IVF: THE WAITING GAME

By

Wait.


You would think we’d be used to hearing it by now. 


We spoke with the IVF nurse on Thursday and got the word that we are first on the waiting list for the May cycle. Unless someone drops off in May, we will begin IVF in June. The schedule they gave us at our first consult has the June cycle stimulation meds starting around June 4 and retrieval the week of June 14-18. We are eager to begin! We will know more specifics in the next few weeks when we are able to go for our final consult. 


Once again, our timeline is not God’s timeline, but he continues to confirm His plans in our hearts and minds. With me being a teacher, the end of the school year is always hectic and would not have been the ideal time to begin hormone injections and have surgery. I am thankful His plans are better than mine. 


The Lord further affirmed His will for us this morning when we gathered for worship with our faith family. Ben preached in Philippians 3 using for a thought “A Singular Response to Grace”. In the text, Paul encouraged the Philippians to press on in humility, hope, and maturity. Sometimes pressing on toward God’s plan for us involves waiting. At the end of the service, one of our deacons, Carlton, asked our church to gather around us for prayer. Earlier in the week, Carlton reached out to both of our parents and invited them to join us for worship. As the church gathered around us, Ben’s dad read from James 5. This passage teaches believers to tangibly pray for one another by laying hands and anointing with oil. The purpose of this type of outward expression of worship is to remind all who see it that God is ultimately in control. By confessing our continued faith in Christ and submitting ourselves to anointing and prayer, we made public our desire to honor God as we walk down this road. My dad prayed aloud over us, and the presence of the Lord was almost palpable. What a sweet and special moment we shared with our faith family! Our hearts were encouraged by the outpouring of intercession on our behalf. 


Then Rick, another one of our deacons, stepped up and offered us a gift bag full of cards written by dozens of our LBC families. The gift bag even had blue and pink tissue paper – another small token of faith. Later in the afternoon, Ben and I were able to open the cards together with our families and were completely overwhelmed. Our dining room table was wet with tears of thankfulness as we read the sweet messages of prayer and encouragement. Even now we struggle to find the words to describe the gifts we received today. Not only did our church family pray for us, gather around us, and send messages of love and support to us, but the saints at Lineville together gave us a love offering that totaled nearly $6,000. We do not deserve such an outpouring of generosity! Because LBC invested in this way, we will be able to pay for all medications, food, gas, and other costs associated with our IVF treatment. All we can say is a phrase that we often repeat in our house…


Our Lord is good, gracious, and kind. 


He proved himself once again through the faithfulness of our sweet church family.


We are unsure of what the coming weeks will hold, but we are pressing on in hope. We continue to pray that the Lord will be glorified throughout this journey.

Popular posts from this blog

FET and PIO

By
Image
 Our last update was not the one we wanted to give.  There have been many encouraging developments since then, and we wanted to update you all so you can help us pray.  The IVF nurse, Dawn, called a few days after the embryo update to tell us we could do a frozen embryo transfer (FET) at the end of July. She called later to tell us we would be able to transfer a week before we had been told. We will be transferring one of our embryos around 1:20 PM on July 19th. The hope is that this little embryo will begin to implant into the uterine lining and grow into a successful pregnancy. Many couples who undergo fertility treatments like IVF or IUI choose to adopt a purposefully positive state of mind until the first pregnancy test, so I will be pregnant until proven otherwise (PUPO). After nine days of trying to distract myself, I will go in for a blood test to check for the pregnancy hormone hCG. Higher than normal levels of hCG will confirm that the FET was successful and that I am pregnant
Read more

FINAL EMBRYO COUNT

By
Hello everyone. Ben here. We wanted to give you an update about our IVF journey.  Let's back up a bit... After Monday's retrieval, our doctor called Shelby on Tuesday to tell us that 13 of the 20 eggs fertilized. We were overjoyed! I was in Nashville for the Southern Baptist Convention. Shelby's voice was so full of hope when she called me!  We waited all week on our next update. Yesterday our doctor called during the rain/power outage. In the weirdest turn of events yet, I was taking a shower in the rain because our water ran out. That's living on a well for you. Shelby's face said it all- what a strange way to hear this news! Our doctor told us that 6 of the 13 did not make it. Of the 7 remaining, one looked great and the other 6 were still developing. She promised us that she'd call back today with more information. She called about an hour ago as I write this.  We have two embryos in the freezer. One is graded "fair" and one is graded "poor.&q
Read more

FIRST BLOG POST

By
Well, it's finally happened, people. We started a blog. This should be fun! I'm not always great at expressing myself with spoken words. As I often say, I'm really bad at telling stories. I hope you enjoy following along with Ben and me. We have a crazy, hectic, beautiful life.
Read more