my power to make my miracle happen. I prayed. I fasted. I wrote down scriptures and taped them to our doors. I asked everyone I knew to pray about our situation. I even asked my friends who didn’t believe in God to send up a couple of requests on my behalf. I was ready. I started the injections, but my body didn’t respond. Even with the max dose, my ovaries fervently resisted. I remember sitting in the car with Michael after being told the cycle was canceled after seven days of medication and just losing it. I had never cried so hard. I felt like a failure as a woman and as a wife. Michael wouldn’t be able to have children of his own because of me. It was an impossible pill to swallow. I wondered where God was – and why would He let me hurt so much. If He loved me, why weren’t my dreams coming true?

After more discussion with our doctor, we fearfully decided to try again a few months later. We changed up the medications and things looked better! We made it all the way to retrieval but didn’t get the news we wanted. The doctor was able to retrieve four eggs, but only two were mature and only one of those fertilized. We anxiously waited for 5 days to hear if the little bundle of cells would grow. I remember Michael coming to my work at lunchtime so we could open the email together. My hands shook as I pulled up the results on my phone. Tears filled my eyes as I turned to my husband and yelled, “It grew! We have an embryo! They sent it off for testing.” We only had one, but that was all we needed.

Two weeks later, we met with our doctor to receive the genetic results. I could tell by the tone in his voice it wasn’t going to be good news…and it wasn’t – it was the worst news possible. Our precious, little embryo was not viable. It didn’t have enough chromosomes to form a baby and had a 100% chance of miscarriage if we implanted. If I thought I knew sorrow before, I was mistaken. My heart didn’t just break, it ripped slowly out of my chest and shattered into dust. My faith was shaken to its core. I was completely and utterly confused. How could everything go so smoothly then blow up in our faces? How could God let this happen? How could all the pain possibly be worth whatever the future held?

I felt like God had let me down – I knew I did everything in my power to make something happen, and it didn’t. Therefore, God was responsible for my miracle not happening. I knew all the Sunday school answers, but those didn’t help. I wanted to know why I was suffering. I told God all of my concerns and frustrations and demanded an answer to why He wasn’t who I thought He was. God answered in the most effective way possible to me – through sarcasm. 

I’ve always appreciated a good sarcastic remark. It really gets my attention, so that’s sometimes how God speaks to me. For example, several years ago I was at work checking on patients in the hospital when a nun crossed my path. I thought to myself, “If my medical career doesn’t work out, I think I could be a nun. It would be nice to just dedicate my entire life to God.” Very clearly, I heard a voice in my spirit reply, “Oh, so you have to be a nun to dedicate your entire life to me?” Touché, God. 

So, as I sat in my bed, drowning in my tears and asking God how could He let my world fall apart like this, I heard the small voice ask, “One prayer isn’t answered the way you want it and now everything is ruined? All the other things I’ve done are now negated because this one prayer wasn’t answered in your timing? Is your faith that small?” Touché again.  “But this was different!” I pleaded with Him. “This was for a life. This was a huge prayer. A good prayer, and I did everything I could to make this happen and You failed me.” God stirred my spirit again, “You did everything?” I suddenly realized how much I was depending on myself and not truly believing in God to take care of me. I was doing everything in MY power. My eyes were finally opened

In the book, It’s Not Supposed to be this Way, by Lysa Terkeurst, she says, “God loves me too much to answer my prayer in any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way.” That is so true and so wise. It’s been a process, but I’ve realized that God IS good and that I can trust him completely with all of my hopes and dreams because he loves me and wants the best for me. It’s not up to me (thank goodness!). I was doing the right things – just from the wrong heart. I need to let God be God in my life and do what I can to honor Him. 

I wish I could say that I’m writing this post with a tiny baby in my arms and that all the wonderful things I’ve hoped for have come to pass. But we’re still in the middle of our IVF journey. The video above is me finding out we got 9 eggs from the retrieval. (7 were mature - praise God!) Things are looking better and we celebrate the every little miracle, but we still have a long way to go. Now, I rest in the assurance that God’s got this. It’s easier said than done. It’s a daily laying my cares at His feet and trusting Him to do what’s best. 

1 Peter 5:10 - In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.

Psalm 69:13 - But I keep praying to you, LORD, hoping this time you will show me favor. In your unfailing love, O God, answer my prayer with your sure salvation.

God is good. He loves you more than you can every imagine - no matter what circumstances you are facing. Never give up hope. I pray you can gain something from our journey. And as always - please feel free to reach out to me.