Hey friends, I know it has been a while since I blogged. There’s been a lot going on in life, and I needed to take a break after writing my book. I wasn’t even sure I would come back to blogging, but recently I have felt God calling me to share my testimony of what He has done in my life the last few years. I hope God uses this series to speak to your heart exactly what you need to hear!

Honestly, I’m more than a little scared to share a very vulnerable part of my life with the world. But I want to bring glory to God and encouragement to others, and keeping this to myself was getting in the way. This blog series is going to be about God’s faithfulness in my infertility.

Before I share our story of infertility, I want to acknowledge a few things. First, I am currently pregnant with our miracle baby girl, due February 2023!! While I’m so grateful our prayers were answered in this way, I’m not writing about this because I have a “success story,” and I’m not saying God will always answer our prayers the way we want Him to. My goal is to share what God has done in my life in the hopes that it will encourage others who are also struggling, whether that’s with infertility or something else that feels hopeless in their life. 

Second, if you know me or my husband personally and are surprised to learn about this part of our life via a blog, please know that we kept this very close to our chests as we worked through dealing with infertility. I’m able to share now thanks to a lot of healing God has done in my life, but we did not share with a lot of people at the time to give us space to process. I’m sorry if you feel hurt and would love to talk about it more with you.

Third, by the Holy Spirit I hope my words resonate with you despite how my circumstances are inevitably at least a little different from yours. I recognize there is a very broad spectrum of how and why people deal with infertility. Many women experience infertility because of health issues like endometriosis, PCOS, thyroid levels, etc. That was not my experience, for which I’m very thankful. However, I’m often tempted to compare my story and hardships to others’, and I want to encourage you as well as myself that someone’s story is not better or worse than another’s. We are called to run our own race (Hebrews 12:1) and as Teddy Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” My prayer in sharing is that regardless of how you can or can’t relate, you will have renewed hope and trust in the Lord. I hope in reading this I can encourage you that God is just as faithful, loving, and good in the valleys as in the mountains.

Below is the first entry in my journal called “my fertility story”. Throughout this series I’ll be sharing pieces of my journal as I go through our timeline of TTC (trying to conceive), receiving an infertility diagnosis, treatments, and finally getting pregnant, as well as some other thoughts and Bible verses. I know many of you may not relate personally with the details of our infertility story, but I hope that the story of God’s faithfulness through our suffering can encourage you in your walk with Jesus.

The Beginning

From the time I was a child, I wanted to be a mom and homeschool my kids, just like my mom. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, sometimes I would say a singer or fashion designer, but that was always second behind being a mom. 

When Matt and I got married, I counted it a blessing that I didn’t have any huge career goals, as it made it easier for us to move for his master’s degree and medical school. We agreed I would work for a few years to support us, then hopefully stay home with our kids. 

In November of 2018, we had been married 2.5 years and had one of our first serious conversations about having kids while on Thanksgiving break. We were in our first year of medical school, and for a moment, we thought, “What if we try now and see what happens?” It was exciting to consider, but being the logical person I am, I thought it would be better to wait a little longer, as having a child during the second year seemed difficult with the increasingly demanding schedule. So we decided to wait to start trying next year for better timing. Little did we know how the timing would really work!

The First Year, part 1

In Fall of 2019, I went off birth control and we officially started trying. I ordered a T-shirt on Etsy that said “preggers” so I would be prepared to share the good news if we were successful on our first try. Alas, our first try didn’t work. I wasn’t too disappointed, since I had heard it could take up to a year for most couples. 

When we went home for Christmas in December, we shared with our parents that we were trying for a baby and asked for prayer. I was grateful they were supportive of us having kids in medical school, because we had thought about it for over a year now and thought we had the perfect plan. 

In the Spring of 2020, I had a potential opportunity to tell my parents we were pregnant. We had a family trip planned to Disney World, and I thought of all the ways I could share the good news. But instead when we met in the airport, I hugged my mom and said, “I wish I had better news for you.” I was disappointed, but was consoled that I could still ride all the rides. 

After our trip, I visited my OB again, as it had been 8 months since we started trying. I was getting anxious that I wasn’t getting pregnant as a healthy 26-year-old. He looked into my eyes as if he could see into my soul, and said: “Jessica, pregnancy is not something you can just achieve. I know you work hard and you like achieving things, but this is something you can’t just make happen. Take some time off all the apps and temperature tracking and give yourself a break.” I knew that’s what the Lord wanted me to hear. Up until this point in my life, pretty much everything I worked hard at worked out for me. But pregnancy was completely out of my control. 

That’s all I will share for now, but I hope you come back to read how God’s faithfulness showed up in my infertility story. If you are struggling with infertility, I would love to connect with and pray for you, so please reach out.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. – Romans 12:12