Dawn's Story: Overcoming Infertility

Hi everyone! I’m Dawn, and am so happy to be sharing with everyone. My husband and I were just shy of three years trying to conceive when we finally got a positive pregnancy test. Almost 3 years of negative tests, a diagnosis of endometriosis, 2 surgeries, multiple failed cycles, and even one failed round of IVF before we had success our second round, with our very last embryo.

I always wanted to be a mom. I could not wait to have babies; to rock them, to love on them, to wipe their tears away, to see them wake up excited on Christmas morning with sleepy eyes and bedhead; to teach them about Jesus and how much he loves them. When my husband and I decided to start our family, and it wasn't working, it was crushing. We wanted it "now" but we didn’t get to choose that.

As a women, when you can’t get pregnant, it’s isolating. And then there’s the guilt that comes with it…you feel like you can’t make your husband a dad. That’s what got to me the most. We watched so many friends start their families. My husband’s friends were becoming dads and I couldn’t give my husband that. On top of the guilt, infertility naturally takes a toll on your intimacy. It all feels purpose driven, and for me I internally related it with something negative. It reminded me of how my body couldn’t do what it was supposed to. Then, add the physical discomforts that endometriosis causes. The whole process was physically and emotionally draining. And God bless my husband, the amount of hormones I was on at times during fertility treatments made me feel crazy. But God knew we were going to go through this long before we even had a thought of a family, and He blessed me with a very understanding, strong, and supportive husband. He never made me feel guilty. He was understanding and he was my rock. He always reminded me this was not fault, and that this is OUR journey.

But my favorite part of our story and our journey is the way God spoke to me through it. If you are wondering if you will know when God is speaking to you…the answer is YES! YOU WILL KNOW. When you seek God to the fullest, and you’re open to putting His plans and ways before yours, you are going to hear him loud and clear. I really got to see God show off in our lives. We started IVF in January 2017. I was very nervous the morning we were getting the call about how many embryos we would have from our first round. I got out my morning devotional just minutes before I got the call and it read “GOD DOES NOT COUNT US, HE CALLS US BY NAME”.  A few days later, my devotion read “HELP ME TO NOT LOOK AT THE NUMBERS, BUT BE FAITHFUL TO WHAT YOU HAVE GIVEN ME”.  We had two frozen embryos. TWO. For almost 20,000 dollars of debt, we would only have two chances to get pregnant.  IVF is not a 100 percent success rate. We thought with being young, our worry would be what will we do with any “leftover” embryos that we may not want to use? We had no idea that we would only have TWO. But do you see those words God sent me? He calls us by name. I said this to myself over and over. It still gives me chills! It did not matter that I had two embryos, because God already knew our future child, He called our baby by name long, long ago.

We implanted the first embryo in February 2017 and two weeks later we found out it failed. We were devastated. And we were down to one embryo. After a few more months of more testing and roadblocks, I finally hit my breaking point. I wanted to quit altogether. I was ready to move on, I didn’t want to try anymore. I was in tears talking to my husband about my fears that we weren’t doing what God wanted us to do. Everything kept going wrong at our fertility clinic with my tests and lab issues. But yet again, God knocked me off my feet, and my devotion THAT day of my breaking point was “TRUST ME TO SHOW YOU WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOW”   It was clear, I had to finish what we started, and God would then show me what to do next. We had another embryo, and that baby deserved every chance without us giving up. So in August 2017, we implanted that very last embryo, and we were so at peace with our decision. This is what God wanted us to do. We didn’t know what  the outcome would be, but we had to finish what we started.  8 days later, we had a positive pregnancy test. And today, that LAST embryo, is almost 5 months old and filling our hearts with more joy than we ever thought humanly possible. He was the one we were waiting for, and I would’ve waited a thousand years for him. God is so good. Not just because our prayers were answered, but because He was there in the midst of so much pain and darkness. He is faithful.

Despite the fears and the emotional toll the process took on us, early on we made a choice that we would CHOOSE joy.  No matter how many times our hearts broke with another "no, not now" from God, we kept pushing, trusting, and believing that He was faithful. He was in control. We truly just wanted what God wanted for us, even if it wasn’t what we would choose for ourselves. We were open to all the possibilities that God may have intended for us to start a family. Infertility is so hard. And the pain doesn’t go away after you’re pregnant. But infertility was also amazing. Our marriage grew on the deepest of levels. Although we were constantly working on growing our family for almost three years, we also lived our lives to the fullest in those three years. 

Be open to the life God has planned for you, even when it isn’t what you would have chosen for yourself.  It's always better than anything we could have planned for ourselves. We learned that it doesn’t have to be easy to be beautiful. The hard made our relationship and our journey to parenthood so beautiful. There is always, always something to be thankful for even in the hardest of times. Find the good in every day. It won’t make the hard go away, but it will make your journey (whatever that may be) worth it.