Aug 8, 2020

Today is the two year anniversary of Jane’s conception through Invitro Fertilization after four years of infertility. I made a video about our IVF process that I’ll add down below. We’ve been exceedingly blessed with our little miracle. I have been wanting to write about this journey and what it taught me for a while. Even though I’ve been able to talk about it through the years, I don’t want to forget the details because I know for sure that the Lord doesn’t waste our pain and our hardships. If we let Him, He will use it for His good purpose. 

When I look back at my life, I see each season in a different theme. Our four years of infertility season was my “seeking” theme. After the first year of trying to have a baby I really began to fervently seek the Lord in my quiet time. I’m sure I was praying about it before, but I really began to ask God to show me some direction. What am I supposed to do? Do I change doctors? Do I do this exploratory surgery? Do we adopt? But the verses that stood out to me the most in my Bible study (where I was totally expecting some answers) were usually about seeking. 

I don’t remember them all, but I think I marked most of the verses in my bible and dated them. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8. 

What great verses right? But this went on into the second year. One day I remember reading another verse that was something about seeking the Lord in it and feeling that it was really meant for me and I got very frustrated.

I was like Okay Lord I am seeking you, now what? What do we do? And I felt like the Lord was gently saying to me, that is it. That is your answer. What I’ve been telling you this whole time, seek Me. 

I don’t know that I grasped everything in that moment, but I gradually began to understand what this meant. To seek the Lord not for what He could do for me or for His answers to my problems, He wanted me to seek Him for Him and value who He is and to know Him deeply. Eventually I realized that even if the Lord never answered another one of my prayers, He is still good, and His plan is still the best and I don’t have to know the details. I just have to trust the one making them. That’s an easy thing to say on the other side of waiting, but harder to come to terms within the middle of a struggle I know. 

Another time that shaped me through this hard time was when I crying in the shower. I let out most of my frustrations and hosted most of my pity parties in the shower, at least after each monthly disappointment. I remember being in the shower and telling the Lord that it felt like I was on a moving assembly line in a baby factory and God was handing out babies to all the people in front of me. But right before He got to me, He turned around as if to get my baby like all the others before me. But He paused a beat too long and handed the baby to the person after me. 

He skipped me. 

He didn’t even notice and kept on going like nothing happened. Everyone else got to hop off the assembly line and go about their lives, move into their next season, a season they probably didn’t even appreciate, at least not like I would have. That’s how it felt anyway. 

And that is how it feels, like you’ve been skipped, left behind and everyone else gets to keep living while you’re left circling on the assembly line getting skipped every time your turn comes around. But I very much felt the Lord say to me in my sad self-pity state alone in my shower, that He didn’t skip me. 

He picked me.

And as the water washed over me and I thought about that, I felt like I already knew what He meant. He picked me for this journey of waiting, watching, stretching and growing. He would never leave me and would show me eventually how He was working and be sure to encourage me along the way. 

I knew this to be true in my heart because at this point, I was teaching at Christ Covenant School, an opportunity that I probably wouldn’t have had if my prayers would have been answered on my timeline. Those kids made me feel so special at a time I really needed some encouragement. When I started IVF, my staff family prayed for me at our staff meeting, they texted and emailed to check on me and threw me the sweetest baby shower. I felt so beloved. When the kids found out I wasn’t coming back the next year, I was about 8 months pregnant, I told each class my testimony and told them that the Lord had a plan for their lives too. No matter what they were going through or would go through they could count on Him to never leave them and to use the hard times for good. I told them that I loved them and that they were so special to me and were like my very own kids. I said if they were that special to me, just imagine how much more special they are to God who created us.