Fear can do funny things to you. Even though I was not getting pregnant, and in my head I understood I was infertile, it took me years to work up the courage to have the diagnosis confirmed by a doctor. Hearing the word “infertile” from a medical professional would just sound so final and real. It was my greatest fear.
Encroaching on our third year anniversary of trying to conceive, my husband and I agreed to seek medical intervention to at least find out why we weren’t getting pregnant. Many times there are corrective procedures that can be done to enable a pregnancy to occur. We were hopeful we would fit into that category and be done with childlessness!
We prayed about our decision as we were given an appointment with a fertility specialist in a local hospital. We fervently asked God to direct our conversations with the doctor and to allow us to feel comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. Thankfully, it’s not every day you have to talk openly and in detail about your sex life with a complete stranger! We prayed for guidance over the treatments we may be offered to pursue. We prayed and prayed! Ultimately, we wanted to only do what was God’s will for us to grow our family.
When the day of the appointment arrived we nervously entered the reception area for the specialist and filled out an embarrassingly detailed questionnaire. My husband and I had prayed for a complete peace for our meeting with this doctor and for both of us to feel at ease with him. We asked God to make it blaringly obvious at any point if we were not to continue along this path. We finally met the doctor and were quickly asked why we had waited three years before seeking his help. I was barely 28 at the time, so I felt that I had a lot of time before becoming overly concerned about my infertility. How do you explain to a secular person (and still sound sane) that we were waiting on God?!
So there I sat, in a most immodest position, answering detailed questions about my intimate time with my husband, and feeling judged by the man we had come to seek help from. He immediately began to talk about the most expensive treatment options and I was sure there were invisible dollar signs circling his head. The nurses were even haughty in their limited time with us. All in all, the meeting with our fertility specialist didn’t leave me with any warm fuzzies. With uneasiness in our spirits, we agreed to blood tests, a sperm count test and a fallopian tube dye test to hopefully get closer to an answer to why we were not getting pregnant.
My husband and I left the doctor’s office and I didn’t have the feeling of hopefulness that I prayed I would. The doctor didn’t do much at all to make me feel at ease. In fact, he made me feel like an ignorant child rather than an inquisitive adult.
And then I thought back to our prayers. We had specifically asked God to do some seemingly simple things. We had asked for peace for the appointment and neither of us had experienced it. We asked for direction over our conversations with the doctor and we left feeling like we knew nothing new but had been treated like children. We asked for guidance over what treatments to attempt and had been offered preliminary tests that would point to what treatment would be available for us. Not willing to close the door on having a baby through medical intervention, we felt that we would continue with the recommendations of this doctor and hope that at future appointments he would prove that he was just having an off day for our first appointment.
Do you ever feel like God is pointing you in a certain direction but you have to keep asking for confirmation just to be sure you’re not hearing what you want to hear? My husband and I clearly asked for answers to questions and God clearly answered but we still pursued further appointments with this fertility doctor because it seemed like he was our only hope.
Please don’t misread what I’m saying. I fully believe that God has given us doctors and fertility specialists as a wonderful gift for many of us as an option to conceive. It would be very hard for us to be content with never knowing the answer to why we weren’t able to get pregnant. My husband and I had reservations very early on about going this route for our specific journey as we felt God could be calling us in another direction to grow our family. We went forward with the tests so that we could peacefully go wherever God lead us to become parents. Sometimes it just takes a lot of God re-routing us back to the path He intends for us to be on!
I urge you, dear reader, to continue to put your hope in Christ, not into the hands of a doctor who is offering you some much desired answers. Through Him, the unknown will be made known. Through Him, you will receive the peace in spirit that you request. Through Him, you have hope.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13
