In the last post we gave a rough
summary of our 2 year journey of infertility (June 2010 – June 2012) during
which the Lord moved on our hearts to trust in His sovereignty and His mercy as
He guided us through this time. We want
our heart’s desire to be what is on the heart of God. The Lord has been using
our infertility to move our hearts and open our perspective to include His
adoption plan for our family. Now we
will explain from that same time frame, more in depth, about Andrea’s internal
struggle and confusion related to the infertility and how God helped her to
find contentment and begin to consider adoption even more seriously. Because this portion of our story was being
lived more intensely and personally by Andrea, we will tell most of this
portion in the first person, from Andrea’s perspective.
It
was the summer of 2011, and even though I was being comforted that the Lord was
taking care of my heart while we were going through infertility, I struggled with
wanting to try to do all that I could do to get pregnant. As we alluded to in our previous blog entry,
we strategized regarding our reproductive health, and tried to optimize every
area that we had control over (exercise, diet, manage allergies better, sleep,
etc.). We also obtained more extensive
tests related to my allergies, hormones, and metabolic function. Derek was tested, too. Some helpful conclusions came from this
testing, but in practical application, the result over many months was continued
failure at conception. We made an
appointment with my Ob/Gyn, who suggested putting me on a fertility drug. However, for several medical, financial, and
philosophical reasons, we decided not
to do this. Through all these pregnancy
efforts, I wrestled on the inside with what we were doing. Did it line up with what God wanted me to do
as my desire for our next child was simmering?
I think I had a hard time admitting to this struggle, because I felt like
every change I made was a lifestyle change I needed to make anyway. Also, I was feeling healthier because of the
changes. I needed to be
working out, taking my supplements, and managing my allergies for my own good…
not just because I was trying to get pregnant.
Was I standing in faith and relying on God for pregnancy, or was I just
trying to follow a formula to get pregnant?
Maybe both? What did God want
from me in this season?
Somewhere
around late summer 2011, I began to realize that I needed to check my
motivation behind all of these changes I was making and stop stressing. I had to try to calm down, ask the Lord about
pregnancy, ask Him about all of our efforts, and trust that it is not up to us.
The Lord is the “Blessed Controller” of
all things. J But inside, I was struggling
with not knowing where to put my faith. I was asking God, "How do you continue to
try to have faith for something you deeply desire (pregnancy), while
simultaneously trying to have an open mind with faith to hear God about alternatives to what you want?" Did God want me to build up my faith for conceiving
a biological child, or was God asking me to consider adoption and trust
faithfully in His sovereignty? Was it
right to go for both pregnancy and adoption at the same time, or did He want us
to trust Him for only one of those options?
There are a plethora of people out there that will remind you that
couples tend to get pregnant once they start the adoption process or soon after
they complete an adoption. This concept
weighed on my mind. I even worried that
I might be tempted to look at the option to adopt as a path to eventually
conceive. I did not want to start the adoption process just because I hoped
that we would get pregnant soon after adopting. So, I
was asking the Lord to work on my heart and help me to be content somehow. I needed help to find peace and desire for
adoption with a pure heart, if that was the road that He wanted us to go down.
A
little over a year into infertility (September 2011), my bible study group with
Miranda started a book called "Calm My Anxious Heart" by Linda
Dillow. This was perfect timing for me,
as it focused on learning to find contentment in all things and all
circumstances. Wow! I really began to get a lot out of this study
and was blessed by the things that it was challenging me to do. I became more content with God's sovereign
hand in all of this, a little more relaxed, more at peace, and more ready to
start considering adoption. Then, in December
2011, I told Derek about where my heart was regarding adoption for us. Derek admitted that he still needed some time
to pray about it, so I decided not to bring it up for a while. Derek really began to seek the Lord and become
more diligent in his prayer times and his dedication to seeking God's will for
our family and our future.
Around
that time, we began to receive some confirmations and words regarding God’s
plan for adoption for our family. In
March 2012, Aaron Cheuvront gave Derek a word while we were at the Shady Grove
Church Zoe Banquet (to raise money to help fund adoptions). He got a sense that the Lord might be
preventing us from getting pregnant because He wants us to adopt and that maybe
we would get pregnant after we adopted as well. At this point, my heart was in a good place to
receive that word because I was already feeling like our infertility was
designed by God to lead us to adoption….and this was a good thing.
In
April 2012, I was working in the church nursery with the infants, and the
leader of that room, Lafaun, was praying over all of the workers before church
started. I told her that the “pregnancy
vs. adoption” issue was on my heart. So
she prayed for me, and she felt like the Lord told her to tell me, "get ready.” Shortly following this, during a time in the
ANHOP prayer room, Pastor Lewis gave me the following word: "I
know that you guys have a heart for adoption.
What I heard was 'multiple adoptions.'
I know you will adopt, but what I feel like ‘multiple adoptions’ means
is that somehow you would help, facilitate, or somehow be involved with
multiple adoptions in some way." Two weeks later while talking with Pastor
Lewis and reviewing with Derek the word he had given to me, he added that “there was something involving orphans as well.”
By the end of April, I started to have
some mixed emotions about whether or not I might be pregnant that month. If I was, then I knew that we would wait to
adopt. It was strange for me to realize
that there was a small part of me that
did not want to get pregnant, yet. I
still REALLY wanted another biological child, but I was beginning to realize
that my heart was in a place where I really was ready to adopt and I wanted to
do it now... but I was still waiting patiently for the Lord to speak to Derek
and move on his heart.
In May 2012, I listened to a sermon
by Kelsey Bohlender about the Spirit of Adoption. (Here is a link Kelsey's message http://www.randyandkelsey.com/teaching/kelsey/spiritofadoption.mp3) She talked about a prophecy involving Elijah
(an example of going hard after God, amongst other things) in Malachi 4:5-6. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet…and
he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children…” Wow! She
also talked about how children are a blessing from the Lord. We are told to take care of the widow and the
orphans. We need to take better care of
the orphans…. “…Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” (Mal 4:6) Could that curse be that we no longer feel His
presence? Ouch. One would have to hear the whole message to
connect clearly with its content. That
being said, it was an extremely good message.
At the end of the sermon, they talked about a prophetic meaning behind
the Dr. Suess book, Horton Hatches an Egg, with the moral of the story
being that the baby takes on the likeness of the adoptive parents. This was very encouraging to me as we drew
closer to considering adoption. I was
thinking about all of the different decisions we would need to make, and this
prophetic revelation reminded me that prayer is more powerful than a child’s
past and can overcome anything by the power of the Lord’s hand. The prophetic act of adoption is redemptive
and merciful. God would help us bond to
a baby, and He would guide us to raise the child to know Him. The child would take on our likeness and have
the chance to know the Lord and impact future generations.
In May 2012, I attended a prophetic
conference at our church, and I received a word. At the end of the word, the prophet said, “Summer of rearrangement, autumn of enlargement
for the glory of God.” We don’t know
for sure if this does directly relate to our desire for an adoption, but we
would like to think it does. So far in
our prayer time, we have not felt or heard the Lord say that we have the wrong
idea about this word. We’ll see. We don’t want to get hung up on the timing,
but we are taking action and praying that the Lord helps us to be diligent with
our time and to use it wisely.
In the next post, we will share a
bit about Derek’s personal journey of the Lord leading him to adoption. We may share about our first few steps of the
journey, depending on how long Derek’s post is.
