Part 7: An Unexpected Hope

Infertility is painfully messy. 

And somewhere in the mess, there’s hope...such a curious thing. When you’re at your end and being hopeful (again) is just too painful and wide open and vulnerable, somehow it begins to seep in - often against my will (but definitely in Someone else’s) - and here I am finding myself hopeful again. 

One day, I was challenged by a dear friend to think about what the ground does when it rains - nothing. It just soaks up the rain. 

Do the same with God. Stand in the shower, she said, and let His love soak over you, into you. 

I literally would stand in the shower and sing these words 

You are good, good, oh oh

You are good good, oh oh

from the song “King of My Heart.” Showers became a reprieve. 

The hot water washing away the heaviness. 

I learned to still my thoughts, as hard as it was sometimes, and focus on that one thing. 

On His goodness. 

Even if I didn’t feel it. He was still good. And good to us. And has good for us. 

Lord, help us believe. 

Help us trust.

Then more medicine. And procedures. More months. Timing things down to the hour. And tests. 

Oh, the tests. 

I thought a negative pregnancy test once a month was bad. Try adding negative ovulation tests...for days. Literally half the month consisted of some test telling me I was failing. Failing at what my body was made to do. 

Didn’t God make me to do this?!

One day near the end of June, I had a shift to work. It was a Sunday. I loathe working Sundays. I want to be at church, worshipping and fellowshipping with our community. I need that in this season. There is something healing and hopeful and moving in it. And I want to have the day to gather my thoughts for the week. Grocery shop. Take a nap.

But here I was, up way too early...I was feeling empty, void of strength for 12 hours of caring for laboring mothers. It was just too much this day. 

But I can’t choose things like that. I can’t just call out for no reason. I can’t just say I’m not coming in today. That’s not how it works in the hospital. You have to be dying before you can stay home. 

So I woke up, tried to sit with the Lord, got ready for work, left the house in the dark, drove on the empty streets, entered a cold hospital, changed into stiff scrubs with an annoying barcode on them (y’all, I hate this barcode...for so many reasons...my coworkers can tell you!), and sat down for report. A series of events, in and of themselves, that can drain the life out of me. 

I met my patient. A first time mother. Going natural - wanting no medicine. Three centimeters dilated. Oh boy, this was going to be a long shift. 

Can’t I just disengage? Slide by? 

Nope. Not today.

I was in her room at one point, she and her support team - husband and sister - were listening to worship music. “Spirit of the Living God” came on. The first song Stephen and I danced to as husband and wife. 

Our song. 

It pierced something in my heart. I told them it was our first dance song. They got so excited that I was a believer. They had prayed for their medical staff for their delivery to be believers. They were overjoyed that God had answered that prayer for them. 

They’d prayed for me to be there, caring for them that day.

Literally minutes later, back at the nurses’ station, my charge nurse asked me if I’d like to go home, the unit was slow. 

Oh, sweet Lord....really? You have awful timing sometimes! 

I couldn’t leave my patient now - we had JUST bonded! I told my charge nurse no, I’d have to stay until she delivered. And a curious thing happened - the more I was in that labor room, the more I felt the Spirit. I began to have a sense that God had me there more for me than for them. I was in her room, fighting back tears at one point, watching this beautiful birth unfold for them, and it was like God spoke to me and said...

I’m not showing you this for you to be bitter, hurt, cynical...but for you to see what I will give you! This will be your story, too! Watch it, child, with a hopeful heart. 

Ok, Lord. 

Heart engaged.

I rubbed her back, spoke encouraging and soothing words, helped her into different positions to help relieve the pain, willed my strength into her. 

I bit my lip as tears welled in my eyes. 

I laughed with her sister, gave her husband affirming glances as he looked on with anxiety. They shared with me a book that was transformational for her birth experience.

And she did it. Gracefully so. Praying and singing and trusting. She literally prayed her way to 10 centimeters. She praised her way through pushing. It could not have gone more beautifully. And that baby, oh that sweet sweet baby! 

Absolutely precious. 

God, that was the most beautiful delivery I’ve ever seen. Thank You for choosing me to be a part of it. 

I had to tell her sister what this experience meant to me. I felt I had to share. 

A snippet of our journey, how God spoke to me that day. 

And I encouraged her to share it with her sister, the patient, when the time was right so as not to take away from her moment. But she insisted I tell her myself right then and there. “Oh girl, she would want to know - straight from you!” So I went into her room, sat on the edge of the bed, and shared with her, through tears, how God had used her experience to encourage me in a powerful way. 

We all cried. 

And her sister reminded me again of the book that helped them prepare for that day. Supernatural Childbirth: Experiencing the Promises of God Concerning Conception and Delivery. She sent me a copy right then and there to my email. I walked out exhausted in all ways...physically, emotionally, spiritually. I reined in my emotion as I walked down the hall, looking up and whispering my thanks to the Lord for how He had moved. 

For the hope He had so kindly given. 

That night, after caring for that blessing of a patient, Stephen and I began praying one of the prayers from the book. I didn’t read through the book, I just jumped straight to the prayer section. We didn’t have time to waste, we had to get down to serious business. 

We had an appointment the next week with a fertility specialist. The best in the business. One of the perks of living so near a big city. We had done our homework, had all the necessary procedures performed. Had more poking and prodding done. 

We sat down in the doctor’s office. An excitement felt. But to be honest, we were both nervous. 

Like really nervous. 

Where was this going? What were next steps? Were we ready? We really want children, and if this is what it takes, we’ll do it. 

He was kind and funny, our fertility specialist. He chatted to get to know us. And then reviewed our history. Everything with Stephen was perfect. Everything. Then me...nothing should be out of the ordinary. No reason to believe it would be. 

But it was. 

That hormone level. So low! Everything else checked out fine. We ruled out a tubal problem. He recommended some more genetic testing to see if I had a faulty spot in my DNA. Comforting thought, ha. 

And his recommendation was IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) with medication to induce maturation and ovulation of eggs. We’d do that three rounds if necessary, increasing medication dosage each time. And if nothing...then, IVF. He also said, “We don’t have time to waste. Time is definitely of the essence. Let us know when you’re ready to move forward.”

We don’t have time... 

There are some phrases you just can’t get out of your head. This is one of them. (“You’ll likely need donor eggs” is another one.)

I know God’s time is His, not mine, but in that moment...

TIME!

It scared me...to wait. The eggs weren’t going to get more numerous. That’s just not how it works. You’re born with all you’re gonna have. I’m a nurse. I know medicine. I know the body. 

BUT God. I also know Him.

That was Tuesday. We sat on the information, but we prayed we wouldn’t need any of it and that we’d already be pregnant. 

We were in that “waiting period” again. 

We had done our part and had to just wait and see. We were so excited, so hopeful, that we’d be taking all these steps not to need them, that this would be our month, like we’d prayed every other month. 

That same day, right from the office, Stephen and I both went out of town to different states. The very next day my body began showing signs that I was not pregnant. I entered into fear mode. Sadness took over, like it had every month for the past eleven months. And then I’d get mad at myself for getting my hopes up again. And then I’d shake my head, snap back into reality, force my body to the tasks at hand and my mind to make decisions. 

I put on worship music, a playlist I had created in this season, to keep the dark thoughts at bay. A way to have truth weave in and out as my mind raced.

All I could hear was “we don’t have time to waste.” And we both wanted children so badly - if someone was giving us a way to increase our chances to maybe, just maybe, make that test come back positive, we had to do it, right? 

Stephen and I talked via phone and tried to make the right decision, but it had to be quick. I had to set up an appointment the next day, Thursday, to be seen on Friday. We were to fly to NYC on Saturday for our anniversary trip. We didn’t have time to sit on this and think. We didn’t have time to process the information we’d just heard the day before. We had to decide. 

We didn’t have time.

We felt as comfortable as we could with moving forward. What we were doing wasn’t working. To keep doing that is insanity, right? So let’s try the next thing.

All along this journey I kept thinking of that story where there’s a guy on the top of a roof in a flood asking for God to save him. He turns away his neighbors offer to jump in his truck, saying “I’m waiting on God to save me!” He turns away a boat and a helicopter and after drowning asks God, “Why didn’t you save me?” God says, “I sent you a truck, a boat and a helicopter!” 

I didn’t want to have these things right in front of us and not take advantage of them. We were already in with an incredible doctor. We had the finances to move forward. It was all in our hands if we wanted it. Was this the rescue boat?

We felt like it might be. So we chose to move forward. 

We didn’t have time to waste, after all.