Upon hearing our story many people are amazed by our faith. I don’t see it entirely that way. As I look back on events that have transpired I see God’s hand at work in a myriad of ways. These are mostly small and the sum of their parts gives me some comfort, but I have to be honest if it had only been one or two I might not have seen God’s hand so readily or indeed wanted too.
However one of the hard things in a journey like ours is wanting all the signs to say ‘yes’ to whatever it is you are desiring. It’s natural when what you want is a baby to take all sorts of things as a ‘sign’ from God that this is what will happen.
We took almost two years to decide on IVF. IVF is one of those things that is easy to form an opinion on when it doesn’t directly effect you, but now that it did affect us we prayed, sought advice, and weighted up the pros and cons, eventually leading us to explore IVF. The thing that struck us both was that there was so many stages where the process could go wrong. As we passed each stage and got closer and closer to embryo transfer, we tried not to get our hopes up too much.
It was so hard, as we felt within sight of the finish line with so much more that could still go wrong. And yet so many stages had gone right, some that we were statistically unlikely to get past. Could this be God’s had at work? I mean we got through collection (which I called harvesting) to fertilisation and then to transfer where one healthy embryo was placed into the womb. We couldn’t believe we’d come this far, and we so hoped we would have a child on our first IVF.
On one of the many journeys back and forth Anna and I had discussed names. We couldn’t agree on a boy’s name but we both liked Maisy for a girl. That night at a friends house we discovered this name meant ‘wished for child’. It all seemed so perfect.
What do we do when it seems like all the signs are indicating one thing and then the opposite occurs? How do we cope when we felt God was telling us something but it never transpires? What conclusions can we draw about a God who seems to cruelly trick us like this? As I look back at this event which seemed so amazing at the time I still believe God was speaking through it. As Anna and I come closer to adopting children I hold on to the promise in that name. I believe we will receive our ‘wished for child’ but that it will be in God’s timing and on His terms, not ours.
If you’ve missed out on the story so far, here is Part 1 (Firing Blanks)
& Part 2 (The Sperminator)
