Episode 32: My Infertility Journey

Many couples struggle with infertility. In the previous episode, Matt shared that he and his wife went through a season of infertility and now they have five children. My journey is different from theirs: my husband and I experienced 10 years of infertility - treatments, IVF - and we do not have children. This is to offer encouragement and hope to those on similar journeys. Don’t wait to live your life as you are waiting on what God is doing for you. Continue to live and pour out to others as you wait expectantly for whatever God has for you - whether that’s pregnancy or not. He is good, and He has great plans for you!

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Transcript

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Hey friends, welcome to the Only God podcast, where we share stories only God can write. I'm your host, Stephanie L. Jones. In each episode, we'll dive into powerful testimonies, have great conversations, and encouragement that remind us when the impossible happens, it's only God. Let's get started. Hey friends, it's Stephanie here with the Only God Podcast, sharing stories Only God Could Write. And today is a follow-up episode from the conversation that I had with Matt Ham and actually one um part of the conversation in particular. And that is when Matt talked about um infertility. He and his wife uh went through a season of infertility, and at the end of the day, though, the Lord blessed them with five beautiful children. Um, but maybe you listened to that episode and you're thinking, that's great. Matt walked through infertility and now he has five children, but that is not my story. Well, friends, that is not my story either. Uh, my husband and I have been married for 23 years, going on 23 years, and we have no kids. Um we walked through the infertility journey for 10 years. Um, and when I say that, I mean like doing treatments, and it wasn't for the full 10 years, it was on and off. And um, as we went through those treatments, is sometimes like I was in the police academy, so I was gone for um, I don't know, like four months. And then when I came back, I had my field training, and you know, so there was a season where it was like a year to year and a half where uh we were not doing infertility treatments. My husband went away uh for 16 weeks to be a canine handler, so it just like I want to put that out there is it wasn't for the full 10 years. With that said, is we did everything, all the treatments up to IVF, including IVF, and nothing worked. And I'll be very honest, is I especially when it came to IVF, I'm not I'm not saying this about the other um treatments that we did, but in particular IVF is I just knew it was not going to work. And but there's something that really happens emotionally, hormonally, that you just kind of start going through the process. And when you go through the process, it's like, well, this didn't work, this is the next thing. This didn't work, this is the next thing. And I can remember my husband and I even talking, like, I when we went in to talk with the doctor, um, you know, like we were pretty much on the same page if we weren't going to do IVF. But when we walked out of there, we had committed to IVF, and it was just this very weird, like, I don't want to say that it was manipulative, but they just start giving statistics. Um, I don't know. I just remember walking out there and going, what are we, did we just sign up to do IVF? Um, and we did, and I just always felt like it wasn't going to work. Um and if I had to look back now, one of the biggest things that I would change was, and I had a bunch of people praying for us. So I'm not even saying as we went through this journey where there was, we weren't praying, people weren't praying for us, that wasn't it at all. But what I was not doing, and how I really try to live my life now, not perfect, nobody's perfect, and it'll never be that way, is that this pray, give whatever you're going through to God, and then really giving it to him, handing it over to him, pause, and then waiting for his guidance on that journey. And that's we did not do that. And so I if I had to go back and you know talk to the younger Stephanie, that's what I would have said. But with that said, is we have still had a beautiful life without biological children. Um, you know, I have been able to mentor so many young women over these last, you know, 20 years. And not to say that I couldn't have mentored them, you know, if we would have kids, but the time that I have invested in young women and mentoring them, um, I'm pretty confident that I wouldn't, you know, would have been taking away from my own kids and and raising raising them. And so the only God piece of that is every one of the young women who are in my life, I can just see like, and they were people that I was not seeking out. I don't think any of these like young women I've sought out to be like, let me mentor you. Um, they are always women that God has brought into my life. Um, if you've listened to the episode, or if you haven't, I really encourage you to is go listen to uh Tashali Nuts episode. She's one of the girls that calls me mom. We met in Alaska. Uh I knew no one. And I went up there to speak, and I met to Shali there and a couple other great young ladies, Shelby and Jessica. And um, and also if you go listen to the episode with Sarah Vesley, like again, mentoring in a different capacity of a young gal that has a goal and a dream to write a book. And now I've been able to mentor and coach her for about five years and and do some other cool things with her. And then, like working with her, the Lord led me to hosting a Bible study with young women in my house on Wednesday morning, girls that were home from college. And um, you know, and again, not to say that I couldn't host a Bible study if I had kids, but I just really had the time to get up early in the morning, write um the study, and just really prepare my home, prepare my heart, and to pour into these young ladies. And I'm still mentoring and in contact with some of them today. So I want to say that is like only God has been able to use me in so many other ways. The other thing that I want to talk about is a little bit more difficult. It's not a judgment, it's just something that my husband and I saw a lot in the waiting room as we went on this journey, met a lot of other couples who were going through this. Is uh, well, one, I wasn't gonna mention this, but I want to mention this. If you're a guy listening to this and you and your wife are going through infertility, you have and you have the ability to go to as many appointments as possible, even if she's just getting her blood. Um, my husband went to every appointment with me, unless he got called out. He's a state trooper. He was at every appointment. It didn't matter if that appointment lasted five minutes or an hour, two hours, my husband was there. And I was really sad for a lot of the women because most of the women I never saw their husbands there. And we both, it was like a journey we were both on, even though I was the one that was getting poked and prodded and everything happening to, you know, this was we were in this together, and so I just really, if you're a guy listening to this, like try to be there as much as you can for your wife. Um, that meant the world to me. The other thing I want to talk about is I got to see so many women that were stuck. They were stuck in this unknown time, and they were stuck because they couldn't control the outcome, you know, is you don't control whether or not IVF or any of your infertility treatments are going to work. And I got to see a lot of women whose lives were just so wrapped up in that that they couldn't move forward. They couldn't see or do anything that God had for them. And I will say that's one thing that my husband and I did well is we continue to live our lives. We continue to serve in the capacity that the Lord was calling us to conserve. We continue to move forward and our life. Um, over that journey, that's when my giving challenge started. That's when I gave my 522 days was at the tail end of my um infertility treatments. And so I say that is because if you are going through infertility treatments and on this journey and you're feeling stuck, like it is all consuming, is learn to surrender, learn to surrender this to the Lord, learn to surrender the outcome to the Lord, and then just go, I'm gonna live in today, and what can I do today? What actions can I take? Who can I serve? You know, what career do I need to be working on? Whatever it is, because I got to see us, you know, we could still be stuck in that living in the past that we never had children, and the Lord's been able to use our lives beautifully. So that's one of the like hard little nudges I want to give you if you are there. The other thing that we have been able to do, besides the mentoring and me, you know, being able to pour a lot of time in um young ladies' lives is philanthropically. Um, and this isn't to say, hey, if you have kids, you know, you can't give, but um is, you know, the money that we would be pouring into our own children, we haven't had to do that. And so we have really chosen to give financially uh to nonprofit organizations, whether it's in our community, whether it's in our state, whether it's nationally or internationally. And a lot of the nonprofits that we have been involved in involve children. Um, one of them that I'm still involved in is rice bowls, and they feed children through orphanages throughout the world. Um, and we've been able to donate tens of thousands of meals through that program. Not to say we couldn't have done that, but maybe not to the extent or the capacity that we've been able to do. So I really want you to challenge and think about that is if you don't have kids, is how are you financially pouring into um, you know, philanthropic organizations that you may be able to help with? So I hope this message today just gives you a little insight into my journey. If you are going on to this journey of God can use you in so many beautiful ways. And it's a topic I don't talk a lot about, um, but it's always one I'm happy to have a conversation with somebody and really felt led after Matt Ham's discussion is to share the other side of what infertility looks like. And so I hope today that whether you're walking this journey or if you know somebody that is, feel free to share this episode with them. Maybe it'll be a little encouragement to them. And uh thank you for joining me on another episode of Only God Sharing Stories. Only God could write. Hey friends, thank you for joining me today on the Only God Podcast. I hope today's story encouraged your faith and reminded you that God is still writing our stories each and every day. If you were inspired by this episode, please share, subscribe, and tell a friend. And to stay connected with me and find out about all my books and resources and events, go to shineforwardcreative.com. Have a fabulous day.