Dirt Road Dependence: Trials That Bring Us Back to God

Anyone who has travelled down the road of infertility will tell you it tests every part of you. With each doctor’s visit, every sharp prick of a needle, and pregnancy test that comes back with a big fat negative, a piece of your hope-filled heart fades away...

Dreamstime - RF LL Photo

I understood what dirt road dependence meant when, despite my greatest efforts to project manage my dream of becoming a mom, nothing worked. Instead, I found myself on my knees.* 

Broken. 

My physical and emotional strength had been replaced by sadness and tears. At the time I could only ask, “Why God?” But looking back, I marvel at how our awesome God used that time to bless me and my family.

Bless me?

It may seem a strange reflection on such a painful time in my life. But in those quiet moments of grief, God used this trial to draw me near to Him. 

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 

Jeremiah 29:10-12 (NIV)

You see, I’d not truly relied on God for a long time. I was cruising along the road of life, traveling around the world for my job, in love and in control. Life was going great and according to MY plans for it. 

Sure, I was a Christian. I had accepted Jesus as my Saviour one summer morning as a child in vacation bible school. But I had not experienced the beauty and joy of truly having a personal relationship with God. Now I feel comfort going to God daily with my joys, dreams and fears, while seeking His will for my life.

Our path to parenthood was not the one we imagined on our wedding day. Oh, but it is a miracle. We have two of the most amazing little girls. And each day, even the sticky, “real” mommy days, is an absolute blessing. My husband and I are closer as well because no one can understand what we have been through together to become a family. It made our love and respect for each other stronger.

My dirt road dependence during our struggle with infertility served me well.  I’ve learned to trust the plans God has for our lives. Sometimes God leads us to a path of dirt road dependence so we can fall to our knees and with empty arms, hold them up to Him. And when we do that? God fills those arms with blessings and answers we never thought to ask for.

Take Action:  It is easy to praise God when life is full of blessings. What trials can you thank Him for today, asking that He use them to bless you and draw you closer to Him?

God, help us to look to you when we are at our most vulnerable. Lift us out of our trials and bless our lives with answers we never anticipated. We pray we look back on times of dirt road dependence as a gift which helped to enrich our lives and those around us while helping to mature us spiritually.  

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Song: Praise You in This Storm by The Casting Crowns

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire —may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV)

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 

James 1:1-5 (NIV)


Blessings, Michelle

*Posted originally on Encouragement Cafe - August 29, 2013

Praise You in This Storm: Our Path to Parenthood

Hello everyone! If you are popping in from Kelly's Korner this week then you are very welcome!Although mine is a small blog compared to hers, it's similar in that I also share my love of Christ and the adventures of my Irish husband Brian and our two girls Teagan (2.5) and Isla (11 months). I also write about my role as an Advocate for Compassion International and a bit o' crafty/DIY inspiration. I hope you will become a follower. And if you have been hit with the Pinterest crafting bug then  please come back on Tuesdays for my Destination: Inspiration linky parties!

"Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not onto your own understanding, in all of your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path."

Proverbs 3:5

A Beautiful Beginning

When my mother told me as a high school teenager not to rush into marriage I don't think she ever suspected how long I would heed her advice! I traveled the world with school and my job and even lived in Japan for two years. I was blessed to meet Brian in my late twenties. We dated a whopping 5.5 years before we got married in front of 80 of our closest friends and family via a destination wedding in Playa del Carmen, Mexico! I was 35 years old. I never felt happier and life was working out just as I planned. As a project manager and risk consultant I felt any issue could be solved if you planned well and took a task-oriented approach to solving it.

Raindrops...

Looking back there were clues that I would run into fertility problems as early as my adolescence but at the time I assumed that all was well and we would have a baby in our arms in no time! After several weeks of feeling queasy I became so confused when my first pregnancy test showed a clear positive but before I could get back into town to tell Brian there was no longer a trace of a line on any subsequent test. I think this was my very first miscarriage though it was never medically confirmed.

and Storms...

The next few years brought a series of challenges including a tough schedule that had me traveling a lot, a cross-country move where we left our closest friends, not being able to sell our house, Brian having trouble finding a new job...it was as if we were stuck in mud and couldn't move forward or backward. And to make matters worse we couldn't get pregnant. My doctor had us try Clomid but after just one month he referred us to a fertility specialist.

 Testing, Testing - This is Only a Test...

The next few years brought test after test as doctors tried to determine why we couldn't get pregnant. And just when I couldn't take anymore tests...a light! We were scheduled for IUI (Intrauterine Insemination). This was it! I was SURE now we'd get pregnant. But the first round of treatment didn't work. We were devastated. The wait was long but the next time we tried we got a positive test result! A positive! I skipped happily into the reproductive endocrinologist's office for my blood work that morning and headed off to work to wait for the phone call with a confirmation. I was so absolutely confident we were pregnant that...as crazy as it sounds, I bought a baby onesie over my lunch break. I remember feeling faint when my nurse called to tell me she had bad news. The numbers indicated the pregnancy wasn't viable. I was stunned and kept saying over and over, "But I'm pregnant..."

Praise You in This Storm

Even now I find it hard to get into some of the details of our path to parenthood. Another miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy when we least expected it...God bless The Casting Crowns!! I would listen to Praise You in This Storm by The Casting Crowns each day on my drive to work and home, over and over. It was like a salve on my aching heart that helped me actually make it through each day. Looking back I truly feel God brought me to my knees to show my project manager, type A self that His plans for me are far more wonderful than anything I could come up with. That I need to rely on HIS will, not mine.

But I hope in sharing my story with others that I can give you HOPE. My doctor said something very important to me: It is not IF you become a parent, it is WHEN. Ultimately our options were Invitrofertilization (IVF) or adoption. I swore we would never go as far as IVF in our quest to become parents. My heart was conflicted but it was also raw and someone close to us was going through a very tough adoption process. After taking four months to collect our thoughts and pray for God's will we ultimately chose the IVF route. And once we did, I found peace. As I saw our little embryos on the screen in the procedure room my doctor, who is a Christian, explained that he had taken us as far as science could but that this had to be of God for it to work.  

The Desires of My Heart.....

Teagan

2009

Isla

2011

For about a year now I've wanted to share the story of our path to parenthood. I found the infertility highway a road of loneliness, at times hope, and at others despair. I felt numb, cold, isolated and that I must be the only person in my social group going through these trials.  I am not sure why this is one condition that isolates us as women. Perhaps it is too painful to talk about? Or, as in my case, I felt that I was less of a woman because I couldn't "do" what every woman in the world could do - give my husband...myself...a baby?

But thankfully I found my voice. I was open and honest about our setbacks. With friends and family. With strangers. And it was at the moment when I was most vulnerable that I found some peace in the form of others who seemed grateful to be able to talk. To relate. I so hope this provides peace for you my friend. I would be privileged to pray for you. Please comment below or send an email to teaganstravels@yahoo.com if you want more privacy. In the meantime, let us pray together:

Dear Heavenly Father,

Please hear our hearts today. Hearts that beg for a child, for children in our homes, God. Our minds tell us that you are in control, that you have great plans for us but oh, the hours are long and our souls become weary. Lift us into your arms. Give us strength. Give us hope. Help us to be open to your path to parenthood for us. We pray that we can praise you in this storm and learn what you want us to from this experience. Give us the gift of patience and perseverance.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

God Bless You and Yours,
Michelle

Friday Five: Ways to Obsess While Trying to Get Preggers!

Baby Isla

Happy Friday everyone! Today's Friday Five takes a peak at what to do when you are ultra-focused on getting preggers! As in pregnant. Like, now already, right? Oh have I've so been there! This month I am going to post  the story of our path to parenthood. We've been blessed with two beautiful girls via invitro fertilization (IVF) procedures. Here's the way I made it through the long hours of waiting for that moment when I first held them in my arms!

Teagan at 5 months old in Ireland

1.  TwoWeekWait.com - This brilliant trying to conceive(TTC) and pregnancy community is a miracle in disguise! I can not tell you how many hours I've spent on this site but it provided sweet distraction when I needed it most! You can join forums based on your age, fertility treatment type and more. This is the spot where you can also obsess with others on your early pregnancy symptoms, ask questions and get a ton of support! Then we you do get your BFP (or positive pregnancy test) head on over to their pregnancy boards to meet other women with your due date. Elle has really put together something special with this site!

2. Nameberry - While you are dreaming away of that little baby in your arms check out trending around popular names, meanings, and more! I think I could have at least 50 children before I used up all my favorite names! I am still in shock that this site predicts Isla will be in the top 10 here this year! Wow! I'd never met an Isla before but there is one in her church nursery, Kade's school and more so I suppose the numbers are climbing. We still love the name along with Teagan's and wouldn't change anything.

3. Conceive Magazine - For every woman who is tired of sitting in a doctor's office full of magazines covering pregnancy or parenting, Conceive is a breath of fresh air. Full of tips and information on how to get increase your odds of getting pregnant, this is the online version!

4. Can You See A Line.com - Join over 20000 members to vote on pregnancy tests or submit your own, post in our forum and more! If you are willing to look at another person's pee sticks, zooming in and darkening to determine if there is any sort of line then consider yourself in Super Baby Obsessed status. Still, kinda fun if you are testing and want to compare your results against others who went on to have a successful pregnancy!

5.  Betabase.info - This site collects beta scores from pregnancies and makes the information available as a public service. You can enter your beta numbers to find out how they are doubling and where they are charting according to other women who are the same number of weeks pregnant. For those of you going through infertility treatment this is an awesome site in that it can take your beta numbers and tell you statistically if they indicate a multiple pregnancy!

Wherever you are in your trying to conceive journey I wish you well! Feel free to shoot me questions or prayer requests below or at teaganstravels@yahoo.com.

*Babydust* to you!
  Michelle