A Ray of Hope Parted the
Clouds of Hopelessness…
After
the miscarriage, I really felt like my mother had died all over again…and
worse…I felt hopeless, empty, like a failure, like I had done something wrong
that had caused the miscarriage. It was
all my fault. If I had stayed home for
the entire pregnancy maybe…if I had stayed in bed longer…If I had taken more
progesterone…less estrogen….or maybe it was the doctor’s fault…I was angry
too…why did God do this to us…I knew we could be good parents…why us…why not
the teenage girl that has no business having kids at 14…why not people who
already have 15 kids, and can’t support another one…why us…why? I needed some time to grieve, to morn…to
heal.
Time
came for Dan and I to go back to the follow up appointment with the doctor. So
we got to his clinic with our list of angry questions and comments. We talked to the doctor about our concerns and
all he could say was…we don’t know why miscarriages happen, but they do happen
and they are nobody’s fault. After we
vented to him, we felt empty inside. Dan
and I sat there a minute in silence, not knowing what else to complain about,
then the doctor spoke. He told us: “well, my clinic has been selected for a
nation-wide study to test a new in vitro drug that is supposed to be more
effective, and I needed to come out with 20 women for this study, I have 19 so
far, and you qualify for the study, so I wanted to ask you if you’d be willing
to try this again as part of the study…if you participate, you won’t have to
pay more than a minimum amount, the rest will be free to you as a participant…” I don’t know what else he said…I stopped
listening after the word “free”…Dan and I looked at each other and I was
overcome by a combination of guilt, remorse, humility and incredible
gratitude. I was so very humbled by this
experience, that all I could think of was on the mysterious ways of the Lord’s
providence.
Well…we
did the procedure again. We got 4
embryos and replaced 2 and put 2 in the freezer. The two left in the freezer did not look
really strong, but in they went to become popsicles. We went through the whole thing once again
and on the day of the dreaded phone call after the pregnancy test…the nurse
said that we didn’t get pregnant after all…the disappointment was
unbearable.
We
didn’t understand why God had put this second chance in front of us if it
wasn’t going to work at all…so we decided to take a break. By then, my father needed surgery, so I went
to Panama
It
was about one year later from the second failure that we decided to transfer
the frozen embryos for one last attempt.
This procedure is one tenth of the price of the full procedure, so we
were ready for it financially.
Emotionally, however, we didn’t really have any expectations of
success. By then we had seriously
started looking into adoption, so we decided to replace the frozen embryos just
so they wouldn’t be left in the freezer and thus avoid that whole dilemma with
frozen embryos. And, since failure was a
sure thing, we would start the adoption process after it was all over.
Scripture to Ponder: “But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you. Psalm 39:7 NIV
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