Season of waiting

It has been a long season of waiting. And now the waiting is the most acute: waiting for the babies to implant; waiting for the pregnancy test; waiting for God to open the doors to the right job opportunities; waiting to know where we will move next. Waiting is a lot like winter. There is very little movement. No signs of life.

I am thinking about new life today. Yesterday at 12:45, our two little tiny embryos were transferred into my body. Seeing the little picture of them, already visibly three distinct types of cells (which would soon form into placenta, amniotic fluid, and baby), was such an amazing experience. Even better, these little creatures (which my friend Kara suggested are roughly the size of chia seeds, and rapidly expanding!) already were both “hatching” out of their outer membranes as they grow. Within 24-48 of yesterday at 12:45, the doctor told us they would hatch and implant into my uterine lining. As the doctor left the room, he said, “keep praying. These lives are in God’s hands. There is nothing more we can do.”  

Relaxing after the day after the transfer, hoping and praying

            We learned this truth the hard way in the past few months. We had a 77% chance of having a baby the last time around. Yet, four months later, instead of being 18 weeks pregnant and finding out the gender of our babies, we have just begun again. I now have two 7-day-old embryos in my tummy.

            This week God brought me to an amazing verse that I believe is a promise for us. I don’t know how or when it will come to pass. But I have this sense that it is a promise for us.

“See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.” – Song of Songs 2:11-13.

            I don’t know if I have already mentioned this story in here, but this is what I think of when new life from dead ground comes to mind. Last Valentine’s Day (the first one of our marriage) Josh gave me a beautiful white and fuchsia Phaleanopsis Orchid. Valentine’s Day there was a blizzard in Michigan, where we were for my 10-year Calvin College reunion. This kind of plant cannot ever be in temperatures below 60 degrees. So, needless to say, it was looking very droopy by the end of the day. We had to transport it back to Ohio, too. Within a few weeks, all of the flowers had fallen off and the branches were barren. There were no signs of life at all through the long, cold, dark days of winter. Months went by. I read a little, watched some YouTube videos from Brad’s Greenhouse, and decided to clean it up a bit. In early May, after we lost the babies, I decided to give some TLC to that little dead-looking plant. I rimmed off dead roots, sprayed down the leaves with a special cleaning solution, and polished all of the branches. I consistently stuck with the meticulous placement of three ice cubes on the moss each weekend.

The Hope Orchid

            And then it happened. Buds started to appear. As the days grew longer and the sun streamed in, the first flower opened. Within two weeks, we had 14 brand new orchid blossoms! New life from dead branches.

My back patio- early June... 

            I have been thinking the same thing lately as I watch my garden grow. The morning glories especially have me marveling… from such little tiny seeds, such a prolific mass of leaves, vines, and a glorious burst of pinks, purples, lilacs and blues every single morning. And not just where I planted, but trailing and climbing all over the rest of the patio garden bed, chairs, siding, grass, pots, and everything else they can get to. These beautiful morning flowers represent life coming from latent ground that had not been sown in quite a long time.

My back patio- last week

                I guess I am somewhat philosophical now as we abide in our waiting period. My greatest comforts are in knowing the Presence of my God with me, and the constant love of my husband. In the love of my husband I can sense the love of my God. What a beautiful place to be. Even in the waiting, I am content. We wait and we hope. In fact, we join the sentiment of Abraham from the Bible: “In hope against hope, he believed.” (Romans 4:18) The book The Power of Hope explains what he was expressing, “when there was absolutely no hope, he hoped anyway.”

            That is where I am today. Whether or not we become pregnant, whether a child (or twin children!) is born to us come next May, is only in our Father’s hands. What I mean is that, at this point, our only role is to pray and to hope against hope, waiting on our God. We know we can trust our God, no matter what happens. 

As always, thank you for keeping us in your prayers, and for joining us on our journey of faith toward becoming parents. 

Here we go again!

Giant pink zinnia from seed- a symbol of God's new mercies

Here we go again!

Yesterday I got the calendar of dates for our second IVF cycle. I have struggled with doubt and fear over the last three months since we lost the two poppyseed-sized babies the doctor put into my uterus. “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!” (Lamentations 3:21-23)

God has been faithful to us repeatedly in our lives. There is even faithfulness in the peace, the hope, and the inexpressible joy he gave us after we lost those two little babies. We praise him for his faithfulness in creating not just the two embryos that we lost, but also four more embryos that are just waiting to grown and become our children. I am confident that I can place all of my hope in Him because he is faithful and his compassions never fail.

Isn’t it interesting how we can fret and analyze over a decision for so long, then when the moment comes to make the decision, there is a grace and a peace that illuminates the right choice so clearly you do not even see the other choices? That is how this decision was for us.

After we lost the babies, many people asked: “when are you going to try again?” Some prayed with us for a miracle, that we would get pregnant naturally in the months following the IVF failure. Initially, it just hurt so badly that I could not imagine trying again. I was scared to lose two more babies. I was afraid of how much money it would cost. I feared we would find out something even bigger was wrong with us. I was anxious about the timing of when to get pregnant and when to have babies since my job in Ohio is ending soon, and neither of us have jobs on the horizon yet. Josh and I talked, we prayed, and we waited.

As the time drew closer (the end of the month of June), a deep peace started to settle over me. I am studying a book called The Power of Hope, by Dutch Sheets. A friend from church has been reading and discussing it with me weekly, and is it ever exactly what I need to process through this decision! Hope against hope was the theme in the chapter last week and we studied it the very night that our hopes for natural pregnancy last month were dashed. Many times during our struggle, believing friends have prayed for us and said that we will be like Abraham and Sarah from the Bible. God will provide children for us, and we will be the parents of many little ones. Now, our situation for child-bearing has sometimes felt quite hopeless. Even trying one of the most advanced methods for getting pregnant, we failed. When I should be 15 weeks pregnant, instead we are preparing to try the process again. But there is a verse in Romans 4:18:

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘so shall your offspring be.’

That is a hope against hope. That is hope in the face of hopelessness. And for Abraham and Sarah, quite honestly, the situation was even more hopeless than for us! They were 100 years old! We are extremely blessed to have the technology of IVF, to have one of the best medical teams in the nation performing our process (Dr. Shamma is ranked number 4 nationally on live births from IVF cycles), and to have such supportive, generous friends and family walking the journey with us. I cannot forget to mention the healing from Fibromyalgia that God provided as I weaned off of my medications before we first started trying to get pregnant. That was a mighty display of faithfulness and the power of God, and a sign that he would provide for us all that we needed.

So, here I sit, staring out at my garden and contemplating the upcoming process. Before I share that process with you, let me share my garden. 

Backyard patio garden... out of uncultivated ground, all of these seeds sprang

Experiments in vegetable growing

True- heaven is closer in the garden

  These beautiful plants have been like a tangible expression of God’s new compassions every morning. New life springing up from dead ground, ground that has been flooded and drowned so many times this summer. Yet, God keeps these plants alive and flourishing. I am often reminded, through looking at my flowers, herbs and vegetables, of the way that God cares for me. Even after a strong flood and the risk of drowning, his light comes out, the sun dries up the floodwaters, and life springs up again.

On Sunday night, I started my first medication. Next Friday, July 24, I will need to have surgery up in Detroit to check for fibroids and remove any that have returned. A few days after that, the clinic will administer a $900 shot to me to suppress my ovarian production in the next cycle. I will have two ultrasound appointments in August- perfectly timed so that Josh will be back to go with me! I am so grateful God has orchestrated the dates so he can be present for the entire process this time. Then on August 19, we will travel up to Detroit to stay overnight before the big day. On August 20, the doctor will transfer two more embryos into my uterus. (already praying fervently for the thawing and the selection of the right two embryos!) My nurses (my sister and my neighbor, both named Mary J ) will give me shots until the pregnancy test. And, hoping against hope, we could find out we are pregnant on August 31, 2015.

Here we go again!

Thank you for journeying with us through this adventure of God’s faithfulness through infertility. It has meant so much to me when many of you have approached me and talked to me about our journey. Thank you for your love, your support, and your prayers. Please continue praying for us, and as always, leave a comment- they encourage me so much!

It is well

Somehow part of my heartache healed when I heard my baby niece Maya’s first cry and saw her take her first breath. As we passed the one month mark of the miscarriage just a few days after Maya’s birth, my heart ached, but I also felt a release, like the worst of the pain was over. A new life had begun.  This week will be the two month anniversary of the conception of our children. I have sensed God moving me forward in the last couple of weeks. 

            So many things have happened spiritually in the last weeks. Sunday night at church, after such deep grieving and the peace of God’s presence at Deeper Night, my body and mind were at rest and weary in a content sort of way. Still, the question I asked that night to my dear friend Ann, as she hugged me, wept with me, and prayed with me for a healing and a miracle, lingers in my spirit.

            We were singing the song “It is well,” by Bethel Live. The tears overwhelmed me. I went to the front for prayer. As Ann and I cried for the little babies Josh and I lost, a question welled it within me. “Will it ever be completely well with me?” In my mind I know that God is faithful. I know that He has a plan. I know that it is well with me, because God is enough for me. Those beliefs I hold so dear bring me hope. I feel peace deep within my heart. Yet it still hurts. How it be completely “well with me” when it hurts so badly tonight? I am mourning the fact that I will never hold those babies’ hands or snuggle them in my arms. I will never feed them and kiss them good night. I will not meet them on this earth. I believe with all of my heart, though, that I will meet them in heaven one day.

            This brings back to my mind another very difficult time when I often asked, in not so many words, “is it well with me?” In 1994, my Aunt Carol was diagnosed with Leukemia. Aunt Carol was my mom’s older sister and best friend. We spent every holiday with Aunt Carol, Uncle Tom, and our cousins when we were growing up. After Aunt Carol was diagnosed, they lived with us for a little while. Aunt Carol was sick for two and a half years. I remember my mom telling me that one time, when she went to a local church’s women’s event, one of the other women said something like mom, “if you just have enough faith when you pray God will heal your sister.” Well, my mom had faith. Aunt Carol had faith. We all had faith. Yet, on April 11, 1997, my Aunt Carol died in the hospital after being in a coma for a couple of weeks.

            Even though I was only 14 years old when Aunt Carol died, I was devastated. It took many years of tears (and some counseling) to get to the point of coping and moving forward with life. For many years, I thought often of that woman’s comment to my mom. I have thought of it anew after losing the babies. We truly believed. Josh and I had faith. Our family, our church, our friends, and even our doctor all had faith. We prayed fervently. But God’s answer for these two babies lives was different than we prayed for. They most likely lived less than a week, although we will never know exactly.

            No, our faith does not determine God’s answer to our prayers. I do not dispute that God DOES miracles and he DOES answer prayers in accordance with our requests sometimes. He has done it in my life. He has directly answered my prayers. The biggest example, among many, is the immense blessing of God giving me my husband, Josh. I prayed many, many years for him to come along. There were a lot of bumps in the road and moments of discouragement. But God knew he was preparing Josh for me and, when the time was right, in February 2012, we met. There are so many more examples. God has been immeasurably faithful in my life. He has done miracles of healing, miracles of language, and miracles of changing lives through showing his love through me. Praise Jesus!  

           

            So here is the ultimate question: how is it truly “well with me” when the answer we fervently prayed for and believed God for is NO? Will there always be a part of me that hurts when I think of the babies we lost, or when I think of Aunt Carol’s tragic death? I do not know the answers to these questions, not really. Maybe “it is well” does not mean, “it is all okay and I am not sad anymore.” Maybe it means something like “I feel God’s presence and have peace in the midst of sadness, and I will wait expectantly for how God will use this loss for good according to his plan.” I have a friend who I pray with regularly. She and I have talked many times about how God can still be good in the midst of tragedy. She too has lost a baby, and she loves Jesus. In my daily life, I have met many people who have suffered loss of a child, a spouse, a friend, a family member, or a dream of some kind. I think all of us lose something or someone dear to us at some point. I think that, if we are honest with ourselves, we all struggle with this question as our heart breaks: “how can it be well with me?”

            Perhaps the question is not HOW but WHO. Of this I am confident: Jesus is the Comforter and the Healer. He is the Prince of Peace. He weeps with me when I weep. The loss of our babies grieves Jesus’ heart, too. Although I do not believe He causes tragedy and death, I do believe He is able to turn the brokenness into something beautiful. In my darkest moments, these are the core anchors that give me hope and keep me going. Jesus is my anchor.

            My prayer now is simple: Come, Lord Jesus, Come. I need you. I will rest. I will wait. There are so many unknowns, so many questions and uncertainties (when should we try again? how will we pay for it? what if it does not work?), but now is not the time for answers. Right now, I only need the Presence of the Spirit of Jesus.

Hope in the sunrise (Botswana, Good Friday 2009)

           I was unsure of whether the post this journal entry, but something inside me said that someone else, perhaps another woman who struggles with infertility or loss of a child, needs this.

         As always, thanks for journeying with me. Your love and encouragement have helped me immeasurably.

My First Mother's Day

The end of Mother’s Day week. All week long, I have been praying and thinking about putting my emotions into words. Each day I have thought Am I ready to write yet? I was not ready until now.

            On Mother’s Day, Josh and I celebrated our moms… all three of our wonderful moms, and so many more spiritual moms God has blessed us with. At church, I wished many mothers a special day that morning. But then the tears started.

            On Mother’s Day 2015, sorrow washed over my mind and my spirit. I really struggled… am I a mother too? We created two embryos that were in my body, but they died even before a positive pregnancy test. We loved them and had dreams for them. I was so blessed, because God knew what I was struggling with and brought two different women from our Bible Study group to answer the questions in my heart that morning. They both hugged me tightly and whispered to me: “Happy Mother’s Day. You are a mother. Your babies are in heaven with mine. I am praying for you. I love you.” I cried through the baby dedication, quickly walked out of church with tears in my eyes as gifting were being handed out to all of the moms, but these two women and their tender words stayed in my heart. 

            This week I have spent a lot of time in prayer, although it has honestly been a very busy week (Josh’s last law school exam and graduation, a very busy week of traveling for work and processing 9 new referrals of potential human trafficking victims from around the state of Ohio). I wish I would have been able to make more time to spend in God’s Word in the mornings, as that is usually my time of reflection and worship to focus before the day begins.

But God was faithful to bring scriptures to my mind when I needed them: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6) That one prepared my heart at the beginning of the week for the appointment we had been half looking forward to and half dreading: the follow up consultation with our doctor after the failed IVF attempt. 

It has been difficult for the last two weeks to be patient, wait on the Lord, and lean not on my own understanding. But, with Josh’s encouragement and accountability, I made it to Wednesday morning without any researching, googling, planning, or analyzing what the doctor might say or what we might do next (so un-Warpinski-like of me!!). I definitely was tempted, and I certainly did think about it, but I stayed faithful to what Josh challenged me to do: WAIT.

Wednesday morning the doctor was compassionate and straight-forward with us. He said he was shocked the embryos did not implant, but there are many reasons that can happen, and the most likely culprit is out of human control (unless you want to pay an extra $5,000 for genetic testing of each embryo to make sure they are genetically competent, ie: have all the chromosomes). Apparently, implantation can fail for three reasons: (1) problems with uterine receptivity, (2) problems with the transfer procedure, and (3) problems with the embryos. The third is the most likely and most common reason for implantation failure. In our situation, he suspected that was the case, since my hormone levels clearly showed that neither of the embryos had ever implanted at all. However, there is a possibility that my body also had difficulties with uterine receptivity, too, because of the very large number of fibroids that the doctor found when he went in to do the hysteroscopy surgery in March, before we started the IVF cycle.

Hearing the breakdown of why and how this happens to couples somehow helped my mind and my heart in the healing process. Now, we still don’t know the exact cause of the failure. But we do know we have four more frozen embryos that look good, and we have a doctor who is one of the best in the nation. The prospect of trying again scares me but also excites me. We so badly want to be parents. My heart is still so broken, though. And what if it does not work again? Now that we know the deep heart break if IVF fails, it makes it a bit scary to go into it all over again.

If there is one thing I have learned in life it is that God gives you enough grace to handle only the present moment, not the fears about the moments to come. No matter how painful, if you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and rest in the shelter of his wings, he WILL give you the grace you need. Another good reason to WAIT. This truth, like so many truths, has been distilled in my life through painful, trying experiences, and through heartbreaks. Each time I feel afraid, I remind myself: God gives grace to the brokenhearted, and heals them.

Church destroyed by war, Gbarpolu, Liberia (2005)

This week especially, as I have been reading another book about the genocide survivors in Rwanda, I am vividly reminded of the truth that God’s mercy comes in the moment in which it is needed, in a way that only the individual walking with Him can sense. I know, you may be thinking… wait, how did we start talking about genocide? And what does that have to do with God’s mercy and grace? How do genocide and losing babies through a failed IVF attempt relate to one another? Well, friends, all I can say is that in my heart they are related. Quite honestly (and if you know me well, you know this to be true), genocide relates to every spiritual truth I hold dear because God has touched my heart and my mind deeply with the stories, the prayers, the heartbreak, the devastation, and the enduring hope after the Rwandan genocide.

So, what will we do next? Well, for the time being, Josh will study for the bar exam and I will focus on the healing God wants to do in my life. This is yet another chapter for us. We are praying about another attempt with a frozen transfer in August, preparatory work to start in July, but are still seeking God about that decision (because of the expensive cost when are still struggling to ay back the first round and the timing right before we plan to move to Minnesota). Please join us in prayer.

Darkness and Light, Wisconsin lake (Father's Day 2007)

This week Josh and I spent some time praying and reading through Ephesians 6: the Armor of God. What a wonderful reminder! The shield of faith protects us from the lies that are thrown at us by the devil. When my mind wanders and my heart starts to feel overwhelmed or hopeless, the shield of faith protects me from going down those dark paths. Hope is my anchor. In the darkest moment, there is grace enough to handle the darkness and look toward the light.

Thank you, again, for joining us on our journey. I am so grateful for you encouragement, love, and prayers! Happy Mother’s Day to all of you moms, to all who have lost children, and to all who deeply hope to one day be moms. May God bless you with grace enough to handle whatever darkness you are going through, may you lean not on your own understanding, and may hope be your anchor.