Infertility Archives - Better Than Newlyweds

INFERTILITY Part 2 “the Lord has responded!” | Better Than Newlyweds

August 29, 2016 by Mrs. Hudson

Infertility is an issue that touches the heart of so many. I am honored that my dear friend, Celeste, wants to share more of her story on Better Than Newlyweds. It has been amazing to watch her go through such heart ache and the whole time ache for more of God. She is a reminder to me of what it means to have faith and trust God. I am blessed to know her and I know you will be blessed to read her story.

Celeste shared about infertility in 2013 here. Celeste says…

“Now let me share more of my story.

2000 a retreat for Chi Alpha students across the US and world. Night two, the speaker spoke with passion about the surrender that was required to live a life for God. Talked about calling\sacrifice. Of course I don’t remember all the details of her words but the impact it left was real. What I do remember vividly is the burning in my heart to run not walk to the altar and the feeling i had when I hit my knees to pray that night. Rushing through my head were visions of my family. God asked me one by one would I give them up for his calling. Then faces I didn’t know, friends, younger people I would mentor….. Would you give them up then children… Little faces I didn’t even realize were my children… Then a blazing fire and a question, will you sacrifice them all for me. I balled and cried but said yes yes I will. The weight of it all felt like I was doing it there as we prayed…. Like maybe I would get up from that place and they would be gone forever. I’ll never forget that night because some part of me felt the weight of the loss God was calling me to walk through but I couldn’t possibly understand what it would feel like. I didn’t even meet my husband till two years later and married five years later.

Cut to 2007. Knew I was called to be a Mommy. Knew I was supposed to have kids… Of course right. It was all threatened when they found abnormal cells on my cervix….a few months of scares and a procedure later I was supposedly fine and could resume normal expectations. The threat of losing my chance left a sinking feeling in me though and I suddenly wasn’t sure if it would just work like clock work… Little did I know that was only the beginning of the test of faith for children I would walk through. First pregnancy wasn’t a total surprise, we hadn’t officially tried yet, just weren’t very careful. But boy were we excited. First ultrasound looked totally normal. Even a little heart beat. I wasn’t due to see the doctor till thirteen weeks along. I had no reason to think anything was wrong until that apt… No heartbeat, then ultrasound…. No growth. The baby has passed. I can’t begin to tell you the sadness we felt. Urgent to try again, to conquer the sadness with hope tried again right away… And were pregnant very quickly…. This time the doc kept a closer watch… Seven weeks…. We knew “pregnancy not viable” then the miscarriage… More pain… Again I thought the only way to healing was a baby….. Three months later trying again, reluctant husband…. Determined wife…eight weeks in agonizing sharp pains…..misdiagnosis…. New doctor thank God finally caught it, an ectopic pregnancy!!! What could be worse, we had a heartbeat but had to have surgery to take the baby before it killed us both…. Oh the sorrow now was consuming and now healing on top of it.

When we went to China finally we knew we were called, no other explanation for all the funds, visas and paperwork coming together as quickly as it did, three months. Still couldn’t help but feel a little like we were running. Running from the loss, the death, the fighting and confusion of the last two years. We lovingly refer to it as our season of loss. We were there two years and I can’t speak for him but I didn’t run from anything. It follows you doesn’t it….. You never really leave your sorrows or pain behind with a move or identity shift. It follows you because God won’t let it go till your healed! So Back home after being on a kind of pause..

Even on the plane home I remember thinking… Maybe it’s all different now. Maybe the two years miraculously healed me, us, our issues. A new start, new church, newer beginning.

So when we accidentally got pregnant in 2012 I was excited. Even though we didn’t have insurance yet, we didn’t have our own home yet, we didn’t even have a job in the states yet. So when I started bleeding on a Wednesday night 13wks in you can imagine the frustrations and overwhelming anguish……NOOOOO NOT AGAIN!!!

Enter Dr Butler Poku. As earlier mentioned we had no insurance. So we had to literally Google OB doctors. There was one woman that popped up in the area. SHE didn’t look to have a even a local office in the area yet. She was seeing patients in the ER IN FLORENCE of all coincidences! She walked in and within ten min of meeting me had preached to me about Sarah and Hannah and not even knowing I was a believer had spoken faith into me. She promised she would work with me till we got our baby here….. God only knew that she was speaking prophetically. SHE would deliver, not only my daughter but my son two years later.

So YES!!!!! I HAVE MY HAPPY ENDING I WAS COMPLAINING ABOUT when I last wrote you.

Psalm 116:17-19 says “ I will sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the Lord. I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. …. Praise the Lord!”

So, what did I “vow” to him…

I vowed to share this story with those who are still hurting.

I vowed to never forget the pain so I would never take the victory for granted.

I vowed to be a good Mommy, even on my crazy, meltdown days lol.

So back to the story….

In 2007 God gave me the name Elianna. I remember sitting at my table in Flagstaff telling my mommy and precious aunt Patti Sue, now with the Lord, that God had given me a name. I knew it was the name before I knew how much the meaning would MEAN TO ME. YOU SEE I hadn’t lost any yet. It meant, “the Lord has responded!” Little did I know I wouldn’t see that child, with that name’s face till eight years later. Eight years later I held the most beautiful child I had ever seen. The one I begged and pleaded, cried and ached for. I hold her everyday!!!!! Sometimes I think I squeeze her to much, over kiss her lol…. No how could I ever over love, out love the love God gave me in that little girl.

Then two years later he gave me my EPH 3:20 HE DID IMMEASURABLY more than ask I asked or imagined! He then blessed me with my Malachi! There are more chapters to share about these two miracles. More why’s to their miraculousness…. If that’s a word. All I can say is man when God decided it was time to bless me HE blessed me so much more than I could’ve ever imagined or asked for!!!!!!

More to come. Thank you for walking through this journey with me.”

Finding God’s Hand in Infertility

March 12, 2013 by AngiePamp

“All I did was have sex with my husband,” I heard a pregnant woman grumble once, “and this is what I got!” She rubbed her distended stomach ruefully as she spoke. For anyone struggling with infertility, it’s hard to hear someone be so ungrateful. We want to reply tartly, “You have no idea how lucky you are!” For many of us, it’s just not that easy. Medical estimates vary slightly, but the consensus is that at least one of every ten couples in America has been diagnosed as infertile. For almost half, the reason remains unknown. My husband and I are in that group. We started trying to conceive in 2000, got pregnant in 2001, which ended in miscarriage, and have never gotten pregnant since. Our doctors have not been able to tell us why. Nothing’s wrong with either one of us.

For Christians, infertility poses certain problems that it doesn’t pose for those outside of a community of faith. We’re supposed to be patient and joyful, even in trials. We’re supposed to rejoice with those who rejoice, but every time we hear about another pregnant friend, we feel like our hearts are being ripped out. People will tell us we’re not praying hard enough, or the right way, or with enough faith. There are also all of those well-meaning friends who tell us it will surely happen “in God’s time” and say things like, “Aren’t you glad you know God at a time like this?” Our honest answer is often “No”; it doesn’t seem to make a difference if we know God or not. It can actually make it harder. We claim to serve the Creator of Life. Why can’t we create a life? Children are said to be a blessing from the Lord. Does He not want to bless us? We are commanded to be fruitful. Well, we’re trying! How do we reconcile what we believe with our life experiences?

Infertility can be a crisis of faith for Christian couples. After nearly nine years of finding my way down the road of faith and infertility, I decided to talk to a few other women who have been there, and see if we could come up with a few common elements of our journeys to help others along the way.

The main common thread I found was that we all struggle with some degree of anger. Several of us were angry at other women who got pregnant, especially those we perceived to be uncaring of their unborn child. One woman told me, “Anytime I saw a pregnant woman smoking, I wanted to go rip the cigarette from her fingers. If I could get pregnant I would never do that!” But most of us were just angry at God. I was. I had a very real sense of “this is not supposed to happen to people like me”—you know, people who became Christians young and went into ministry. We should be the first on the divine list for a baby when we want one, right? And when it didn’t work that way, I was just mad. I felt betrayed, like God wasn’t holding up His end of the bargain. Infertility, like any other trial, helps us to realize how skewed our thoughts about God and Christianity sometimes are. None of us would openly admit that we feel God owes us anything, but several of the women I talked to admitted that they realized that their view of their infertility was marked by a sense of entitlement as a child of God. It was important for each of us to realize that God doesn’t just love those who choose to serve Him. He loves all people; and His blessings are given to the undeserving, just as the gift of salvation was given to me, undeserving and unearned.

The next commonality I found was that at some point, all of us had to relinquish our pain into the hands of the Almighty and learn to give thanks for where we were. I had to learn to recognize that God, for reasons I didn’t understand, had other plans for me. And I had to come to terms with the idea that “other plans” didn’t equal “second rate kind-of-OK but not quite as good as having a baby” plans. The hardest prayer I ever prayed, and the turning point of my infertility journey, was the day I realized that I couldn’t fight with God over this issue anymore; and I released my hold on all of the perceived promises I had for bearing children and just said, “Thy will be done.” At that point I had to make a choice to be content. It wasn’t some magical feeling of contentment that came over me. It was, and still is, an act of my will to find joy in the life that God has for me, to reject the thought that God is holding out on me. Paul calls it taking “every thought captive” in his second letter to the Corinthians. As one woman put it, “I had to understand that not having children didn’t make me a second class Christian. God wasn’t punishing me.”

The last thing we all had in common was that we all made some sort of resolution to our childlessness. One woman decided to help her husband in full-time ministry in ways that she would not be able to do if she had children. They are now middle aged, and pastor a thriving church in a small town. He travels regularly and teaches at seminars, and she always goes with him and plans fun activities wherever they happen to be staying. They have resolved to look at childlessness as an opportunity instead of a burden. Several of the women I spoke with eventually conceived, some with medical intervention, some naturally. They are now enjoying the world of babies or toddlers. They universally recognized that parenting is a lot harder than they thought it would be, and wished that they would have enjoyed their childless years more instead of leeching the fun out of their freedom by focusing so much on what they didn’t have.

And me? As I write this, three children are sleeping. They are all mine through adoption. I understand now, looking backward, what God was planning for me all those years as I stumbled through my anger into His open arms. All the time He was preparing these children for me, halfway around the world, so that when I was ready, I would open my heart to them and to His wonderful plan for my family.

Each of us, in our own way, has come around to seeing God’s hand at work in us through our circumstances. We have each realized, no matter our outcome, that God was using our pain to change us more into His image—the image of a Savior who also had to say “Thy will be done.”

INFERTILITY

March 3, 2013 by CelesteAustin

INFERTILITY.. BARRENNESS.. CHILDLESSNESS, TO SOME JUST WORDS, TO OTHERS A SIMPLE DIAGNOSIS, BUT TO US THE WORDS LEAVE A GRIMACE ON OUR FACES AND A DEEP, DEEP, ACHE IN OUR SOULS. RATHER THAN BE SILENT, I HAVE FINALLY DECIDED TO TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO TURN THAT PAIN INTO A VOICE OF HOPE AND RELATING. THAT IF NOTHING ELSE, MIGHT GIVE SOMEONE OUT THERE A LITTLE COMFORT.
My name is Celeste LaDele Austin. I always dreamed of being a mom. Actually I never really “dreamed” even. Mostly, just assumed that I would be. Then when I met the man of my dreams and got married it made that wish even more tangible. After four miscarriages and seemingly a million tests I am in a totally new place about the whole subject. I still believe that God will give me and my wonderful husband a family one day, but for now I am stuck in the zone of hoping and waiting for that miracle to come true. The doctors can’t seem to answer the only question I hear daily and that is ‘why not me’? They don’t know the reason and they don’t have a solution but HE the master of my universe, and the author of this story, has my answers.Sounds trite, but it’s true. In the meantime, God has given me some hope through this message I am about to share with you and I hope it helps you too.

Isaiah 54:1-5 “Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband, says the LORD.

2 “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.4 “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.5 For your Maker is your husband—
the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.”
I was praying one day and really complaining to God that there just aren’t enough passages in the bible about this issue, at least not encouraging ones. And in my opinion, none on the topic of miscarriage, and like issues and He led me to this passage. Ever since, I really have felt encouraged by it. Literally it is talking about a nation but I think we can take truth from it and apply it to our situation too.
First it says the word, the dreaded word, “barren”. Then it specifies… “you who never BORE children”. Easy to just read right past that, like yes we know the definition. I think there is more to it than that. The author is drawing our attention to the fact that being in labor and bearing Children is not the only way to become a mother. He then brings our attention back to that fact when he says, “because, more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has children.”
1. THERE ARE BENEFITS:
When I first started going through this battle, I refused to entertain any thoughts about the benefits of NOT having children and would become furious at those who would attempt to encourage me in that way. People say the stupidest things when you are going through this. They mean well but are often unwise in the things that they say. I did not want to hear, “At least you can sleep in.” or “It least you still have a cute belly button”. Sure, it was true but it felt like betrayal of my dream to admit that there were benefits to not having my children.
 Here is the truth, for every ugly, bad thing that we go through God truly does have good things that he brings from and through those things. (Romans 8:28) So it is not wrong of us to see that He does bless this ache and turn this pain to GLORY.
 One of the Glories he brings out of this is a great opportunity. To funnel all that energy, and love, and nurturing that we desperately want to give our children into other people until and if he brings us that genetic child.

 It is true I can do things that I could not do if I had my own children. I can love more people… have more “Children” than those who are raising their own children. That is not a bad thing.
 So children, what do I mean by that? I believe that God has placed people in our lives for us to love and nurture. He calls us to them and we just know they are ours. We can disciple them, we can love them, we can lead them closer to God and encourage them in a way that we never could do if we had a house full.
2. THE ENEMY’S PLAN FOR MY FRUITLESSNESS:
The enemy, the robber of our souls tells us not to give that love away as if we will run out before our children get here. We sometimes funnel so much of our emotional and physical and spiritual energy into getting that baby here when really.. can we? I know for me I had to learn “I AM NOT IN CONTROL!!!” There is nothing that I can do to make this happen for us. If I keep pushing and trying to make it happen I only accomplish the opposite. I drive my husband crazy with worry for me, I tire myself out and stress out and honestly make it that much more likely that I will never be able to get pregnant and carry a healthy baby in that state anyway.
 Instead of listening to the enemy I choose to pour all of that love out to others. I choose to love and nurture those around me and give them all that energy and even share my pain with them because we women of every age need to know that whatever we go through we can thrive and grow and have Joy. That God can bring that person through it so I know that God can bring me through whatever trial I am facing. !!!
 The enemy hates that, he wants us mourning and crying.. which for the record THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH CRYING! You better … otherwise you can’t heal. But we gotta mourn and share, and mourn and share, and love and share and cry and on and on… not lock it all away. We won’t run out of love, God is love and he will give us as much as we pour out. We can’t fill the place the child holds with other people but we can spend our time loving instead of waste all our time simply waiting.
3 ENLARGE YOUR TENT!

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;”
 Open up your tent and let more people in. That is why I got involved in this website in the first place. Because I have a passion for seeing people have awesome marriages and because I want to reach out and have as many sisters as God wants to give me. I can learn from your story and you can learn from mine. I can help you not want to quit when you are close to giving up and you can help me! There are people in your life right now that would benefit from your story but you are not sharing it because maybe you were like me. I wanted to wait until I had my happy ending to share my story. I even wrote a book and didn’t publish it because I was waiting for the ending to say and THEN GOD BROUGHT A MIRACLE. I WAS THINKING that was the way to give people hope. But isn’t there more hope in knowing that I can have JOY in the trial that God is giving me peace and even satisfaction in the waiting and he can do that for them too.

 4: NO SHAME!!!
“Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.5 For your Maker is your husband—
the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.”
There is so much shame associated with this. We think we are so modern and independent and yet deep down we do not feel like real women unless we can choose to have children and do it well. I have news for you THERE IS NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU!!!! The enemy is such a liar and we feed his lies. We apologize to our families and husbands as if it is something that we have chosen. Some of us think we are being punished for sleeping with someone before marriage, others an abortion, others still take on the shame that it is because of their weight or health… the truth is in most cases it has nothing to do with anything that you are doing. I can tell you I heard that from at least five doctors before I ever thought it could be true. The God of our souls chose us to be his bride and he is in no way ashamed of us and we need to let go of that shame and dance again. WE need to see that God has called us to this for a purpose and start finding out what that is! WE can be FRUITFUL!!! This is my favorite part!!!
5. YOUR DESCENDANTS!!!
“your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.”
My descendants??? I am barren oh but I do have descendants!!! The people that God has given me who will spread the vision He gave me. Who will reproduce and make me a grandmother, and great grandmother by making babies and teaching them about the Lord and by reproducing in their spiritual lives too. I will have more children in more places than I could ever hope to count all because I opened my life, I shared my pain, and my hope, I gave myself away.
Maybe this answers your questions, maybe not but it sure helped me and I am striving everyday to see myself as fruitful not barren!

Celeste shared about infertility in 2013 here. Celeste says…

AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE