Post 3

Just concluding the thoughts from prior entry...

We found ourselves in a very difficult space. The facts on the ground were sobering. We spent over 5 years of trying to get pregnant. Lots of pregnancies, but none lasting beyond 7 weeks. No answers from the doctors as to why. The clock continues ticking thus making the picture darker as the probabilities of success monotonically decrease as a function of time. At the same time, we are people of faith. And we believe in a God that Lords over nature, and the same God that parted the Red Sea and raised the dead is working in our midst today. God can still pull His ace out of the hole and do something that is entirely against the odds- in fact, my some of my co-conspirators would argue that’s His primary business.

So we decided to keep trying. In fact, we made the seemingly foolish decision in early 2009 to ditch the best that science had to offer and just go on trying naturally. I look back on that decision now, and that was about 110% the wife, and -10% me. I had few (if any) moral qualms about IVF the way some folks on the faith spectrum might, but the wife felt strongly that the natural route was right for us. She believed God gave her a promise that He would deliver a son, and that He would do so naturally. Of course, she couldn’t say when or how, but it was something she held deeply in her heart, and she was willing to go down swinging believing in that Promise.

The months marched on without any discernible change to our circumstances. On several occasions, there were incidents that would lift our spirits. There was a time in late 2009 when I woke up at 3 AM unable to sleep and found a voicemail from a missionary friend of ours halfway around the globe. She indicated that she and the orphans she cared for had just concluded their morning prayer, and that as they were praying for us, they felt that God told them that we would have a family soon. This missionary’s track record in this kind of stuff is as good as anyone we know, so hope made a rare appearance. This worked for us until the next month where the regularity of the wife’s cycle reminded us of the reality we were facing.

The calendar turned to 2010. Early in the year, I made a couple entries in my journal. I told God, “Look, I still believe You’re going to deliver on the promise that the wife believes You made. At the same time, I need to build my faith on something a little more solid than just the circumstances. I am going to picture a life without my own children, and I do believe it can be a great and fulfilling life. I leave the rest up to You.”

This seemingly simple act of surrender turned out to be quite liberating on many fronts. While I don’t know if this was the catalyst, what I do know is that within 4 weeks of that time, the wife took a pregnancy test that told her she was with child. Those 9 months were a bit harrowing at times, but overall, I would say that after we finished the first trimester, the pregnancy was actually quite easy.

Of course, now, the hard work of parenting begins.