4 Our Journey: Part 7

After over a year of walking through the journey of infertility ‘quietly,’ Nate and I feel led to share our story in hopes of providing connection, fellowship, advice, and prayer for others traveling on such a heartbreaking road. 

{start at the beginning here}

Part 7

We met with Dr. McKenzie for a re-evaluation and she recommended that we move onto IVF.
We had so many questions for her. She was patient, answered all of our questions, and acted like she had all the time in the world just for us.

After tons of research, prayer, and educating ourselves (including having two of our doctor friends get out their textbooks and spend 2 hours talking to us), we decided to proceed with IVF.

I remember drifting off to sleep before my retrieval thinking I cannot believe we had to do this to try to get pregnant.
So many of my friends who experienced infertility say they always ‘knew’ they would have trouble getting pregnant.

Well, my body is like clockwork. . . so much so that it seems like a dream that we had trouble at all.
By saying I can't believe we had to do IVF, I don't mean that we felt sorry for ourselves.
We were thankful that we were given the chance to do IVF. If we had been in this situation a generation earlier, we wouldn't have been able to have kids, short of a miracle.
Thankfully, God gave doctors the knowledge and ability to be able to come up with such an incredibly calculated and perfected way to help couples get pregnant.
Thankfully, we had the money.
Thankfully, we had a 53% chance of success.
Thankfully, we had a patient doctor and patient 'doctor' friends who explained everything to us in layman's terms.
We went through the journey of IVF with hearts of gratitude. 

With that said, I am not going to downplay IVF.  . .
it was hard. . .
physically, emotionally, and everything in between. 

The shots, the blood work, the medicine, and keeping up with everything was hard.
In Nate's words, it was 'daunting.' 

But, thanks to the LORD, I handled it well.

I didn’t have any crazy side effects to the medicine. I was able to give myself the shots. I am organized so keeping up with everything wasn’t too difficult and I thankfully I had a peace and did not go through the emotional roller coaster that so many others endure.
And knowing that our journey could be over and we would have a child was worth all of it.

Nate and I decided at the beginning of that round of IVF, that if it didn’t work, we would just do it again. Not that we didn't have faith in the procedure, Dr McKenzie or in God's miracles, but after having gone through other fertility treatments that I thought would certainly work, we didn't want to get our hopes up. 

 Throughout the cycle I kept thinking 'don't worry, if this doesn't work, we will just do it again.' I can't really explain the peace in knowing that we would do it again. But there was also a supernatural peace. . . that was over both of us.

Some friends and I are memorizing bible verses with Beth Moore this year. My bible verse during this time was “But he knows the way that I take, when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” Job 23:10
I wanted to shine during this time.
We were walking through a valley and I wanted Him to be glorified with every step.
Nate and I kept our eyes on Him and I hope that others saw Jesus through me at Houston IVF. 

I remember getting ready to go into surgery .  . . and not even being nervous or scared.
I had never had surgery before.
Never been put to sleep.
And yet there was just such a peace.

TOTALLY the Lord.

To God be the GLORY.

Everything went well.
Sweet Nate took such good care of me and the recovery was much easier than it could have been. 

And then to wait the two weeks to find out if we were pregnant . . .
{Part 8}