The Baby Lab

Why do I do this to myself? Why do I watch these terribly emotional shows? Tears are streaming down my face as I watch a show on Discovery Health called "The Baby Lab." It's basically "The Baby Story," but the story of infertile couples walking through IVF. They follow several couples because they have to show both good and bad outcomes for dramatic effect. But, the happy endings are not the ones making me cry today.

It is the couple who is smiling, full of hope as they wait on their transfer, only to get the news that their embryos do not look great and they probably won't result in a pregnancy. I watched as all of the hope drained from their faces. My heart is breaking for them and memories are flooding back of the same conversation that we had just before our first transfer. So much hope for new life, so much possibility, and so much caution all wrapped into one. I wanted desperately for these babies to grow, believing in a big God that can do anything, but all the while guarding my heart because I know the medical statistics. How do you balance faith and knowledge?

It was the doctor trying to encourage a couple before they even knew what the outcome was going to be of this round, "If you don't get pregnant this time, you can always use a donor or consider adoption." If he wasn't inside the tv, I would have hit him for that poor woman. Here she sits, clinging to the last little bit of hope that she can muster and yet the doctor has none. When you are giving so much to be a biological parent, the last thing that you want to hear about is your other options. She knows her options. I can assure you that she has researched every possibility ad nauseam. But, right now she needs her own doctor to believe in her and give her some hope that all of this has been worth it.

It's the phone conversation that happens two weeks later. The couple has sat by the phone anxiously for hours. They know that the chances are not good, but they hold onto hope until the very last moment when they hear, "You are not pregnant." After each transfer, I went to the doctor every two days for blood work. Then, I would come home and wait for the call to tell me how my hormone levels looked and how to adjust the dosage of medications that I was taking. It was my whole life, consuming every thought of every day. It was a roller coaster of emotion, trying to predict what each level meant. Getting my hopes up one day, then being discouraged the next. Until the 14th day, when I drove to the doctor for the very last time to have the final blood test done. We knew things weren't looking very positive, but had spent hours on our knees praying for God to work a miracle. After the last appointment, I would come home and sit on the couch for 6 hours with the phone in my hand, praying that He would some how work this out. Each time the final call came, with that dreaded result "You are not pregnant." The first time, I felt like my heart was ripped from my chest. I sat in the shower crying my eyes out. I hadn't felt that kind of pain since I lost Holland. The second time, I crawled into the bed with the covers over my head and just prayed to sleep until Rusty came home, so that I wouldn't have to feel the pain.

Maybe my emotions are just more raw today. Tomorrow is our follow-up appointment with the newest specialist and I am more nervous than I ever thought I would be. We will get the results of the last testing that we did and we could very well get a final word on whether or not we will ever be biological parents. I have said that I will be ok even if it is not the news that we want, that at least we will have an answer and will be able to close that door. I don't know how much I really mean that, but I am desperately trying to get there. I think it will be a process of grieving the loss of that dream. You always expect to grow up, get married and have a baby. When that is not the path that God has chosen for you, you have to come to the acceptance of that and I cannot imagine that it is always immediate. It may take some time to have a peace about that.

We have been through so much to get to this point and I just have to believe that it was not all in vain. Whether or not we ever have a biological child, I know that God is faithful and that He will provide a family for us.

Please continue to pray for us and our own appointment at "The Baby Lab" tomorrow at 3:30pm. We are still praying for a miracle, but mostly, we just want an answer. We are also praying for peace, no matter what the results are and for wisdom as to where to go from here. Either way, we will have a lot of decisions ahead of us and we desperately want to move forward according to God's plan for our lives.