Faith For Fertility – Part 2

Thanks so much for all your congratulatory messages, prayers and well wishes (especially all the ones on Facebook). I wish I could respond to all of them individually…hmmm, maybe one day! But if I am unable to, THANK YOU and a BIG AMEN to all the prayers. All Glory to God.

If you have just stumbled on this page, please read the first part of the story here

The story continues…

A year after the 4^th failed IVF attempt, my husband was relocated to the US for work. Before we left, we prayed that we would come back to Nigeria with our twins. For the longest time, I had always prayed for twins. I found out that my grandmother had twins but they died so in my head, twins run in our family and therefore, twins are possible. I began to have another false sense of security. Surely the doctors in the US know what they are doing. This made me very excited about the relocation. As soon as we settled down, I started investigating clinics and doctors. I read review upon review before finally settling for one of the popular fertility clinics in Houston. Around this time, we also started attending Lakewood Church which was a stone throw from our apartment.

Amazingly, news from this US doctor was exactly the same thing we had heard in Nigeria. The doctor went through our previous records, ordered some blood work and was basically convinced that we would be pregnant. Everything looked perfect. I started taking the injections (thank God, they were just for 2 weeks). The retrieval went well and we had 5 embryos of which 3 made it to blastocyst on day 5 (I know this all sounds like jargon but anyone who has gone through IVF would understand). They all looked very good and were supposedly of high quality. The transfer was done and so began the 2 week wait to find out if it had worked. We were scheduled to go back the 2^nd week of December for the result. I had gone online and read everything I could possibly read about ensuring a positive pregnancy result. First thing I did which was recommended by the forums was bed rest for 2 days. Another recommendation was to eat pineapple core for the next 5 days, I did that too. No hot baths, I didn’t even bathe so that the embryos won’t “fall out”. During one of my random web searches, I came across a page that had listed about 20 vitamins I should have been taking that would help in achieving a positive result. I was sad that I did not have any of the vitamins. Besides, I figured it was already late, they advised that usage of the vitamins should commence at least 3 months before pregnancy is to be achieved. Oh well, I saved the page so that I could send it to anyone I knew who was trying to conceive.

The two-week wait went by so slowly. I prayed as much as I could. Tried as much as possible to focus on God and be positive. I just kept hoping that it would work this time! The D-Day arrived. Went to the clinic to get my blood drawn early in the morning and was told to expect a call later in the afternoon with the result. The call came…”I am sorry Moji, the blood test came back negative.” I was definitely not ready to hear that. I didn’t feel any of the symptoms people tell you to look out for and like the other IVFs, I didn’t have any ‘implantation bleeding’ but I was just positive. This time I was really hopeful and after all, we were in the US, the doctors here “know what they are doing”. Ultimately though, God is the one that controls ALL things…I had somehow forgotten that fact!

A few days after we got the negative result, my husband had to go to Nigeria for a wedding and I insisted on staying back in the US and chose to stay home alone for Christmas. I was in no mood for partying or celebrations.  Instead, I had a nice pity-party for myself. I am sure the devil must have been well pleased with himself. I invited depression, sorrow, sadness and a lot of tears. We all curled up in my bed and I would replay the phone call over and over and over again. I cried and cried and cried. And then I remembered the vitamin list I had seen. If only I had seen it earlier and had started taking the vitamins early enough. Then I would snap out of my depressed state and call on Jesus to help me understand what was going on. I couldn’t pray but I would sing. I think the only song I sang throughout that period was ‘There is Something About That Name’ by William McDowell. It was a struggle trying to fight the depression but not really knowing how or even if I actually wanted to fight it.

Thank God my husband came back before the New Year. He encouraged me to keep trusting God. He kept reminding me that Children were not the reason we fell in love and got married to each other in the first place; they were meant to be a blessing to the union. (something he had always said).  It was New Years Eve and I was determined in my heart not to enter the New Year with this pain and grief I felt. So I went to meet God. I repented for the way I had acted. I asked Him again to restore the Joy of my salvation to me. Joy not based on anything but on Him alone. I told him that I would earnestly seek Him and trust Him in the coming year and that I believed He would bless us with children someday.

2014 was going to be the year! I entered the New Year with great expectation. I had repented of my yoyo Christianity…one day up one day down. I was determined to stick with God and just keep going higher and higher in Him. I decided I needed to serve God so I joined the prayer group in my church. I was put into a group with 6 AMAZING women and my prayer leader was and still is the most selfless person I have ever met. Anyway, things were going great in my life, I believed I was in tune with God, I was serving Him, I was growing and each month I would hope this was the month my period won’t show up. It did, but this time it was different. I was further strengthened by my period showing up…after all, according to science, it was a sign that I could at least conceive.

At one of my prayer meetings, my prayer leader asked if there was anything I had been believing God for. I mentioned how long we had been married and that we were believing for children. She was so excited, she immediately blurted out ‘Oh, it has happened. Go shopping and buy some baby outfits’. I smiled. We prayed and left it at that. The next week, she asked if I had bought the outfits and I said no that I would go later in the week.

I dragged my husband to one of the children’s stores and we bought a boy and girl outfit, since we had always prayed for twins. We got home, said a prayer and I put the outfits in my wardrobe. You see, I didn’t really have any conviction to buy those outfits. I didn’t ask the Holy Spirit about it, I did it because, well, there was no harm in doing it and secondly, I didn’t want my prayer leader to ask me about it again without me having bought anything. Looking back, I now know better that definitely, absolutely nothing could have come out of that act!

We decided to have another round of IVF. This was going to be our 6^th round. I had been praying and I believed God was going to do something. Oh, remember the vitamins I read about? Well, we had been taking them. I took a cocktail of about 20 different vitamins daily and my husband took about 11. We had been taking them for about 3 months now so I was pretty confident about this IVF round. I had also been praying about it and I believed God was going to do it. We took the injections for 2 weeks and on the day of extraction, 5 eggs were retrieved. I was a little disappointed because I had hoped for more but as they say, you only need one good egg and one good sperm to make a baby, so I didn’t let it bother me too much. I prayed that they would all be fertilized and they did. By Day 5, which is the day the embryos are put back into my uterus, the doctor informed us that 2 of the embryos had made it to blastocyst stage (which means, they are very good), one was a morula (which is a day behind the blastocyst but can still produce a baby) while the last 2 were being slow and were in very early morula stage. He said he would like to put one blastocyst and the morula in the uterus and save the last good blastocyst in case we wanted to use it in the future. The other two would be discarded.

In fact, I was already excited. Of all the cycles we had done, we had never had any embryos left to freeze. This was already a good sign. Plus, we wanted 3 children. So in my head, the 2 that would be put into my uterus would produce twins and then we could come back in a few years to have a frozen transfer for our third child. This was going perfectly. God was answering my prayer. The transfer was made and the two week wait started. I did my usual ritual, ate my pineapple core, didn’t take a shower, laid in bed all day and of course took my new addition, the vitamins. I also spent quite some time praying. God was going to do it. I was excited; I wanted the two weeks to be over so that I could get the positive result.

The D-Day came and I got the call… “I am so sorry Moji, the blood test came back negative”. Errrr, how? I did all the right things this time. I felt I was more in tune with God, I took the vitamins, I mean, I did all the things the books/websites/forums said. How did it not work? L Thank God for the joy I had asked for. I didn’t break down like I normally would. I cried but my whole reaction this time was definitely different. I had confidence in God. He could get us pregnant and He was going to. I went back to Him and asked Him to please explain why it had not worked. I kept believing and I told myself that maybe He wants to do it the natural way for us. I was convinced that very soon, I would miss my period and we would be pregnant. I was definitely not interested in pursuing IVF again.

A close family member wanted us to see a doctor in Dallas, whom they had heard great things about. I wasn’t interested, but I was interested in visiting Dallas because I wanted to visit Pastor T.D. Jakes’ church- The Potter’s House. I researched the doctor and he had amazing appraisals. This also seemed like the only opportunity I would get to visit Dallas as we were scheduled to relocate back to Nigeria in a few months. So I agreed to see the doctor.

We had sent our medical records to the doctor before our arrival so he had read through our medical history. We arrived at his office on a Friday morning after a long drive from Houston. The doctor basically told us that we could NEVER get pregnant with my eggs and with my husband’s sperm. His logic was that if we had done IVF so often and never got pregnant and I had also ovulated every other month we were not on IVF and I still hadn’t been pregnant, then we were likely not to get pregnant without using donor eggs. According to him, based on our medical history, there was no other route to achieve a pregnancy he could offer other than using donor eggs. I could just feel a ‘Holy Anger’ rising up in me. He did advise that since we had frozen embryos, we could just do a frozen transfer but it was not likely to yield any positive result. The first thing that caught me in his statement was ‘embryos’. I said “oh yeah, we have one embryo. He was like “No, you have three embryos”.  Three? But our IVF clinic in Houston said they were freezing just one? Hmmm, did I miss something? Anyway, we thanked the doctor for the consultation because He did not charge us for it and we left.

As soon as we got into the car, we prayed against what he said and we told God we were going to get pregnant. But you see, my belief still had doubt attached to it. I knew God could do it but somehow, I didn’t believe he would do it or He wanted to do it. After all, if He wanted to do it, why was it taking so long. I was interested in knowing my husband’s view so I started a conversation with my husband asking if he would ever consider donor eggs, what his thoughts were on adoption, or if he was ok for us to live the rest of our lives without children. I have to admit, I was very open to all the options especially the donor eggs. I just wanted to get pregnant! My husband…not interested. We prayed again and we agreed that if in five years we were not yet pregnant, we would revisit the subject.

Something that kept bothering me though was how we had 3 frozen embryos. I couldn’t understand it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get through to my Houston clinic so I decided to leave it and enjoy my time in Dallas. On Sunday, we went to Pastor T. D. Jakes’ church – The Potter’s House. I was so excited to hear him preach and attend his church. Just as we parked our car and got down, some lady drove by and hit our car. I immediately knew this was the devil trying to distract us from receiving what God had for us in the service. My husband looked at the damage and just told the lady it was ok, she could go. I thank God that the Spirit is one. He was also excited to go and get ‘our message’. We needed a word from God after the doctor’s report from Friday. Well, as God would have it, Pastor T. D. Jakes was preaching at a church near the hotel we had just driven over an hour from. Instead, it was a lady called Dr. Jasmin Sculark preaching. We had never heard of her and were a bit disappointed. Thank God that God would take you wherever He needs to take you so that you can get what is best for you. Her message that day was the best for us.  It was titled ‘Don’t Bury it Yet’.

It is important to be careful about the things we allow into our hearts. Without realizing it, I had buried the idea that we would conceive with my egg and my husband’s sperm based on what the doctor had said. I had somehow believed the doctor that perhaps his analysis had been the problem all along. If only I could get donor eggs, we would be pregnant. I need you to remember that I prayed against what he said when we got into the car after the appointment but the devil would always bring these things back to you. I should have known better and resisted him immediately the thought came but instead I silently entertained the thought that donor eggs could be the solution to the problem. Thank God for the message Dr. Jaz preached. It was the release I needed from the thoughts I had been nursing since our doctor’s appointment the Friday before. I repented before God and I told him I wasn’t going to bury what He had already said in His word. The Word I had continually stood on, the personal word He gave me and one I constantly used in prayer – ‘double for my shame’ (Isaiah 61:7). In her message, Dr. Jas said to give the Lord one year to do what we were asking Him for. I just told God it was all in His hands. He was going to do it in His time and I would wait patiently for Him. I honestly needed that Word. My hope was restored.

The next part would be posted on Monday.

Faith For Fertility – Part 1

Faith For Fertility – Part 3

Faith For Fertility – Part 4