My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less

“…We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:2-5


Friends, I confess my heart is hurting. Walter and I have, praise God, never had trouble conceiving. I wouldn’t place myself in the category of infertility. But I’ve suffered hard with some of these women.

Just recently, I’ve had several dear friends experience the depths of this particular sorrow. I ask you to pray for them, of course. One of my sorority sisters was diagnosed with a large uterine tumor and will undergo a full hysterectomy this week. She is a newlywed and they have no children yet. The doctors will try to save her ovaries if possible, but she will never carry a baby. Because I partly define myself by the special blessing of growing a child inside me, my heart hurts for her knowing that she will never share that experience. I struggle to make sense of it and put her on a pedestal for her bravery and determination to overcome.

I have another friend who, after experiencing severe pain one day, was rushed to the ER to find out she had a baseball sized cyst on her ovary. She underwent surgery last week to remove her ovary. Her husband has been by her side, trying to support her, as well as care for their two boys (who also both got strep throat while she was in the hospital). This will make it more difficult for them to have another baby, should they want to try. Regardless, the sudden loss or impairment of one’s fertility is a blow.

While I was pregnant with Ben, I joined a support group for other surrogate mothers. One of the girls recently underwent an IVF procedure to help a couple become parents. Only 25% of IVF procedures are successful, and she was a victim of statistics. Her pregnancy blood tests came back negative. But several days ago, she started having severe abdominal pain and called an ambulance to take her to the ER. Her initial blood tests were wrong. A sonogram revealed a perfectly happy 6½ week old baby with a heartbeat. In her tube. She loses the baby and her own tubes, plus she has to tell the baby’s parents.

Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to these women’s journeys because recently, we’ve suffered a loss of our own. Last month, we tried to make a little sibling for Ben. His parents had one embryo frozen from when he was conceived, and we decided to give it a chance to grow. I prayed and prayed and was convinced that if the embryo survived the thaw, that Ben would surely be a big brother. Pregnancy tests came back positive, but I started bleeding right after Christmas. We lost the baby two weeks later.

And here is where I struggle. When I first started bleeding, I wasn’t very alarmed because it was nothing on the level as when I had miscarried before. I spent the next three days in bed, but only as a self imposed precaution, not because any doctor prescribed it. I did a lot of praying and reading. I spent a lot of time in the book of Mark where Jesus healed the woman who had been bleeding for YEARS. I prayed for the same healing. In the book of Mark, Jesus says that when we pray, we need to go in faith that our prayers have been heard and our requests have been granted. “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”  I had full blind faith that the baby was going to be fine.

I had a few moments where I was tempted to believe the truth of what I was seeing, which was blood, rather than have faith that I was being healed. I prayed for more faith and then fully believed that the baby was fine. I resolved to take extra doses of the fertility meds I was on and only get out of bed to use the toilet. I was determined to make this baby stick. But how arrogant of me to think that I had any control over this! How God must have laughed at me. Walter was concerned and felt helpless. We talked about my epiphany and I reminded him, that no matter how we try to intervene in the process, we are not the Creator, Giver, and Sustainer of Life. I can only do my little part of not sabotaging my health. But I can’t make the baby grow. That will only happen through prayer and God’s will. And so I prayed some more.

I went for a sonogram which revealed a perfectly sized embryonic sac, which was perfectly attached where it should be (it was too early to see a heartbeat or anything that looked like a baby). I saw exactly what I expected, which was a prayer answered. I continued to bleed for another week, but knowing that the baby was fine, I had faith in my answered prayer and just continued to take it easy. 30% of women experience first trimester bleeding and it’s even more common in IVF pregnancies.

But a follow-up sonogram revealed the beginning of the end. The sonographer explained what she saw, but none of it actually clicked as being bad news until she said, “I’m so sorry.” I had to go back and re-process everything she had just said in a different context. Loss. The sac was no longer round and solid. And there was visible fluid moving around it, which meant that it was no longer attached. “Miscarriage is imminent,” she said. My ears were ringing and my lips felt numb and I couldn’t turn my head to see “C”, the baby’s mom who was there with me.

But what about my prayers? Didn’t that mean anything? I prayed SO HARD for healing and felt foolish for not believing all the evidence against me. What about all the parables and stories about someone ailing and Jesus said that because of a person’s faith, they were healed? It hurts that I wasn’t similarly rewarded for my completely blind faith. It hurts because I fully believed that I was about to receive a miracle. I completely believed it. Even as I drove away from the clinic, part of me was actually expecting a phone call telling me to come back because there was some mistake. The minute I got home, the floodgates opened and the bleeding became familiar and I knew that it was really over.

Did I not pray the right way or something? Was I not humble enough? “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10:31) Before Ben was conceived, my biggest prayer was that His will would be done. I prayed that if it was God’s will for a baby to result from this, that it would be to His glory. That He would use the child to His glory and that His kingdom would increase because of it. But this time, was I in this for the wrong reason? Did I forget to make this about His glory instead of mine? But that’s not fair to the baby’s parents! He can’t punish them because of my selfishness! Can he? I struggle to make sense of it. I struggle to find logic in it. It doesn’t fit nicely into a pretty package of blame or reason.

It’s funny to think back of when I was in my early 20’s and rejected the thought that I’d ever have kids one day. Didn’t want any part of it. But now, when meeting new people and am asked to describe myself, the first thing I talk about is motherhood. It’s part of how I define myself. I’ve been through that rite of passage that changes me to the core. Take away motherhood, and I lose part of who I am. It’s a particular blessing that God gives only to women. It is a large part of why God created women in the first place: to procreate! If I do not bear children, who am I? Even if the baby isn’t made of my own genes, how can I call myself the same when my body fails to meet its purpose?

Add failure to loss. The sum of which is nothing short of sin.

Go back and read all that and see if you can find it. I confess, those thoughts are my sinful heart exposed.

This doesn’t make it hurt any less, but the most I can make of it is just that we live in a fallen world. And here is where my comfort lays:

Q: Christian, What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A: That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
~The Heidelberg Catechism

I am NOT my own. I am NOT defined by my fertility. I am defined as a member of the body of Christ.

There is a great temptation to sin as we endure our own personal trials. And I, as usual, fell right into it.

"Tis here whene'er my comforts droop and sin and sorrows rise
Thy love with cheering beams of hope my fainting heart supplies
My fainting heart's supplied
And ah too soon the pleasing scene is clouded over with pain
My gloomy fears rise dark between and I again complain
Oh and I again complain" ~ Jars of Clay

I am NOT sovereign. I am NOT the creator. I CANNOT control when or how life comes into this world. Or when it leaves. All things work according to His will and are for my own good. “For I know that plans I have for you…Plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jer 29:11) I do not know the story of my life. I don’t know the number of my days or in how many of them sorrow will be revealed. I do not know the path of my journey. But my comfort and my hope is in what I do know: my destination.