Saturday, April 24, 2010

Exceedingly, Abundantly... Despite Infertility

I met Kirsten and Mike when they were well into their infertility journey. They’d had a spontaneous miscarriage at 18 weeks. “When you go through a miscarriage that’s further along in a pregnancy,” Kirsten said, “a big, huge hole opens up in your life. You feel like you’re completely isolated. You know in your mind that other people have gone through this, but you never expect it to happen to you.”

When they felt ready to try again, they had four unsuccessful IUIs and an IVF cycle that resulted in no embryos. Their doctor, a well-known infertility expert, told them they had infertility “of unknown origin” – and then dropped a bomb. As Mike recalled, “The doctor actually said to us, ‘You will never have kids.’ It took every bit of emotional strength to try to get through it. Kirsten was nuts. She was hitting herself and saying, ‘I’m worthless!’ It was really tough.”

Their doctor pushed them toward egg donation. Mike was willing to think seriously about international adoption. But Kirsten felt a need to try IVF one last time. “I needed a period at the end of the sentence that said, ‘It will not work.’” They found a doctor at Cornell who was trying a new IVF protocol.

When Kirsten woke up from the retrieval, they’d recovered ten eggs. “Now, there was hope,” Mike remembered. A couple days later, there were five embryos. After the transfer, they flew home and waited for test results. The call came. She was pregnant. “I didn’t relax the entire pregnancy,” said Mike. “It was horrible – I was so anxious something would happen. I didn’t exhale until the babies came.”

Two of them. A boy and a girl.
“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! [Eph 3:20]”
Their dismal track record indicated no chance. Their doctor said, not possible. Their common sense told them, not realistic. Their fear repeated, not happening. But their faith affirmed, I still believe. And God breathed life into their hope.

The story doesn’t end there.

They brought their twins by to visit me recently. Laughing as they shared the news, they told me, “We’re pregnant again.” This time, it’s completely natural. Unplanned. Definitely unexpected. A total gift from God.

He can do anything.

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Find more cause for hope at PregnantWithHope.com

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