Faith and Infertility

Every month, my church publishes a magazine called the Ensign. I was so excited to see that there was an article about infertility featured in the April issue, so I thought I would share it here. I liked how the article talked to real couples who shared their feelings and that they didn't all have these miracle endings where they magically got pregnant and never had a hard time again. The information they presented was real, and it is nice to know that my church is aware of this problem and wants to be supportive.

Here is a copy of the article. You can also check it out at this link.

Infertility can be heartbreaking. Four couples share how they maintained faith and hope.

Infertility: it was the last thing Brenda Horrocks ever expected to hear from her doctor. She and her husband, Brad, had been married for four years, and although she had experienced complications with her menstrual cycle from the time she was a teenager, doctors had told her and Brad that with “a little help,” they would be able to have a baby. “A little help turned into a lot of help,” Brenda says, and after multiple fertility treatments over several years, the Horrockses were told that the likelihood of their being able to conceive was extremely small.

Infertility is not uncommon—some 15 percent of couples in the United States have difficulty conceiving a child; 1 other countries throughout the world show similar figures. In 40 percent of instances, the wife is infertile. In another 40 percent, the problem rests with the husband. In 10 percent of cases, both are infertile, and in the remaining 10 percent, the cause is unknown. 2 In the context of the Church, where the family is celebrated as the fundamental unit of society, 3 not having children can be an especially difficult challenge.

Yet as Brad and Brenda and many others can attest, God does not leave His children alone in their trials. “Never give up,” Brad recommends. “There’s always hope. Heavenly Father always has something in store for us. We have found that over and over again.”

Here, the Horrockses and three other couples who have dealt with the challenges of infertility—Dave and Angie Belnap, Phil and Valerie Hochheiser, and Curtis and Melody Linton—share how they saw the Lord’s hand guiding them through their challenges.

Dealing with Grief

Brenda’s grief at the diagnosis was so overwhelming that she began questioning her mission in life, she says.

“I felt lost for a long time. I felt I had no purpose. That’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it, to get married and have a family? I still knew I was a daughter of God, but I hated that I couldn’t be a co-creator with Him. I felt broken, like I wasn’t a real woman.”

Brenda tried “swimming through” her grief for several months and even years. At one point, it became so severe that she felt prompted to seek professional counseling.

“I realized the grief was inhibiting my progression,” she says. She asked Heavenly Father to guide her in a search for the right counselor and began meeting with one who was able to offer the help Brenda needed.

“As I went to my appointments and continued to do my homework [usually assigned reading], my heart was being prepared for healing,” Brenda recalls. “Many of my fears and pains started to subside, and a new person was emerging.”

Brenda notes that while some well-meaning people tried to assist by suggesting what might be wrong with her or what she could try, that didn’t help. “I just needed people to buoy me up as I struggled and to acknowledge that what I was going through was difficult.”

Angie Belnap and her husband, Dave, learned after four years of marriage that they most likely wouldn’t be able to conceive. Angie recalls going through all of the stages of grief but finding herself returning over and over to the anger stage.

“I remember wondering how something that was so important in life could be denied me,” she says. “My feelings of hurt and what seemed to me to be spiritual abandonment manifested themselves through anger. I was very angry. Angry at myself. Angry at my husband. Angry at God.”

But Angie started working through her grief by focusing on aspects of her life she could control rather than on those she couldn’t. Angie, who worked as a third-grade teacher, looked for ways she could improve her skills at work. She also read a lot—“there was always a book on my nightstand,” she recalls—and pursued other self-improvement projects. “I couldn’t change the infertility, but I could progress in other areas of my life,” she says.

She also found it helpful to keep a journal. “I didn’t always feel that I could talk to people about what I was going through, but I could get my feelings ‘out there’ by writing them down. That helped a lot.”

Debunking Spiritual Myths

Angie’s husband, Dave, grew up with four sisters and two brothers and always expected to have a large family of his own. However, when years passed without any children for him and Angie, Dave began to wonder if it were a consequence of inadequate spirituality.

“We tried to stay positive,” Dave says, “but it was hard. I knew the importance of starting a family, but because we weren’t able to have biological children, I felt like I was being punished or short-changed.”

Like Dave, many people facing infertility look for the reason behind the struggle and sometimes blame themselves. Such thoughts and feelings can sting even more when others make well-intended but hurtful comments, often laced with misguided beliefs.

For instance, Melody Linton recalls sitting in testimony meeting and hearing new mothers say things like, “God trusted me enough to bless me with this baby.”

“I can understand why they said it,” Melody admits. “It’s a fair statement. But in my situation without a child, I couldn’t help but think, ‘God doesn’t trust me.’

“I don’t know that I felt angry at Heavenly Father, but I felt forsaken by Him,” she continues. “I felt so left out. Why were all these other women getting to experience pregnancy? I had tried to live my life worthily and do things I knew to be correct. So why wasn’t it happening for me?”

Eventually, Melody found solace in the writings of Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) on adversity.

“The tables turned for me,” she says. “I began to think, ‘Why not me?’ I’m strong enough to handle this.” She knew that with the support of her husband, Curtis, and in the strength of the Lord, she could face her challenges.

Brenda points out that it’s important to continue to trust in the Lord, even when what is happening isn’t what we want. “For a while, I thought if I had enough faith, I would be cured,” she says. “But sometimes having faith means trusting in and listening to the Lord even when we are not cured. What we want won’t always match what He has planned for us.”

She recalls a Sunday School lesson in which a bishopric member shared an important message about faith—one she’s clung to ever since. He said, “When someone has an ailment or an illness and they are healed as the result of a blessing, their faith is being strengthened. But for those who aren’t healed but continue faithful, their faith is being perfected. The first is a faith-promoting experience. The second is faith-perfecting.”

Turning to—Not Away from—Each Other

Infertility can cause a lot of couples to reevaluate their plans for their lives and in some cases, their very relationships. When Curtis and Melody’s doctor suggested a particular fertility treatment—one of their last options—Melody was ready to move ahead, while Curtis had significant reservations. At this crossroads, Curtis recalls, he retreated deeper within himself and escaped by exercising and working more.

Melody, meanwhile, felt stagnant. “While we were trying different procedures, I felt productive and proactive, and that brought a tremendous sense of hope,” she says. “But when we were stalling and nothing was moving forward, that killed me.”

The couple had worked hard for years to encourage each other in their education, careers, and other interests. This had carried over into their infertility challenges as well, such as when Curtis went to doctor appointments with Melody or she supported him as he sought refuge in bike rides and other physical activity.

“Trying to support Melody is what had saved me through all of this,” he says. But as Melody sunk deeper into sadness, Curtis felt powerless in knowing how to help her. They were, it seemed, at an impasse.

That changed, Melody says, when she ultimately realized that they needed to be united as a couple. While she did not share her husband’s reservations about the proposed procedure, she could respect them. “One no meant two no’s,” she says. Together, they began exploring other options.

Phil and Valerie Hochheiser discovered that when the stresses of infertility were too much—especially because, like the Lintons, they came to stages of understanding at different times—they could find relief in focusing on their marriage.

For instance, varying the routine gave the couple something besides fertility testing and treatments to think about. Phil says it was helpful to break away by going to the movies or taking a walk. He and Valerie also “took a couple of trips to put everything behind us for a bit. Otherwise, infertility could have run our days and nights,” he says.

To further strengthen their relationship, the Hochheisers wrote each other notes, went on dates, made anniversaries or other dates special by splurging on a hotel room, made efforts to look attractive for each other, sent flowers, and started saying “I love you” more often. “It’s easy when you’re feeling depressed to let some of these areas slide—or to not try anything at all—but by making a conscious effort, we were able to handle things with a better sense of well-being and unity,” Valerie says.

Physical intimacy also played an important role, Valerie adds. “Intimacy in marriage has several ‘functions’—procreation, yes, but also bonding and unifying a couple in their marriage. Going through infertility reaffirmed in my mind the importance of intimacy in our marriage.”

That stronger marriage, in turn, brought blessings of its own.

“It helped me realize amid a lot of unknowns that I was really blessed to have a husband who is good to me, who loves me, and who was willing to work through this together,” Valerie says. “It didn’t mean that we got rid of the ups and downs. It didn’t mean that there weren’t times that were scary. But we’ve learned so much and grown much closer because of what we’ve been through.”

Serving Others

Phil and Valerie readily acknowledge that it took more than turning toward each other, important as that was. They also needed to turn outward to others in the healing process.

Valerie remembers finding joy in her service in the Young Women organization. Focusing on those she served helped her deal with her own challenges, and occasionally, she even found personal solutions in the process.

“I remember one particular lesson teaching about having an eternal perspective. We discussed how different our own view is from Heavenly Father’s. For some reason, that particular lesson—while I was in the middle of serving others—had a big impact on me. It helped me see a little bit more clearly that my struggles were only temporary ones.”

Phil, too, had significant experiences reaching out to others. He remembers finding—and later sharing—Alma 26:27: “Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.”

“I identified with the ‘when our hearts were depressed,’ phrase,” says Phil. “Dealing with infertility is such an up-and-down cycle, and you feel that way a lot of the time. But I learned to ‘bear with patience’ my afflictions and, as Ammon and his brethren were instructed to do, serve others. So that’s what we did. We found ways to reach out to others and lift them up. We didn’t yet know what the ‘success’ would be, whether it would be pregnancy or adoption or something else, but we trusted that it would happen.”

Reaching Out to a Support Network

Because of infertility’s personal nature, some couples may decide not to talk about it with other people. The Hochheisers, for instance, waited until Valerie was about to undergo surgery before they brought it up to their families. “

It was hard for my family, my mom in particular, to have not been informed all along,” Valerie recalls. “She felt I hadn’t wanted to include her and let her be my support. But we were struggling to figure things out ourselves. It would have been really hard to answer questions when we weren’t yet sure what we were dealing with.” Moreover, they didn’t want to trouble others with their struggles.

Of course, people handle unexpected situations differently, Phil points out. “Later on, I realized the biggest help was having a strong support group outside of the two of us—people who could see the whole picture, or even someone who had been through what we were experiencing.”

Once they started talking to other people, Valerie and Phil realized they weren’t alone.

“There are people out there; there are support groups, both in person and online,” Phil concludes. “Look for help.”

Curtis and Melody found some of their greatest strength in such support groups, specifically Families Supporting Adoption through LDS Family Services. Although they were nervous about going to their first meeting, when they walked into the room, Melody says, “I saw in every woman’s eyes what I felt in my heart. I felt safe and knew that I could share what I was experiencing.”

“Within the support group,” Curtis adds, “we were Curtis and Melody dealing with this challenge of infertility, not infertility in the form of Curtis and Melody.” That realization, he says, was paramount.

“There’s nothing in the scriptures or anywhere in the gospel that teaches us to suffer in silence,” Curtis continues. “That’s a cultural thing. When you suffer in silence, you suffer more deeply. We went through periods where we were waiting for someone to take the first step to us. Be willing to approach others first. Share your story; you’ll find that others will often open up after that.”

Looking to the Lord

Eventually, the paths of the Belnaps, Hochheisers, Horrockses, and Lintons led them all to adoption. And while their children have brought great joy to each couple, healing, they say, comes from the Lord—not from adopting or conceiving.

“I finally realized that infertility wasn’t a punishment,” Angie says. “Once I was past the point of anger and bitterness, I was willing to hear the Spirit and receive direction about what we were supposed to do. Of course, that comes at different points for everyone. Infertility was my refiner’s fire. My faith was strengthened through those difficult years.”

“I had never really thought about adoption, but when Dave and I had been married almost five years, we moved into a ward where we met a couple who had adopted, and we started asking them questions and learning about the process. In receiving direction from the Lord that adoption was the path we were to pursue, I felt physical and spiritual weights lifted from my shoulders. The realization of God’s plan for our family gave me peace.”

“One of the gospel principles I’ve learned to appreciate through our experience is that Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us,” Dave adds. “Sometimes we get caught up in the one-size-fits-all mentality, and we feel that our lives should look like other people’s lives. But that’s really not true. Everyone has different trials, and Heavenly Father is aware of those. If we are humble enough to follow the plan He has for us, we’ll be happy.”

Valerie Hochheiser agrees that relying on and trusting in the Lord is crucial. “I learned that we had to do everything in our power but then ultimately turn it over to Him,” she says. “Sometimes that means letting Him tell us which direction to go. Other times it’s a matter of choosing a direction and letting Him confirm the decision.

“I think that was part of our learning process,” she continues. “I remember at one point telling Heavenly Father that we no longer knew what to pray for. We could pray for this to work or that to work, but mostly we just wanted to be ready for the blessings that Heavenly Father was ready to send us.”

Seeking Heavenly Father’s comfort and guidance will help us make the best decisions regardless of our circumstances.

“I have learned to trust in Him, to follow the Spirit, and to feel at peace because God’s plan is the one that will benefit me the most,” Brad says. “There’s more to life than we can imagine.”

Brenda agrees. “His gifts are the best gifts,” she says. “He loves us so much. What I would have planned for our life would pale in comparison to what He has given us. We need to trust and know that He will give to us immeasurably. What He has in mind for His children is better than anything we could ever design.”

For additional information on this topic see Ana Nelson Shaw, “Being Sensitive to Couples without Children,” Ensign, Aug. 2000, 61. You can also visit the Counseling and Resources section of ldsfamilyservices.org. For more from each of these couples—and others—on the topic of infertility, and for ideas for friends and family, please visit ensign.lds.org.

“I couldn’t change the infertility, but I could progress in other areas of my life. … I finally realized that infertility wasn’t a punishment. It was my refiner’s fire.” –Angie Belnap

“What I would have planned for our life would pale in comparison to what God has given us. What He has in mind for His children is better than anything we could ever design.” –Brenda Horrocks

Meeting Life's Challenges

I was looking through some old papers, and I ran across an old (seriously like ten years old) handout from church that had a really good quote that I thought I would share...hope you enjoy!

"I meet so many people who constantly complain about the burden of their responsibilities. Of course the pressures are great. There is much, too much, to do... Turn your thinking around. The gospel is good news. Man is that he might have joy. Be happy! Let that happiness shine through your faces...

"I enjoy these words of Jenkins Lloyd Jones...

"'Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed.

"'Most putts don't drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise.

"'Life is like an old-time rail journey - delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.

"'The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride."<>

...Gordon B. Hinckley

I Feel SO Whiney!

I have been feeling like a downer lately. I think it started a few weeks ago when DH and I decided it wasn't in our budget for me to go to Boston with my sister next month. I understand the reasoning behind it, and I think that it makes sense for us to try to be saving more than we are spending right now. But, I just feel so trapped and burned out. I feel burned out from IF, but also just from life in general.

I think that for so long I had focused on IF, and now that we are trying to adopt and it isn't completely consuming my life right now, I just feel drained and exhausted. Granted, I am still tired of feeling like I am not in control of IF/adoption/life in general, but I just feel tired in general. I think that this has made me have much less tolerance for other things in life. I am tired of not being able to plan things more than a few months in advance. I am bored with work. I am tired of not fitting in at family functions. I don't feel like I am growing and progressing in life. And, as much as I hate to even admit this, I am burned out with church.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy my job. I work with great people, my job is super flexible, and I have been there long enough (7+ years!) to have earned some seniority. I feel like I have a really good job for a 27 year old. The problem is, I am bored with my job – it just doesn't stimulate me anymore and I don't feel like I am growing and learning. There have been a few times I have thought about finding a new job, but the problem is that it just doesn't make sense for me to do that. I have sick time, vacation days, and FMLA saved up in case I ever have the privilege of taking maternity leave. My boss has already told me that I can reduce my hours to whatever I want them to be once we have a baby. It doesn't make sense to walk away from that. What if I leave, we get a baby, and then I can't take any time off? Or, what if I stay, and I don't get a baby for a really long time? I know that what I should do is just talk to my boss and ask for an extra project or something to keep me busy. Deep down, I really don't want to leave. I just need a change.

As for church – it isn't an option in my mind for me to change wards (congregations) or just stop going. I know that it would make me feel guilty and I would end up feeling worse. Here is the situation: in my church, most of the adult members have something called "callings". It is basically an assignment that church members are given to do various jobs within the church. Everything is done on a volunteer basis – none of our clergy is paid. For example, we have Sunday school teachers, teachers for the children's classes, teachers that work with the youth, others that help maintain church records, some who do secretary work, etc. My calling right now is to play the piano during Primary (which is where the children meet together). Our church meets together for three hours every week. One hour is called Sacrament Meeting and everyone in the ward meets together. During the other two hours, everyone breaks out into groups based on age. I spend the last two hours of church in Primary. DH and I have been going to our ward for three years, and I have been serving in primary for two years, ten months. Because of this, I feel like I haven't been able to develop any friendships with the people in my ward. I know some of the adults because I have worked with their children, but it isn't anything more than an acquaintance. I used to love going to church, but now I just feel lonely. I don't have friends to talk to; all I see is families and babies and pg women. I would love to make friends in the ward, but it just isn't happening. I don't have the excuse of being new in the ward, so it is just awkward. I know that this is a lot of explanation for something like this, but if you aren't LDS, I think that it can be hard to understand.

I have tried telling DH how I feel burned out and trapped and all of these other feelings, but he just doesn't understand. He will listen to me, and then say something like "Well, you are just going to be even more tied down once we have a baby". True, but it will be different. Like I said, I think that a big reason that I feel this way is because I am so worn out from IF. Even though adoption won't take away IF, it will at least allow me to experience motherhood. He tries to understand, but he just doesn't quite get it.

I started reading "Eat Pray Love" a few weeks ago and I have really been trying to glean some personal insights from it. I am at the part where she is in India, and there was a part that I read last night that really resonated with me. It says:

"There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under my jurisdiction. There are certain lottery tickets I can buy, thereby increasing my odds of finding contentment. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I eat and read and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life – whether I will see them as curses or opportunities (and on the occasions when I can't rise to the most optimistic viewpoint, because I'm feeling two damn sorry for myself, I can choose to keep trying to change my outlook). I can choose my words and the tone of voice I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts".

So this is what I will focus on. I can decide how I spend my time, what I think, what I put in my mouth, how I treat my husband/family/friends. Even though it sometimes seems like there is so much that I can't control, I can focus on the many things that I do have a say over. I know that it will be hard and there will definitely be days when I fail miserable, but I can keep trying.

If you are still reading this, thanks for listening to me vent. J

Good Things to Come

One of my friends/family members posted this clip on her blog. Last October, she lost her baby boy at 37 weeks gestation - after already battling IF for two years! She has been such a good example to me as being able to keep moving, despite hard times.

This YouTube clip is associated with our church, but I really liked the message and I think that it anyone who is spiritual and going through a hard time could relate to it.

An Answer to Prayer?

Before I really get into my post, I think I need to provide a few explanations.

First, as I have written before, I would consider DH and me to be pretty religious. We have been praying for a long time to have a baby, and recently our prayers have shifted to instead asking for guidance as to what we should do...adopt, keep trying, IVF, etc. I know that not everyone feels this way, but I firmly believe that God answers our prayers and guides us - sometimes he uses other people/events as instruments, but it does happen.

Second, in my church we have a program called visiting teaching. How it works is basically each woman in the ward (congregation) is paired up with another woman. As a pair, you are assigned to visit 2-3 women in the ward each month. The visit generally consists of a brief spiritual message and then just visiting with each other. You visit the same women each month, so the intent is that you build a relationship and then the women that you visit could ask you for help if they needed it and just have someone in the neighborhood who is their friend.

Anyway, last night I went visiting teaching with my partner, J. We had just been assigned a new lady to visit named E. Neither of us had met her before, so we spent some time just chatting and getting to know each other better. We gave her a quick message on trials, and as we were wrapping things up, she said "I know that I'm not your visiting teacher, but do either of you have any trials you are going through?" J said not really, and I hesitated a moment before deciding to just put it out there. So, I said that DH and I had been trying to have kids for a while and are at a crossroads of where we go from here. E then said that during our lesson, she kept having this strong impression that she should ask me if we were struggling with having kids and had considered adoption. She didn't want to just come out and ask if we were dealing with IF, but really felt strongly about asking. E then went on to say that she and her husband have dealt with IF and they adopted a son together. She shared a lot about what they went through and what their experiences were.

I thought it was interesting that E would feel impressed to ask me about IF and to tell me about adoption, especially when we hadn't known each other for more than 10 minutes. When I got home, I told DH about it and said it was interesting how here I am praying to know what to do, and in less than a week, I have had two different people tell me that they feel impressed to talk to me about adoption, how it is such an amazing experience, and how it is just as good as having biological children. I told DH that I know he is still kind of coming around to the idea, but that it just cemented in my mind that I think this will probably be the right path for us. When I think about us adopting a baby, I feel so hopeful and excited. I just want to get things moving!

Monitoring Appointment

I had my monitoring appointment for my first Clomid cycle last Friday. Everything went really well. My doctor wasn't in, so I saw another RE in the office. He was really helpful. He told me that he could see two follies and that it *appeared* that I was ovulating right around the appointment time. Apparently there was quite a bit of fluid that he could see on the u/s that indicated O? He told me to make sure we "try to get pg" for the next four days and then I will either by KU or AF will come.

The frustrating thing is that my CBEFM still hasn't shown a peak. It never peaked last month, so this could be the second month in a row that it missed it. I guess it is possible I still haven't O'd yet...but I think that I did. My O pains have gone away and I haven't had as much EWCM. My temps haven't been really conclusive, but I also got up super early this morning, so I don't feel that today's was super accurate. So, while I am hoping that the Clomid works this time and I end up KU, I am also thinking about trying an OPK in addition to the CBEFM. I have heard the Clear Blue Easy OPKs are good, but does anyone have any recommendations?

So yesterday during church our Bishop got up and started talking about how he and his wife have struggled with IF. He said that they got their twins through IVF (which I knew) and that there other daughter was a miracle baby. He talked about how they would really like to have a fourth child, and that the process of going through IF has really taught him and his wife about how aware God is of their family. Of course I ended up crying, but I thought it was kind of cool how he would be so open and talk about this struggle. A few minutes later, another lady got up and talked about how she gave birth a few weeks ago to her son who had died in-utero. At that point, I got really choked up and started crying even more. I don't really know this person (I just know who she is), but it struck me about how common of a problem having children is. Most of us grow up thinking that we will be able to have as many babies as we want and that they will come when we want them. Instead, so many of us are faced with this struggle...it doesn't discriminate.

Being Cheerful

I feel like I am doing pretty well. I was feeling a bit down on myself this morning - maybe because, against my better judgement, I decided to POAS and I got a BFN. Or maybe because at church we sat behind a baby that would have been the same age as mine if it weren't for the m/c. Or maybe because there always seems to be so many women in our church who have new babies or are KU. Whatever the reason, I was having a hard time with things.

BUT...I didn't want to let myself melt down to a puddle of despair. I remembered that right now, all I am doing all that I can to eventually be a mom. The rest is out of my control. I have a friend who is serving a mission for our church right now, and she recently sent me a letter. At the bottom of the letter, she included a scripture reference. The scripture says: "Therefore, dearly beloved brethern, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power, and then we may stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed". I am sure that when this scripture was written or when my friend sent me this letter, it was never thought that this would help someone with IF, but it has helped me. As I mentioned in previous posts, I am trying really hard to be more optimistic and happy. So, maybe if I am cheerfully doing all that I can, I just need to learn to rely on God to help with the rest. I am not saying that it is God's will that I don't have kids or that I am going through IF. What I am saying is that I think that if I am doing all that I can and trying to have the best attitude possible, then everything is going to turn out okay in the end. Maybe I won't be a mom as quickly as I would like to be, but everything will turn out all right.

On a different note, I have been thinking a lot about adoption lately. Maybe that seems strange, seeing as how I have yet to even take a single dose of Clomid or experience my first IUI. But, I feel really peaceful when I think about adoption. I am not quite sure how to bring it up to DH yet. We have talked about it before briefly, and he has said that he isn't ready to throw in the towel on having biological kids. I am not saying that I want to stop TTC a biological child, but I do feel like maybe this is something we could start looking into. Has anyone else had experience with this? What was your experience? How did your husband respond?

Claim the Exceeding Great and Precious Promises

I know that not everyone who reads my blog is religious, but I really wanted to share this talk that I read by one of the leaders of my church. It is by Elder Spencer Condie, and it is called Claim the Exceeding Great and Precious Promises. You can click on the link to read the talk, or listen to it by clicking here.

One of my friends who has battled IF for a long time shared it with me, and I LOVE it. It seemed like he was speaking directly to me and any other person out their who has longed for a child. One of my favorite lines says, "Sometimes, in our earthly impatience, we may lose sight of the Lord’s precious promises and disconnect our obedience from the fulfillment of these promises. The Lord has declared: 'Who am I, saith the Lord, that have promised and have not fulfilled?'" DH and I are pretty religious, so I found it comforting to have a reminder that one day we WILL have a family. Maybe not on our timeline, but it will happen!