What's Up Doc?

I'm going to warn you...this is a long one. Hey, it has been a 4 year struggle and I'm supposed to sum it up in a blog post? Crazy.

My husband and I are Catholic. So an openness to life in marriage is something we have treasured from the beginning of our marriage. It's the most amazing thing that God has allowed us in his plan of creation. It also comes with a intense responsibility. We have been practicing Natural Family Planning since early on in our marriage and a few years into it after friends were conceiving rather quickly after their nuptials, we realized that we may have a difficult time conceiving. I can't say it wasn't a total surprise. I strongly feel that deep down in my soul, I just had a feeling even before we were engaged or married that I might have fertility issues. You see, God had put adoption on my heart long before my husband and I married. When Matt and I were in a time of separation to discern our future together, I had a vivid dream that I felt was prophetic. God showed me my future husband and he was holding our future child that I knew wasn't ours biologically.   I said to the Lord in a prayer time one afternoon that I will serve Him with my whole heart in one of two ways, I will be a long term missionary overseas or I will marry Matt and raise children to love and serve Him. I was committed to serving Him in whatever way he desired.  But whatever it was, I knew I would lead a missionary life in that I had a mission to proclaim the gospel in truth and love. It was then that I had that dream that will forever stay with me and would become a burning desire of mine.

After a few months of fertility treatments through a local fertility clinic and no conception, we decided to stop treatment. We were never at peace in the regular fertility clinics. It was always a challenge to share our faith and morals with the doctors when it came to our fertility. You see, we had a strong conviction from the Lord that our fertility was a gift, not something to be controlled. Children were a gift, not a product easily produced in a lab with a doctor. Sex was bigger and more than just a pleasurable experience to be used whenever and however we pleased. It meant more and therefore, was not to be taken out of the equation when sharing in God's plan of creation. Children, at any stage of life, even the earliest of stages were to be valued and cherished not tossed away if... inconvenient. It was a challenge to continue to educate the doctors on these things when their main goal was not health care but rather, producing babies. We were constantly encouraged and advised to eventually do Invitro Fertilization and were even once assured in the process that if "too many embryos (babies) implanted, we could just do a fetal reduction". Simple as that. The little lives that we had so long yearned for could be aborted right there in the place that proudly advertised themselves as in the business of making babies! The doctors that spent their whole lives producing children had a complete and utter disregard for life. It has become  less about helping families conceive but rather, a power issue that has spiraled out of control. We had no desire to get caught in the tornado.

Luckily, we were aware of this all prior to our journey because the Catholic church and it's teachings warned us of this sort of power struggle that began with the creation of the pill and has now created a society that completely takes sex out of the equation when creating life. For a letter written by Pope Paul VI on the, now thought to be prophetic, message on birth control and the effect it will have on society, click here: Humanae Vitae.  It's scarily accurate.

It's not an easy circumstance, to want children so badly and not be able to conceive. And the fertility world counts on the vulnerability and desperation of the infertile couple. I am in no way being insensitive to the fact that infertility is a difficult cross to bear. I am not condemning those that have chosen to be a part of in vitro fertilization. It often sadly appears to be the only answer especially when fertility doctors are pressuring you and assuring you that this is the only way that you will get a baby.

Back to our story. We left the clinic and decided to look into adoption agencies. We prayed intensely for about 6 months asking God if we were called to adopt. He laid a strong desire on our hearts for adoption as He began to wrap our minds around the beauty and complexity of adoption and how it is an amazing symbol of the gospel. The Lord over and over reminded us of his command to love and care for orphans.  He taught us through a lot of prayer, the deep spiritual connection of adoption in that we are all adopted sons and daughters of Christ.  In Romans 8:15, the Lord tells us that the spirit we have received as Christians has brought us into an adopted relationship with God in which we now cry, “Abba, Father!”  We are heirs through our adoption. God chose us!  We began to believe deeply that earthly adoption is an amazing witness and example of the Gospel and felt strongly called to participate in it.