Choosing To Give God Control Through Infertility

August 10^th 2013, the day I married my best friend and said yes to life with and we had a plan, we couldn’t wait to start on.

Jimmy and I have always talked about starting a family. We wanted to have 3 kids. He kept saying he wanted to wait 5 years to start a family while I said I wanted to only wait for 1. So we came to a compromise and both agreed after 2 years of marriage we would start to have a family. I had it all planned out. I would go off of my birth control; we would get pregnant in August and announce it to our family in November at Thanksgiving. I went off of my birth control and I missed my period that first month. I was thinking, “Wow, this is it! That was fast!” but when I took the pregnancy test I was shocked to see that it read negative. We waited a couple more weeks and retook a test and it still read negative. We waited a couple of months and I still didn’t have a cycle. I decided to consult with my OB Doctor and they mentioned that most likely my progesterone level was low. She wrote me a script and said I should have results within a month. I was excited because it seemed like a simple fix. After one month I still didn’t cycle being on the progesterone. My OB doctor then referred me to an infertility specialist. Once again I went through a consultation and they did an ultrasound and blood work. The Dr. was very optimistic and said most likely your hormone count is down and I would either have to take a stronger medication to cycle or I may have to do injectable medications. I started to get overwhelmed by the thought of having to inject myself with a needle. I have a fear of needles! He kept reassuring me that it will most likely just be a form of a pill. After running tests and blood work, he told me my hormone levels were basically undetectable and the hormones that speak from my brain to my ovaries and vice versa were not functioning correctly. He told me it was a rare case and about 1 in 400 women have this problem where their body will not cycle without medication and since my levels were nonexistent, the only way to make my body cycle was through injectable medications. We decided to start the treatment right away. There were a lot of rough nights with the injections but I could tell my body was responding to the medications. I was very excited thinking that this was going to be it. After this treatment, I will be pregnant. 

It has been 5 years now that we have been struggling with infertility. We have had multiple treatments and no success. I have tried natural methods, changing my diet, chiropractic methods, and tried anything I could but nothing seemed to help. I had my life planned out with the plan of wanting to have 3 kids and be done having kids by the time I was 30 and I was falling behind. I remember planning things around the thought of having kids. I remember for my friend’s wedding I bought a bridesmaids dress 2 sizes larger basing it around the hope that I would be pregnant at her wedding. I put off house projects to try to save money so we would have “extra spending” on baby supplies. I was saying no and holding my husband back from his business dreams saying that we can’t spend the money now in the hope of having a baby. I was putting my life on hold. I started to get angry with God on why this was happening to me. Why did I deserve this? I would pray and beg God to allow me to get pregnant. I see how many other people having children with no problems and I was starting to get jealous. I removed myself from social media for quite a while because I was getting tired of seeing the pregnancy announcements and pictures of newborns. I kept telling myself it wasn’t fair. There were so many people that were younger than me and just got married and then announce they were having a baby and I would be fueled with jealously because I wanted that. I started to feel defeated. People started asking when are you going to have kids and I would just smile and say whenever the Lord wills it when deep down inside I wanted to cry at the question and tell them to mind their own business. I was angry with God. My last treatment that I had gone through was back in April of 2019. After another failed treatment we decided to take a break. We were getting physically and emotionally defeated as well as financially and I was just done.

This was one of the best decisions I made through my process of infertility. One day as I was walking through my house and I looked at a vinyl board that I made and that I hung on the wall myself with the bible verse of Psalms 46:10- Be still and know that I am God. I thought to myself, wow what a great reminder and then carried out my day. A couple of days later I was in church and when an individual was doing the announcements he held up his coffee mug and there it was again. Psalms 46:10. I’m like ok that’s cool, what a coincidence. The very next day, my mom gave me a book that she just finished up and asked if I would be interested in reading it. I’m not going to lie, I struggle with wanting to read. I opened up the book and you know what the very first thing I saw was? You probably guessed it. Psalms 46:10- Be still and know that I am God. I immediately found myself in tears and in prayer. I knew God was speaking to me. I was trying to plan out my own life and not let God have full control. I started to spend more time in prayer but I noticed I was praying in a different way. Before I was asking God to give me what I wanted and now my prayer is for God to give me what HE desires and to help me follow and trust in HIS plan for me. 

I want to share with you a stanza and chorus from the song Control by Tenth Avenue North: 

I’ve had plans
Shattered and broken
Things I have hoped in
Fall through my hands
You have plans
To redeem and restore me
You’re behind and before me
Oh, help me believe

God You don’t need me
But somehow You want me
Oh, how You love me
Somehow that frees me
To take my hands off of my life
And the way it should go, oh

God You don’t need me
But somehow You want me
Oh, how You love me
Somehow that frees me
To open my hands up
And give You control

Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” I don’t know what God’s plan is for us or what the future holds, but I am going to continue to seek and trust in his plan for me and give him control.

Romans: 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

Matthew 19:26- With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible

-Beth