Infertility: The heart of the issue

The pain was both physical and emotional. The physical impacts the emotional and then you’ve got yourself a real crabby patty! Add certain meds on top of that and you have yourself a real ….well, you know what I’m trying to say.

Confusion popped up a lot on my IF journey because while I knew I wasn’t a perfect person (see above if you have forgotten what I put my husband through) I loved God a lot and I was even serving Him full time. And I knew He had the power to make every ounce of endometriosis leave my body, yet He was choosing not to. That was puzzling to me. And I asked God about it regularly.

With each failed IVF attempt there was much grief and sorrow. Grieving the child we were longing for. Grieving the fact that my husband is the last of his blood line in his immediate family. That will make a woman feel guilty right there. Grieving the fact that we might not have children that had our genes and that looked like us. Yes, there was much grief and sorrow down that road.

There were times that I felt extremely weak. Those were the times I was planning, hosting and attending baby showers. Weakness came when people made well meaning but insensitive comments. Thankfully we didn’t deal with that very much.

One day I would be “strong girl” and I would feel excited…almost giddy about our dr’s appt. at the infertility clinic. We would be cracking jokes and so excited to be there because we were hopeful of the results.

Then there would be the next visit, the follow up after the failed IVF, I would be all “weepy girl”. It’s just hard to sit there looking at the big mamma with quads in her belly, signing in. I was wishing I was half that girl.

Prayer was an incredibly huge part of our journey. We had a short half sheet of paper printed up that was titled “Baby Situation”. It had bullet points with about seven prayer requests. We put that in the hands of our friends and family that we knew would be praying for us. And we prayed regularly asking God to allow His perfect plan to take place in our lives and through our baby situation. Because we certainly had a “little situation” going on.

One specific request I kept asking God for personally was to allow me to have joy for those women around me that were pregnant. I didn’t want to just endure and barely make it through the road of infertility. I wanted to have joy and peace while walking through it. And I really was happy for my family and friends that were getting pregnant but it was still a hard thing for me. I longed for it not to turn into bitterness.

I can say that the constant foundation for me and my husband, during infertility, was our relationship with Jesus Christ. It was what allowed us to endure such heartache without being eaten up with despair.

Oh we have scars from it. At the time we wished it was different and asked for it to be different. But knowing that God is good and knowing that He had a plan for us and our family allowed a great expectation that gave us hope in the midst of our pain. And at the end of the day we really wouldn’t trade the plan God chose for us for anything different.

I remember pouring my heart out to God in such great confusion one particular night. My head felt like it was about to bust. I couldn’t figure out why God wasn’t giving us children. I wanted what He wanted for us….but I also wanted children. I remember telling my husband, “I just don’t know how to pray anymore. I don’t know how to stop wanting children.”

He said, “Melody,lets start praying that God will change the desires of our heart if He doesn’t want us to have children.” So that was my new prayer.

I really got into this and started trying to figure out how God might do this if He were to do it. Would He cause a baby in the church nursery to puke all over me or poop on me and then “poof” the desire for children would just disappear? Or would he do a number on me in my sleep and I would just wake up one morning and be like “I hate kids. Don’t ever want ‘em.”

But our desire for children never went away and because we had prayed for God to change our hearts and we were open to being changed by Him, it helped make adoption a no brainer for us.