“In His Time” by Gina

When my husband William and I got married in November of 1997, we were both ready to begin our family immediately.  Little did we know, God had other plans for us.  After four years of trying to conceive and to no avail, we decided to seek medical help.  For years I had doctors tell me that there was nothing wrong, that we just needed to relax and quit worrying about things and that if we were not so uptight, it would happen.

I started researching infertility and began charting my cycles each month and after about a year of doing this with no results, I was convinced that there was something wrong.  I had to change doctors three times because it seemed that no one would take me seriously and listen to what I knew was going on.  Through the testing that followed the next several years, it was finally concluded that I had severe endometriosis.  As most who suffer from endometriosis know, this disease can be extremely frustrating.  There are so many unknowns and it usually leaves you with many unanswered questions.  Some common ones I struggled with were: “Why do I have it?”  “What did I do to cause this?”  And the most frustrating of all for me was, “If every test comes out that nothing is physically wrong with my reproductive organs, why am I not pregnant yet?”

These questions plagued me for years, and like many other women who have struggled with infertility, I watched time and time again as my friends and family conceived, carried their babies to term and delivered beautiful, healthy babies.  My emotions were so unstable during this time.  My friends and family were afraid to share their joyous news with me, which hurt me because I truly was so happy for them, but every positive they received made me feel so sad about my situation.  It seemed like a never-ending roller coaster ride that I didn’t want to be on.

I think the most hurtful thing during that time was that I felt that God was not answering my prayers but pouring out blessings on everyone around me.  I compared my state to that of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:10 as she dealt with her own barrenness,  “ And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.” I truly was in this state as well.  I prayed, I wept, and bitterness was beginning to set in on me.   I felt so self-centered and selfish, always thinking about me and my condition.  Looking back, those were some very sad and lonely times for me.

Over the next few years, William and I considered in vitro fertilization (IVF).  We even got as far as meeting with a physician and were actually filling out the paperwork when both of us immediately knew that this was not the path that we were to be taking, at least not at that very moment.  We continued praying and searching for alternative ways to build our family.  An attorney introduced us to the idea of adoption.  We first looked into overseas adoption, but could not find peace in that decision and decided that was not the path we were to take either.  We finally settled on becoming a resource family through the Department of Human Services.  This decision was absolutely life changing for us and I mean that in the best way!  I still can’t believe how everything fell into place as we began to start our family and I would like to share a few pieces of that story with you, so you can see just how great the Lord worked in our lives.

We were approved in August of 2003 to become adoptive parents.  I was praying that we would be placed with an infant.   I wanted so badly to experience that part of motherhood.  Our social worker told us it would take some time to be placed with a child, especially an infant, sometimes it could take several years.  I was very surprised when our phone rang in December of that same year with a possibility of a 3 ½ year-old boy.  I have to admit, at first, I was not on board with the age of the child; I was hoping for a newborn or at least a baby that was under a year old.  I went and met with the social worker and as soon as she showed me the pictures of Tevin, my heart melted….I saw a beautiful little boy who needed a home.  My eyes were not clouded with age; age didn’t matter.   He was such a cute little guy and so in December of 2003, Tevin came home with us!   Talk about a wonderful Christmas gift.  After only six months in our home, we finalized the adoption of our first child.  We were finally parents and I was a mommy!   God had answered our prayers!  God was so good to work out so many problems that could have occurred during that process and then, He continued to pour out blessings on us over the next few years!

In November of 2005, I was called to give temporary care to a newborn baby boy for another foster parent who was dealing with health issues in her family.  That temporary care turned permanent the first week of December and it looked like this little baby might possibly be up for adoption as well.  On December 19th, I received a call that they had found a family for the baby to live with.  I was very heartbroken.  Although the goal is always for reuniting with the parents or biological family, in the back of my mind, I always thought what if…I was not prepared for the phone call that I received three days later.  I received the call on Taleah on December 22nd.  Her birth mother was in the hospital delivering her as we spoke, and they wanted to see if I was up for keeping another newborn.  I hesitated after they told me that she had three other siblings in custody and that the only reason she couldn’t go there was because that foster home was full; however, if a spot opened, they would move her to be with the siblings.  I almost said no, but something (God, I believe) prompted me to say yes and so we took her.  The next day, I went and picked her up.  She was amazing and I fell in love with her quickly!

Two days later, on Christmas Day, I knew that her leaving my home would be too hard for me to take, especially if her stay was extended, so I wanted to meet with the other foster family and tell them my heart or tell them to take her quickly because the DHS workers really felt that this baby would go up for adoption.  We went out to my mother-in-law’s for Christmas dinner and she had a HUGE surprise for us!  The other family that had the other three other siblings was her current preacher and his wife, who was also my husband’s and my former preacher!  They too were resource parents in another county.  They had already adopted two of her siblings and had the third in foster care at the time but knew they could not keep taking this couples’ children.  Space was limited and they already had ten children in their home with plans of adopting them all.  They had been so burdened by not knowing where Taleah was that they had decided to call DHS after Christmas and tell them that they would do whatever they needed to make a space for her.  They were telling this story to my mother-in-law and when they compared details, they realized that we were the other foster family.  When they found out that she had been placed with William and me, we all knew that God had worked this out perfectly and that it was a miracle.  MANY tears of joy were shed that day!

Several huge things happened that don’t normally happen in a case like Taleah’s that I want to point out, so that God can get all the glory.  First of all, her siblings resided in another county and the fact that her mother delivered in our county opened the door to us even being able to foster her temporarily.  Secondly, had the little boy that we had in our home not been removed three days before Taleah was born, we would not have been the ones to receive that telephone call.  God’s hand TRULY was present in yet another wonderful Christmas present for us.  Telling that story still gives me chills, it is so AMAZING and hard to believe that it happened at all, let alone the way that it did.  Everything just fell into place perfectly.

After being blessed with our first two children through adoption, we decided that the timing might be right for us to try IVF.  We still struggled with the thought that perhaps we were taking things out of the Lord’s hands if we sought this route of treatment.  After talking with my pastor’s wife one day, I was explaining to her that I felt so selfish for still wanting to conceive and carry a child, especially after the Lord had been so good to us through adoption.

She said two things that really helped me get past any struggle I had with IVF.  The first was, it wasn’t selfish of me to want to be a mother in the sense of carrying and delivering a child.  God had created women to fulfill that very function and that He had placed that desire in my heart as a woman.  The other was the struggle that William and I dealt with on taking things out of God’s hands.  She said to me, “Gina, if God does not intend for you to bear a child, you will not bear a child.  You cannot take anything out of God’s hands!”  Her words of counsel put us at complete ease with pursuing IVF.  If the process worked, great!  If it didn’t, we had already been blessed with two beautiful children.

We were referred to a wonderful doctor and in the fall of 2007, our third child, Kaylee Rose, was born to us.  Our final addition to the family arrived in the spring of 2009.  We named her Kimberlee.  I’m not sure of the exact statistics on IVF, but I know that the percentage of success on a first try is somewhere around or below 50% and on frozen cycles, the success rate is much lower, probably around 35% or even lower.  We tried two cycles and both were successful!  I am still in awe at God’s allowing us to experience the joy of parenthood by adoption and by conception.  One boy and three girls later, our family is complete, unless of course the Lord decides to allow us any more children!

Looking back over the last thirteen years, I can now see how important it was for us to wait on starting our family.  God was trying to teach me patience so that I could experience the full blessings that He had in store for me.  In Romans 5:3, the Bible says ”And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience.”  This verse proved so true in our situation.  Had we been able to immediately conceive and not go through the tribulation of infertility, our family would not be complete because we never would have considered the adoption process and we would not have Tevin and Taleah today.  God had other plans for our family.  He had bigger and better plans for our family.  While I couldn’t see His plan clearly years ago, I can now see clear as day just what He had in mind.  I learned a very important lesson through all this and it is that the best blessings come “In His Time.”  Some things are worth waiting for!

Gina

“Great Is Thy Faithfulness” by Terri

I had my life all scheduled out.  I would meet the man of my dreams in college, marry and work a few years on my career.  I would get pregnant on my schedule and have three kids.  None of which happened.

I met the man of my dreams several years after college.  We talked about having children, the first of which would be born three years after we got married.  Or so we planned.  We began trying to get pregnant a couple of years after we got married, thinking it would take a couple of months or maybe three.  I had it all planned around my work schedule.  Convenient, right?

After several months and many negative pregnancy tests later, I began to get concerned.  A year passed, and the concern turned to worry.  Would I be able to get pregnant at all?  We went to see my doctor and she did a laparoscopy early on.  She found some endometriosis and prescribed Clomid, with no success.  Then she sent me to a fertility specialist.  He gave us no answers, and by this time I was worried and frustrated.

All this time we had been praying that God would allow us to have a baby, and I couldn’t understand why, with all my planning, it just wasn’t working out the way I wanted it to.  I would pray and say I was giving this burden to the Lord, but then I would almost immediately take it back.   It became a daily struggle, and I became very depressed and discouraged.  The comments of “When are you ever going to have a baby?” from those unaware of our situation would bring me to tears.  I felt as though I were at the end of my rope.

In March of 2001, we were having revival services at our church. During that week, the fertility doctor’s nurse called and asked if I wanted to start back on the Clomid for another three months.  I told her I was thinking about it and would let them know.  That night, I can’t even remember what the evangelist preached on, but God spoke to me and showed me that I had to give this over to Him.  I realized that conception is not something you plan; it is truly a miracle of God.  Only He has the power to create and sustain life.  I went to the altar with my husband and my mom, and I felt that I finally surrendered to God’s will in my life concerning having a baby.

In just a couple of weeks, I had a positive pregnancy test.  It was a direct answer to prayer, and we praised the Lord that our miracle was on the way.  He was born the day after Christmas 2001, a true gift from God.  Our second son was born in November 2003.  Everything went smoothly with both births.  But when we decided to have a third, things didn’t go so well.  Six days before Christmas 2005, when I was ten weeks pregnant with our third child, I miscarried.  I was heartbroken.  This happened to other ladies, but I could not imagine losing my own baby.  I never questioned why, but I cried for weeks, even months after I lost our baby.  I wanted another child so badly, and losing one was very painful.  In September 2006 I became pregnant again.  My doctor was watching me closely, and she said this pregnancy was not going well either.  Day after day we prayed and I went for blood work, but then my doctor told me I was going to miscarry again.  After a very complicated set of circumstances, I was diagnosed with a tubal pregnancy.  But the Lord intervened, and I did not have to be treated for it or have it removed.

Fear again took hold of my heart.  God had worked miraculously in my body and allowed me to live through some very life-threatening circumstances, yet I wondered if I could have any more children.  My faith in God had been strengthened through the trials I had faced.  God had answered so many prayers and had divinely intervened on my behalf.  I was just afraid that maybe it was not His will for us to have any more children.  Again, I had to give my desires over to His desires for my life.  I had two beautiful boys and realized I needed to enjoy this precious time with them instead of living in remorse over what I had lost.

In early summer of 2007, I discovered I was again pregnant.  With some apprehension, I went for an ultrasound at seven weeks, and there was a heartbeat, the most wonderful sound I had ever heard!  In February 2008, we had our third son.  The birth of this child was such a comfort to my heart after the loss of two precious babies.

We recently had our fourth son in December 2009.  God has truly blessed our family, and even with the emotions that fill my mind over our two children who are in heaven, I wouldn’t trade the trials we experienced for anything.  Many times I have read Psalm 34 and have found comfort in all of the promises of God there.  I can see God’s faithfulness to us, and I have so much to be thankful for.  God truly is good, and “great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:23).

Joy-Tester

One Sunday morning in September 2001, they passed out a flier at church asking for ladies to submit a one-page devotion for a 365-day devotional book to raise funds for a Bible college.  I realized this could be an opportunity for me to share something I have learned in the past about my trial of infertility.  I could write about joy.

I’ve heard teachers and preachers say sometimes they were being tested on the very subject they were going to teach and preach.  It shouldn’t have surprised me then that my test came the very next day.

I had an appointment at 8 am and my husband came with me.  The doctor did some tests and an ultrasound; she said the right ovary looked good, but the left ovary was not clear.  It appeared to her that the endometriosis was probably growing back.  I had suspected as much with some familiar signs during my cycle, but to hear her say it was very discouraging.  My eyes started to tear up, and I  finally cried when we got to my car.

It suddenly occurred to me that worrying was causing me to lose my joy.  I lost my faith and trust in God’s plan for a brief moment.  Then I realized this was God’s test for me to see if I could really write about “joy” and how we can have true joy in spite of our circumstances.  I had to prove it to myself first – again.  I must keep my eyes off my circumstances and on the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is constantly abiding, and my joy must abide, too.

The Trial of Infertility

When we first got married, my husband and I thought we would wait a few years before trying to get pregnant; we had already talked about it and agreed we wanted four children.  That was the easy part – agreeing!  Most couples who get married plan when they are going to start having babies and how far apart they want them, don’t they?  Well, at the end of those first three years, things weren’t happening the way we planned.

I didn’t like that God wasn’t giving me the life I expected.  After 5 years of tests, waiting, laparoscopies for endometriosis, more tests, more waiting, and more surgery, I was getting tired of it all.  In the midst of my turmoil, my husband posed a question to me that really stuck with me and made me stop and think about my situation.  He said, “When are you going to realize that this is just a trial?  Do you want to tell God you aren’t willing to go through it?”  With tears, I said, “No.”

So what does “just a trial” mean?  A trial is simply a testing.  I believe the trial of infertility is a test of faith and patience by suffering.  God was putting my faith and patience to the test.  Would I pass or fail?  I wanted to just skip the test!

Streams in the Desert, February 16^th says, “If the affliction is sent for testing us, that our graces may glorify God, it will end when the Lord has made us bear witness to His praise.  We would not wish the affliction to depart until God has gotten out of us all the honor which we can possible yield Him.  Trial is only for a season.  Trial is for a purpose.  The very fact of trial proves that there is something in us very precious to our Lord; else He would not spend so much pains and time on us.  Christ would not test us if He did not see the precious ore of faith mingled in the rocky matrix of our nature; and it is to bring this out into purity and beauty that He forces us through the fiery ordeal.  Be patient, O sufferer!  The result will more than compensate for all our trials, when we see how they wrought out the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”  From Tried by Fire

“God Wants To Hear You Sing” by Rodney Griffin

The first time I heard this song was at the Southern Gospel Jubilee.  It’s a beautiful song, and one I needed to hear.  After having another surgery for endometriosis in April 2002, I was really down, and my pastor’s wife tried to cheer me up by encouraging me to listen to some Southern Gospel tapes.  I always thought when I was sad, it was hard to sing because the songs just made me cry even more, but when I heard this song, it really meant a lot to me that God would want to hear me sing in praise to Him, just as Paul and Silas did, when they were bound in prison.  Just a couple of years ago, we were blessed to hear Greater Vision sing this in person!

“God Wants To Hear You Sing”

by Rodney Griffin of Greater Vision

……………………………………..

Their chains were fastened tight down at the jail that night.

Still Paul and Silas would not be dismayed.

They said, “It’s time to lift our voice, sing praises to the Lord.

Let’s prove that we will trust Him come what may.”

……………………………………..

He loves to hear our praise on our cheerful days

When the pleasant times outweigh the bad by far.

But when suffering comes along, and we still sing him songs,

That is when we bless the Father’s heart.

………………………………………

God wants to hear you sing

When the waves are crashing ’round you,

When the fiery darts surround you,

When despair is all you see.

God wants to hear your voice

When the wisest man has spoken

And says, “Your circumstance is as hopeless as can be.”

That’s when God wants to hear you sing.

Faith-Tester

An excerpt from Streams in the Desert, January 4th, says, “You will never learn faith in comfortable surroundings.  God gives us the promise in a quiet hour; God seals our covenants with great and gracious words, then He steps back and waits to see how much we believe; then He lets the tempter come, and the test seems to contradict all that He has spoken.  It is then that faith wins its crown.  That is the time to look up through the storm, and among the trembling, frightened seamen cry,’I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me.'”

My laparoscopy was scheduled for July 30, 2000.  At my first appointment, my specialist had done an ultrasound and said some things needed to be checked out, including possibly endometriosis.  I had heard that word once before.  Since I didn’t really know what it was all about, I thought nothing of it.  The Lord showed me Psalm 113:9 exactly one week before my outpatient surgery, and I was filled with promise!

Just a short week later, my spirits were dealt the most devastating blow.  I woke up from the laparoscopy, and the first words I asked my husband were, “Do I have endometriosis?”  He said, “Yes.”  I asked, “How bad is it?”  He quietly said, “Pretty bad.”  I just cried silently with tears flowing down my face.  My parents were in the room, too.  I asked my husband to pray for me right then.  He always words good, thoughtful prayers, but I honestly don’t remember what he said and I don’t even think it comforted me too much.  I was just devastated and didn’t expect to hear that I had endometriosis.  I thought at that point I would never get pregnant.

My mom chided me gently and reminded me of the verse God gave me just a week earlier.  She said not to lose faith in that promise just because of what the doctor found.  That comforted me somewhat and reassured me that God was still in control.

After I got home from the hospital, I remember reading about endometriosis in a book my friend loaned me on infertility.  It said if endometriosis is found in early stages, there was still a good chance you could conceive.  I called my doctor the next day and asked her what stage she considered my endometriosis, and she said it was Severe – Stage IV.  What another blow!  I had read in that book that people with Stage IV endometriosis had a very slim chance of conceiving.

Mom was right.  This was one of my tests of faith.