National Infertility Awareness Week. It's Personal.

I think I always thought about having children in some far off kind of way but never really thought thru what it would take to have children. The yearning for children truly flooded my heart when I fell in love with my husband. I thought I wanted children before I knew my husband but something about meeting a man and falling in love with him makes the yearning for children much stronger, much more real. It’s no longer a faceless child you long for, it is the face of you and your husband combined into this tiny human that God formed using your bodies, how much more intimate can it get?

Once we got married I got on birth control…it kind of seems to be the norm to do this until you’re “ready.” I was working fulltime at a job where I made $18,000 and Chad was in his last year of school while working a part-time job making $9/hour. Within two short months of being married we had a “scare,” I was late. The anxiety that led to that first pregnancy test was indescribable. We lived in a tiny 400-square-foot one bedroom, one bath apartment, made very little money, had no savings, and no spare time. We had nothing to offer a baby. We were relieved when the test was negative but it helped us see where our faith rested, in ourselves. Our faith was resting on our plan, our idea of when God would call us to start a family. We quickly decided to jump out of the boat and onto the water; we chose to stop all forms of birth control. In doing so we put our full confidence in whatever God would hand us in regards to children. As time went on, and especially after we moved into our current home just after celebrating our first wedding anniversary we found that our desire for children was uncontainable.

With each passing month we talked about it with more excitement and expectation. I’m not going to get into the details but trust me when I say we were definitely trying to get pregnant. At first it was light-hearted and fun, but as each month passed without a successful pregnancy it became stressful and heartbreaking. We had questions; we were so confused why something that was so ‘natural’ would be so difficult, especially when so many unplanned pregnancies were saturating the media and even friends surrounding us.

Despite doctors telling us of the impossibility we started to plan, with expectancy, hope, and faith. Right after our first round of medical testing results came back to reveal our infertility in all its intricacies, my husband had to travel to Germany for two weeks. To make matters worse he was gone for our wedding anniversary. As a form of therapy I went and bought paint and used his time away to paint our current nursery. I spent endless hours every evening weeping on the floor.

When we took that first pregnancy test we had no idea that would be the first of twenty-two tests we would take in our first six years of marriage. Twenty of those were negative despite feeling so "sure" we were pregnant. One pregnancy was lost while another was maintained with high doses of hormones twice daily until about halfway through the pregnancy at which point our doctor said we’d just “cross our fingers and hope for the best.” The progesterone I was on amplified the exhaustion, hunger, and headaches of pregnancy. This pregnancy led us to our son. Since having our son we have taken seven pregnancy tests and lost one pregnancy.

Several of the tests I took were taken in secret to shield my husband from the grief and loss felt with each negative. Of course I’d tell him afterwards but the amount of anxiety that is felt each time I’m ‘late’ is beyond words. The hope for a positive yet resolve of a negative brings about so much emotion.

I can tell you that the fight with infertility is constant. It is not something that is replaced by parenthood nor is it something that adoption can remedy however our journey through infertility awakened a different dream, the dream to build our family through adoption. To recognize the deep blessings the Lord has provided us in our marriage and share the joy we experienced through Jesus with another little being.

In the same year we started the process to adopt we found out we were pregnant with our son. We had to terminate our contract with our adoption agency in the hope that this pregnancy would lead us to a baby. I remember with each doctor’s appointment we heard the doubts of doctors who felt our pregnancy wasn’t going to lead us to a healthy baby due to the results of some blood tests. I remember purposely waiting until we hit the halfway point in my pregnancy before telling anyone outside our family just in case our doctor’s predictions were correct. I remember hiding it from my family until we passed the first trimester for the same reason. All those years of fear and doubt had me walking on egg shells throughout my entire pregnancy and just as I experienced during the years of infertility I walked through my pregnancy with a hope for a positive but a resolve for a negative.

It's also very important to say that my husband has always been the rock and foundation of our marriage, putting his resolve in God from the very start. And although many couples find infertility to be a breaking point I can see clearly where my husband has led without a single ounce of blame or hurt being placed on myself or God. He has cared for me with sweetness, gentleness and kindness in every possible way and although infertility has affected nearly every arena of my life, my husband has been the one to keep my focus on the Lord.

After experiencing the birth of my son we didn’t consider the possibility that God would continue to write adoption into our hearts and prayers. Even people around us encouraged us to just keep trying for another baby of “our own.” It wasn’t really until that point in our journey did I realize that this entire journey has not been “my own." The plans I had in mind for my life and starting a family certainly didn’t include failing on such a regular basis, being stuck and prodded with needles, or peeing on a stick 29 times. It took my journey through infertility for me to let go of every ounce of control I had along with every fear, doubt, and heartbreak and realize that just like our first few months of marriage when we put God in the driver’s seat, this journey is not “our own” and since that moment it never really has been.

Do I still struggle with infertility? Yes, on a monthly basis I rely on the Lord to be my comforter as I do desire to birth another child. I’ve found it’s best said “Struggling with infertility is like dealing with the five stages of grief every single month. You deny, bargain, get angry, cry, and accept. Then you pick yourself up and do it all over again.” Regardless of that desire the Lord is ultimately in control of my life and as I’ve embraced that it’s allowed me to look at my infertility a little differently: I walk through my life with a hope for the eternity with Jesus but with the resolve of an unsatisfying life. With that I have seen my hope in Jesus grow and my hope in my own plans diminish. There will be many plans, even Godly ones, that will not happen in my life but if I spend my time staring at all the doors that have been shut I’ll miss out on the ones that have been opened.

Now here we are in the adoption process again, this time past every piece of paperwork and just waiting and I can see how much God has shifted our hearts. Our reasons have changed so much since the first time. No longer do I feel my infertility being remedied by adoption, it’s not. Adoption is no longer my alternative route to parenthood my body won’t achieve; adoption has become a way for us to offer our family to serve the Lord. He has done great, miraculous things in our life and continues to give us a testimony proving who He is and that He alone is capable of anything. He has provided us with an abundance of space in our home. He has provided us with an abundance of time with my flexible job and my husband working for such a family-focused company. He has provided us with an abundance of joy and a love for The Gospel. He has us in a position to give our family to another child. Now each day I walk past the empty nursery with the empty crib I pray for the child God would grant for our family. There is no weight on that child to fulfill my biological desire to reproduce, or even my deep desire to mother more children, instead I look with hope and excitement that God is writing our story and I trust Him. God is writing our baby’s story and I trust Him.

I guess what I wanted to communicate the most is that we can have our plans, but so does God. His ultimate plan is to spend eternity with us, His chosen people. If you are up against something big; do not let it consume you, this life is not meant to be satisfied. The joy of the Lord is most magnificent and shines the brightest when our life circumstances lead us into the trenches because our plans or even the Godly desires that lead to our plans, do not deserve credit for our joy, our eternal hope in Jesus does. If you have put God in the driver’s seat in your life, do not despair. He has a plan for you! The plan may not include each desire you think He’s laid on your heart but it does end with an eternity of endless joy and perfect peace with Him forever and that is worth celebrating and sharing with the world.