Our journey to Baby Banks has been, well, interesting. Once we knew we were going to need more help than the average person, we both knew that IVF would be a part of our journey. Kind of like the treatments before IVF were just stepping stones to get to IVF. While we knew that getting pregnant via Timed Intercourse and IUI was possible, it just didn't feel like those options were ever going to get us there. But we trusted our RE and his staff and we tried them just in case.
They didn't work.
And that's okay. We were a little frustrated with the slow pace of things, but we knew each treatment would get us closer to IVF and hopefully, ultimately our baby.
After beginning our IVF journey, I had quite a few people ask me how IVF changed my relationship with God. I received questions about how we came to the decision, as Christians, to do IVF. I was asked if we felt like we were playing God by doing IVF.
Today, I want to share my answers to those questions in hopes that they can help someone on their journey to baby.
Of course, in order to get the full effect of how I came to my own answers to these questions, we have to go back in time a little bit.
In 2017, my relationship with God was very one-sided (aka He was doing all the work). I rarely read scriptures, I struggled to pray, and even though I went to church every week, I had a really hard time being there. I didn't feel close to God at all and often wondered if he heard my (few and far between) prayers at all.
I wanted a baby so badly. In 2017, we tried multiple rounds of Medicated Timed Intercourse-- all of which failed. Then at the beginning of 2018, we tried IUI for the first time. I felt hope with IUI-- something I hadn't felt in a long time. But that round also failed. I was crushed. And we didn't have money to jump back into another round of IUI right away, so we took a break.
RELATED: Why It’s Okay To Take A Break From Infertility Treatments
During this break (which ended up being over 9 months long), I felt the pull to try to repair my relationship with God. I tried to pray more often. I began listening to scriptures every morning. I tried to pay attention in church and participate in lessons. And I felt closer to God than I had in a very long time.
While our IVF experience is not super unique, it was a testament to me that my Heavenly Father does, in fact, hear the quiet pleas of our hearts-- even when words fail us. Parker and I had begun discussing when we would start fertility treatments again and the route we would take. We planned to do two more IUIs before moving on to IVF. We began budgeting our money for these treatments.
RELATED: How to Pay for IVF
But then in late November of 2018, we unexpectedly received a phone call from our Fertility Clinic (we hadn't been to the clinic in over 9 months, so this call was really out of the blue). They let us know that an IVF clinical study was opening and that we looked like good candidates for it. They let us know we would need to go through the preliminary screenings and tests to be sure that we qualified for it, but that we had a pretty good chance at qualifying. We immediately jumped on board. After that phone call, we stood together in our kitchen and said a prayer of gratitude for this opportunity.
RELATED: What It’s Like To Participate in a Clinical Trial
Our IVF journey has helped my relationship with God to grow because this experience has helped me to see that God is in the details of my life. When it feels like or looks like He's just up there granting blessings to everyone else, He's actually working very hard behind-the-scenes to help create a beautiful life for us to live.
For us, the choice to do IVF was an easy one. It felt like an answer to so many seemingly unanswered prayers. It was the moment when all of the "just wait a little longer" feelings were validated and brought to fruition. Personally, I never once struggled with the idea of playing God, because IVF truly feels like a gift from Him. I believe with my whole heart that God has given us modern medicine like IVF to help those of us who need more help having babies.
I believe in families. I believe that God wants us to have families. I believe that the family is Central to God's plan! Without IVF or infertility treatments, the chances of us conceiving on our own are very slim. The last three years have proven that.
I believe in miracles. And I believe that IVF is a modern day miracle.
Thank you so much for sharing your heart. I’ve been searching for blogs and vlogs of people I could relate to. We are about to have our third FET. Our first two were miscarriages. Praying for Gods will and hoping for our miracle baby!