God, IVF & Me - Part Two
*Before you read this, I highly recommend reading God, IVF & Me: Part One first so you can follow the entire journey. If you have read it, then I'm so excited you decided to continue on! Let's Go...
In the last blog post, I ended it with how my husband and myself didn't have the money to go through the IVF program we had been approved for and in the morning I was going to have to turn the opportunity down.
I awoke the next morning with a fire in my belly and an unshakeable knowing that God had a hand on the entire situation. Even though I knew there was no way that my husband and I could find the money to do the IVF run that time around, I knew that working hard and saving every last penny, we were going to accomplish it .
I set off to work like I did every other day, Monday to Friday, and on the Christian radio station came the song 'Praise you in the storm by Casting Crowns'. That song became my go to song for the next ten years, and every time I hear it, I think of the promises God answered.
When I arrived at work that morning I prepared myself to make the call to the clinic on my lunch break and tell them we simply could not do this round. As I entered the back room of the store my boss was standing there and in his hand was an envelope. He passed it to me and inside was all the money I needed to do the treatment. I was flabbergasted.
What I learned that day is that God can touch the hearts of anyone. Even non Christians with different beliefs. My boss had no idea that He was giving me more than money. Because of God, he was about to give the gift of birthing new life into the world.
So, you can probably guess that I ran to the phone, rang my husband squealing, right before I called the IVF centre and told them we could start treatment straight away. Within a day I was walking in to have my nurse appointment and pick up all of the medications and injections I would take. Problem was, I thought that the hard part was over. Treatment paid for. I never considered the fact that the hospital was private or that it was another few thousand for the day procedures. But God was faithful through the entire process and gifted us the money through the most unlikely places. I was truly living out a miracle and answered prayers in a way I had never experienced before.
And then... Everything went wrong the next few weeks. They had forgotten to tell me to come off certain medications, and start the injections. I got hyper stimulation of both ovaries so they were the size of oranges and painful. Then... when everything was harvested we had the wonderful news that 11 of my eggs fertilised. Three days later we got another call to say all of them but one hadn’t made it and that the last remaining egg was not looking great. We had to make the decision to see if it was either going to thrive or come straight in and have it implanted. We took all of twenty minutes to decide as we rang family and asked them all to pray about what to do. The answer was unanimous. Within an hour we were at the clinic and preparing to have our little snowflake transferred into my uterus.
I remember laying on the bed as they did the transfer. Everything in me was screaming to panic, get upset and hit the negative highway, and yet the worry just wouldn’t come out. Right at that moment God gave me the sweetest image. One where there was a hand and in it sat our baby. I just knew that no matter how wrong things went or were looking, God had opened a door he wasn’t about to shut.
After I got dressed and grabbed the creams I was supposed to use, my husband and I jumped in the car. The very first thing we did was sit in the parking lot and prayed. Once again I turned on 'Praise you in the storm.' No matter how this was going to turn out, our trust in Him was so high, and we knew that God had it all under control. We thought the hard part was over but if you’ve ever done In-vitro you know the two week wait afterwards is pure torture. Hoping, wondering if you’re pregnant, praying that your period doesn’t arrive. Every twinge or cramp causes you panic, even going to the toilet is scary! I want to say I played it cool, but I didn’t. I could barely sleep and did so many pregnancy tests in the hopes one would show up positive and ease my worry. For ten days all of them, every single one showed up negative and my heart hurt each time as I stared at the one line results.
But on the eleventh day in the middle of the night I woke up with the craziest urge. The urge to go to our 'open all night' supermarket and buy just one test. When I got home I took the test, placed it on the vanity and made myself a tea. My sleeping husband unaware of my night travels. He would have thought I was out of my mind...maybe I was.
As I sat at the table with my tea and just prayed, I told the Lord that no matter what I would always love Him. That He would always have my heart even if it hurt or had a piece of it missing. When I finally got the courage up to go back in and look at the test, a piece of me was expecting the negative result, so imagine my shock when I turned it over and staring back at me were two blue lines.
I could barely believe it! So much so, my crazy self got back in the car in the wee hours of the morning and went and brought more pregnancy tests! I had to be sure it wasn't just a dodgy one. By the third test I was finally convinced and I screamed in delight waking up my husband to share the good news.
I want to say everything went smooth and in most part it did. The doctors were shocked my little embie baby made it and I was indeed pregnant. Our local hospital wouldn't take me because I was apparently too overweight and if something went wrong they couldn't help me, and that kind of ludicrous statement shattered me, so I had to drive over an hour to see the doctors at another hospital. All in all though, I didn't care and I was having a baby. And I am happy to say my little boy was born at 42 weeks, 7'4, healthy and happy.
I was so elated, and appreciative beyond measure. But in saying that, I also thought that the IVF journey was going to be a piece of cake. I became cocky in my thinking because the first time, despite the medication problems I had fallen pregnant. Oh, how wrong I was...the heartache continued and that is where I learned the real lesson in trusting God.
Get Ready for God, IVF & Me - Part Three https://www.littlesparrowloved.com/post/god-ivf-me-part-three
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