But it is so hard to know what the Lord’s will is!!! I talked with the nurse at my RE’s office and she said that every single hormone level came back normal. Boo on normal hormone levels…I mean, it would be great to have normal hormone levels if that was allowing us to get pregnant, but that obviously has not been working for us, so normal hormone levels are not my friend. I would much rather something be off a little so we know what to do…now the only thing to do is to try and “fix” stuff when the Dr. doesn’t even know what to “fix”.
The nurse said that he reviewed my lab results and is recommending we start on Clomid. We have a phone consultation with him this Thursday (really cool that we can do a phone consultation since he is so far away!) so we can discuss everything with him. But at least I know what he is thinking before talking to him so we have time to think and pray about it ourselves.
Fertility treatments are something that I have struggled with from the very beginning. I have such mixed opinions of them. OBVIOUSLY they can work and give infertile couples the chance to have biological children that they would not be able to have without those treatments. And I don’t have a moral argument against most of the treatments. My issue is that if God can make a virgin pregnant than He can make me pregnant without fertility treatments if it is His will for me to be pregnant. Thinking about it this way it seems like infertility treatments are taking matters into our own hands and not waiting for the Lord to provide.
HOWEVER, if I was diagnosed with cancer I would not just wait around for the Lord to cure me. I would have radiation, chemotherapy, and whatever else that the Dr. recommended – things that the medical world has discovered to help cancer patients. I do believe that the Lord has allowed advances in technology so that we do have options when faced with illness. So in that light, it makes my argument against just waiting for the Lord shaky. He CAN work THROUGH medical treatments to accomplish His will… If He has allowed advances in the medical field of infertility, why not try them as long as they are in line with scripture?
My next thought on infertility treatments is when do you stop. Hopefully the first month you try a new treatment you will get pregnant, but this is not at all a guarantee. There are people (many of you out there) that have been doing infertility treatment for YEARS without success. At what point are we not being good stewards of our money when we spend thousands of dollars on infertility treatments when that money could have gone towards adopting a child that doesn’t have a mommy and a daddy? Once you get started with some form of infertility treatment, if that doesn’t work you move on to something stronger and then if that doesn’t work you move on again and soon it has been years and you have spent thousands of dollars. But if you don’t TRY some of these treatments and you don’t get pregnant on your own will you regret not trying? I definitely think I would…
Please don’t interpret ANY of this as accusatory, I am just trying to get my thoughts out and work through these issues for the Williams family. I believe that every couple is different and that the Lord has different plans for each one of us. So the conclusions that we come to are going to be different than the next couple.
But another thing to complicate matters is -- I WANT A BABY! Right now I feel fine with starting Clomid but is that my flesh speaking or is the Lord giving me a peace about it because it is His will? Infertility causes us to be so vulnerable and our flesh could easily do a lot of the decision making. But how do I KNOW the Lord wants me to start Clomid and that’s not my flesh? What if He wants me to wait just one more month…What is He wants to show His power by getting us pregnant without treatment? I know that regardless of what infertility treatments one might be on, ONLY ONE CAN CREATE LIFE! Only the Lord can create life, regardless of IUI, medications, IVF, etc. So I know that if we start infertility treatments and it is not the Lord’s will for us to get pregnant that way, then we won’t get pregnant that way. I really would like for the Lord to tell us what to do through some flashing neon signs right about now. That would be great…
Sorry for the incredibly long post, I just needed to get some things off my chest and help me process everything. I am sure most of you out there who have been faced with this issue have had some of these same thoughts too. It is definitely something to work through, pray through and figure out what the Lord’s will is for each individual.
SOOOO, right now we are praying about what the Lord wants us to do!!
First let me say that didn't take that post as accusatory :) It sounds like your issue is much less moral and much more "What's the Lord's will for me". I completely agree and have said a million times "It doesn't matter how many times we do in vitro if it's not the Lord's will and timing it won't work!". Which is precisely why, after two IVFs, we took a two year TTC break. We were waiting for the neon lights. We started a 3rd IVF this Feb, but cancelled early because we just weren't getting that "YES!" from God. So continued our TTC break. We tried to fill our lives with things we thought the Lord wanted us to do while we were childless- like volunteer a lot, and travel to see family a lot, etc. Then, this fall after 4.5 years of TTC and a LOT of ART efforts and even more waiting patiently for the Lord to reveal His will to us... we got that neon light. And I mean NEON!! It was the most clear spiritual impression I've ever had in my life. BUT... the neon light this fall didn't come out of the blue with the answer. We had to start figuring it out ourselves before God confirmed it to us. It started as my desperate need to DO SOMETHING and I began researching new IVF clinics. The NEON didn't come until we had our consult with our recent RE.
ReplyDeleteI must also say something here that we felt inspired and the Lord's blessing to start TTC when we did so long ago, and we also knew that our first IVF was the Lord's will, even though it didn't work out. (Second one was just our will). EVEN with as bitter and angry as we got, we couldn't deny that that 1st IVF cycle-though failed- had been what God wanted us to do. We learned from it I guess :)
ANYWAY!! What I'm trying to say is that maybe your neon won't come right away and you will have to make your best decision and then take it to the Lord for His blessing on it. I personally think He appreciates it when we don't just wait around for him to send us a vision of what we should do (though how nice would that be? Could we get a vision of the future on the side please? lol), and we are bringing options to Him rather than just waiting for Him to tell us the plan. Maybe this door opening to clomid IS Him telling you what to do...? Maybe not. Only you can tell.
Also, as I read the first bit about immaculate conception the cancer argument you followed it with was exactly what came to my mind. I believe that God sometimes gives us physical trials like this SO WE WILL do something about it. To test us and make us stronger. To show us how strong we really are. I FULLY believe that our IF was custom designed for me and DH to be our trial, and that God fully expected us to do IVF and that that was the only way in His plan that He would give us a baby. FOR US. Not for everybody, of course. But I definitely believe that IF fits into God's plans for our lives sometimes :)
This has been really confusing- probably because it's such a delicate and long and complicated topic that we could discuss together for hours!! And I feel like I've jumped all over the place with my thoughts. I hope I haven't offended you :) I wasn't trying to say you are just waiting around or anything, by any means. You and DH and God need to decide for you. It doesn't matter what anybody else does or thinks- just what the three of you think. It can be SOOO hard to determine what is God's will. Oh my, SO hard. My take on that is that when in doubt about what God wants, proceed with your best educated plan until stopped. I think sometimes He wants to see what we will do on our own too.
Maybe ART is for you. Maybe adoption. Maybe you will have a miracle conception. Good luck choosing your next move!!! :)
Don't we all wish there was a way to know exactly what God wants us to do and when to do it! It is my prayer that both of you will have a peace about this WHEN God shows you the right direction to go through this "crossroad". We will be praying for you to have peace and patience "while you wait on the Lord". Proverbs 3:5-6 says to "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."
ReplyDeleteI understand!!!
ReplyDeleteI read a great book, {it was not necessarily the book itself but the questions the book has you ask yourself} that has helped us finagle thru the world of fertility treatments... The Infertility Chronicles. It is endorsed by the Christian Medical Association.
For us personally, and this is a very personal conviction, we feel as long as we 1) put God first and trust that it would not only be His will but that He would use the treatments to get us pregnant and 2) that we continue to respect the santity of life, we will proceed with treatments.
I think it helps some that we have some strict lines we know we will not cross. We will not use donor egg or sperm. If surrgoacy deems the only way possible for us, it will be by our embryos that we proceed. IVF, the same. IUI, the same. Just our personal conviction and really the only one we have so far at least.
We are incredibely blessed that we have great insurance coverage so we only have our co-pays and medications costs to worry about. Adopting for us would be 100% out of pocket and just something we cannot afford right now.
Even if we did not have insurance, I think anyways, we would pursue as we would always wonder if that next step up would have been God's miracle to us... I want absolutely no regrets that we did not do everything we could and thus fell at absolute peace with closing one door to open another. Who knows. God may close all treatment doors for us and open a window when we least expect it... We are just trying to take one step at a time and seeking that we are given a peace about each step or else we will not do it.
It is very difficult decerning if you are giving yourself a human peace or if it is truly a God given peace... I'll say a prayer for you two as well!
This is an excellent post!! One I have mentally gone through many times. I think there are some people who are frivilous with the infertility treatments available, so, in particular if we do IVF, we will have perhaps different requests as far as some of the procedures go. But, as you point out, God has allowed medical advances for us to use, and I think He is happy to work through those advances.
ReplyDeleteWhat my friend who got pregnant with her first IVF but then lost her baby recommends is that you set limits before you get embroiled in treatments. When you are in the midst of things, it is easy to say "yes, whatever is next is what we want to do!", but as you say, is that being a good steward of the provisions God has blessed us with? For our family, Mr. A has requested that if we need to (of course praying this IUI has worked!), we should try IVF once and then if that doesn't work, we will move to adoption. He feels that it is too much of a gamble to try IVF tons of times with no guarantee. That is just us, though- some food for thought for you and your hubby!
Will be praying for you!
I agree with A's comments and that is how we approached IVF. We committed to one cycle and a frozen cycle of what embryo's were left. The fresh cycle was a nightmare that ended up in being told we were 8 weeks pregnant to miscarriage 20 minutes later which led to a D&C two weeks later. I have to say with all my heart that we still felt with all our heart God had led us to IVF. We went through many thoughts like you in this post and started praying for God to change the desire of our hearts if he didn't want us to have children or to persue IVF. We prayed for months on end and then went through the door asking God to close that door if it wasn't part of his perfect plan for us. Our starting point was "We want what God wants more than what we want" but many times that was followed with "but God, we want a baby really bad."
ReplyDeleteYou are seeking God in this and he knows that. He will honor your heart and he will guide you and lead you. Don't be afraid of him leading you to something you actually want to do. Sometimes we think it has to be "hard" or "not what we want" in order for it to be God's will. Sometimes that's true but many times God actually puts us in the direction of our heart's desire.
I'm praying for you as you genuinely seek God. Lean into him as he walks this road with you and your hubs.