My husband and I were married in 2008. We both knew and loved the Lord but we were living in the world. Our relationship was being destroyed by my past and we eventually separated after only a year of marriage. This was when I first experienced the Holy Spirit and God calling me to stand and wait for my husband Tim. After a year of living separately, Tim and I were reconciled only by the grace of God! He changed our hearts individually so we could start building a marriage with Him as our foundation. This is what I thought our testimony would be… But God wasn’t done with us then!

After trying to conceive for 2 years, Tim and I decided to pursue testing to determine if something was inhibiting us from becoming pregnant. We got the news we were dreading – the likelihood of becoming pregnant naturally was extremely low. My heart was broken because God gave me a heart for children. He knit me with the desire to be a mom, how could this be?! After prayerfully considering IVF, we believe God opened the door to this process and His hand was in it from the beginning. He spoke to us through several blessings, including insurance to help cover most of the cost and peace regarding the details of IVF. We became pregnant and welcomed a baby boy in November 2015.

I struggled most with watching others become pregnant so easily. But God had something different in store for us. Our story includes IVF, and we believe God is the author of life and our son Brandon is here only because God has a purpose for his life and wanted us to be his parents. We now have another testimony of His goodness. I wanted what seemed to be what everybody else had – but God wanted to expand our family in a way we never imagined. I’m truly grateful for this process because it forced me to lean on Him and trust Him with all the details. Thank you Lord for our newest blessing – and thank you for the blessing of Your son!

Haley – Surprise Pregnancy after Triplets

If you are a longtime reader of Caroline’s blog here, you might remember me. After 3.5 years of infertility, I became pregnant with triplets through the long and oftentimes painful road of IVF. Totally worth it. God gave us three little miracles I was able to carry to 33 weeks and 3 days (which is really good for triplets). They are healthy little toddlers today! 18 months old!

When the triplets were about 8 months old, I got the surprise of my life.   I was late. At first, I chalked it up to lack of sleep and crazy eating habits. That positive pregnancy test set off a wave of emotions! What I had dreamed of for so long….but now?!? Needless to say, my husband and I were shocked. Today, we have our littlest girl, Phoebe. She is perfect and beautiful and joined in our crew just as wonderfully as can be!

I love you, MITM! Keep praying, keep seeking God in your daily life! You are so important as God’s witnesses! People are watching. You are telling the story of God’s power in and through your life!

Me and the kids (1 boy, 3 girls)

Left to right: Joshua, Phoebe, Charlie Fay, and Hannah

In 2010, after our first year of marriage, we started trying to have kids. We tried for about a year and my doctor had no explanation as to why we were not getting pregnant. We did a few rounds of chlomid and he would always say “oh this time for sure it will work…you are an ‘easy fix.’”  After that didn’t work we decided to pause and ask ourselves and God what He was trying to teach us through this.

Adoption had always been on “option” for us as it was just something we both had an interest in even before learning about our infertility. At the time we were in a bible study, studying James. James 1:27 really stuck out to both of us – “religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” We thought maybe God was telling us to do something while we wait on biological kids. So, in 2011 we attended an adoption conference and found out about the need for foster parents.  This started us down the road of becoming a licensed foster home.  We decided that we would not pursue any treatments at this time because if we were to get pregnant we would not be able to continue the foster parent journey for a while. Although we still had a strong desire to be forever parents we knew we needed to die to that desire, for now, and do what God was asking us to do…but we continued to trust Him, knowing that God could give us children at any time.

Since the goal of foster care is reunification with family, we really tried to look at this new path as a ministry to the whole family and were prepared to be temporary or permanent parents for whoever God put in our home. For the next 4 years we had 2 foster placements and God brought us 4 children as well as a mother to care for while living in our home.  It was an emotional roller coaster and many times I became impatient with what seemed like a long road to build our own family. God kept bringing us temporary children and even called us to parent/mentor a mom whose children we fostered.  I did not know if/when God would have us be forever parents. However, this uncertainty and frustration led to dependency and closeness with God. Looking back, I’m so thankful that he allowed us to invite people into our home, and build relationships that we continue to have.

When I think about what our life would be like had we been able to conceive right away, I am sad at the thought of what and who we would have missed out on. Through these 5 years my faith was stretched and my character refined. It was a hard but beautiful process.  My desire to be a mom was never taken away, but I was given new desires…to be a foster parent, to speak up for the marginalized, to mentor, to root for bio families. I don’t know that I would have found these desires had God given me my desire to be a mom first. The verse we all know, Psalm 37:4 – “take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Before now, I would have taken that verse to mean that God will give me what I want because I trust and follow Him. But now the verse says something completely different to me…that God will give me new desires, according to his perfect plan. He never took the desire away, however, for us to be biological parents.

Therefore, in January of 2015 we decided to see a fertility specialist. We were in the middle of our second foster placement with 2 kids in our home, which we thought we might adopt at the time. The doctor had us try a different medication for a couple of months but that did not work. He then discovered that I had cysts and “junk” in and around my ovaries that needed to be cleaned out. So we did the laparoscopy in March. After a couple of months of healing from that, in June we did a course of super ovulation and an IUI treatment.

In July, we found out we were going to be forever, biological parents…of twins! I cannot describe our overwhelming excitement, thankfulness and joy we had of God’s perfect plan, perfect timing, and good gifts!  Some of these gifts along our journey were fun and exciting, while others were challenging and hard. But all were gifts that showed us God’s grace and glory.  Most would not consider infertility as a “gift” and I am not saying it is at all an easy road…but I can look back and be thankful for things God gave us through our infertility.  I am also not saying that you “just have to do ___ and then God will give you a baby.” Trust me, I’ve heard them all…especially with going down the “adoption” road.  Everyone’s story is different. But what I am saying is that God can use the trials in our life for good.  I believe that’s how he shapes us and draws us closer to Him. The foster children we had ended up going back to their family in December and our twins, Harris and Grace, were born on March 1^st, 2016.  We cannot be more thankful for these 2 bundles of joy…

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