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From Chapter 1 |
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This is the story of our
infertility journey—borne of crisis, laced with persistence, and written,
we believe, by the hand of God.
When you reach the other side of infertility, you’ll have stories of your
own. Stories of challenge, disappointment, medical tenacity, weighing
options, and eventually, resolution. And weaving together the intricacies
of your story is your all-knowing, ever-patient Father in heaven.
Grand plans
In our pre-infertility days (“pre” in the sense we didn’t know we were
infertile), my husband, Edward, and I talked about adopting a child after
we’d birthed one or two. Adoption appealed to us, to our sense of showing
compassion. But we never guessed we wouldn’t be able to conceive. Not us!
We were a couple in ministry, seminary graduates, the whole shebang.
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Infertility ushered in a crisis of identity for me. I’d always set goals
and been able to reach them. Maybe it was the inner drive of being a first
born child, but I could look down my life’s path and see a string of stars
I’d reached. They weren’t always the highest stars, but they were mine—realistic,
logical, and rational goals. I was second in my high school graduating
class, received a full scholarship to college, had successful internships,
finished grad school. The dream of becoming a mother certainly seemed
attainable. Surely with my natural instinct of planning, I could reach
that goal and become a mother when it was realistic, logical, and
rational. |
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But after about five years of marriage, most of which had been free of the
birth control pill, we knew something wasn’t working right. I’d read a
book about charting my basal body temperature to help me know when I was
not ovulating, and using that method, we didn’t get pregnant. I was
quite proud of myself for solving that little problem and eliminating the
need for birth control pills. Unintentionally, I began to behave as if no
problem was too big for me to figure out using the brain God had given me.
(In Texas, we call that “gettin’ too big for your britches.”) When we were
ready to get pregnant, I just reversed the intent: Map my basal body
temperature to know when I was ovulating.
My planning went into hyper-drive. I talked to friends who’d taken
maternity leave and, learning from them, I began planning short-term
disability insurance to supplement my sick leave pay. I actually figured
how to increase our monthly income by coming 12 weeks of sick leave with
12 weeks of short-term disability pay. We’d come out ahead. My ingenuity
amazed even me.
But after a year of sinking money into pricey, short-term disability
insurance premiums, I realized I’d put the proverbial cart before the
horse. It would have been nice if I’d prayed a little more before I signed
up for the extra insurance. Instead, I saw it was the logical thing to do
and sped forward. We hadn’t had even a hint of pregnancy after all those
temperature charts. It was time to go to the next level.
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next: Let
the Games Begin |
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