My husband and I have 8 wonderful children. Fertility was never an issue for us, and when my oldest son and daughter got married, they both had kids within the first couple of years. (They both have two kids now)
Imagine my surprise then, when my second oldest daughter, Ruth, got married, and had problems with fertility! This is my daughter who always just wanted to be a wife and mother. We often tend to think we can choose when to have children, how many we will have, etc. But in reality, it is in God’s hands!
There’s nothing more heart breaking for a couple than wanting a child, but not being able to conceive. My daughter Ruth, went through two years of tears, and heartaches, but would be the first one to say that she is glad for what she learned during that time. Just before Christmas, we were thrilled when Rob & Ruth gave us an exciting gift – the news that they were expecting!! Yes, this mama cried happy tears!
She wrote her testimony about her infertility journey, and I’m going to share that with you over the next posts. I hope it will be an encouragement to any of you who may be struggling with infertility. I think it will also be encouraging to all of you about the importance of trusting God!
OUR CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
Let me just start out by saying that I believe life is precious and miraculous, and whether you have one child, or 1 dozen, children are a blessing from God.
Having said that, we feel especially blessed by my pregnancy, and we have been calling this our “miracle baby.” Allow me to share our story…
For the first year of our marriage, I did not have health insurance, but I was able to get it after our 1-year anniversary, and Rob & I began “trying for pregnancy,” as they say. We had felt ready for this at least 6 months earlier, and now we were really anxious to get going with our plans. God had other plans, however…
Pregnancy did not happen over the next 6 months, which was an unexpected jolt to us, as we had not expected to have any problems, so I made an appointment with my doctor. Hormone levels were tested, and some of mine were found to be extremely low, so in an effort to kick things into gear, I began taking a prescribed supplemental hormone. We were encouraged as this appeared to be an obvious problem with an obvious solution – or so we thought.
3 months later, the change in my levels was so very miniscule, it was discouraging at best, and I cried as I began to recognize the painful fact that maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as we had thought.
My dosage was upped, and we re-tested 3 months later, only to find that once again, my levels had budged ever so slightly, but were still dangerously low. My doctor warned that were we to somehow become pregnant at this point, my body would not even be able to sustain the pregnancy due to the low progesterone level.
At this point in time, the journey had already begun to turn very painful, as I began to wonder where this was all going to end, or if it WAS going to end. I had never considered the thought that I might be one of those women who might never be able to get pregnant. It felt like my heart’s desire was being wrenched away from me, and it hurt with a pain deeper than I could have ever imagined.
The story will be continued in the next posts:
Part 2 – The Pain of Infertility
Part 3 – The Pain of Infertility
Part 4 – The Pain of Infertility
Kathie, thanks so much for stopping by my blog and letting me know about your posts about your daughter’s infertility. Hearing stories like hers give me so much hope for my own journey and my readers’ journeys.
Hi Lisa, I know that not every infertility story ends as well as hers, with a pregnancy. However, I know that the way she shared the raw pain, and difficulty of those days would be an encouragement to others going through that. Also, I love how she let God sustain her and help her through the dark days. Where would we be without the Lord’s help in difficult trials of life?! ~Kathie