Infertility

Infertility is an awkward word. It's like it means that there's something embarrassingly wrong with my body. But I'm not embarrassed at all that I haven't been able to have children yet. And just because we haven't had children yet doesn't mean that we're "not ready for them" yet. Seriously, is anyone ever "ready" to have kids before they have them? The reason why we haven't have children yet is because Heavenly Father needs us to do other things right now.

An apostle of the LDS Church shared this experience in the past General Conference of the church:

"The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust. I felt that trust in a talk my cousin gave at the funeral of a teenage girl who had died of a serious illness. He spoke these words, which first astonished me and then edified me: “I know it was the will of the Lord that she die. She had good medical care. She was given priesthood blessings. Her name was on the prayer roll in the temple. She was the subject of hundreds of prayers for her restoration to health. And I know that there is enough faith in this family that she would have been healed unless it was the will of the Lord to take her home at this time.” I felt that same trust in the words of the father of another choice girl whose life was taken by cancer in her teen years. He declared, “Our family’s faith is in Jesus Christ and is not dependent on outcomes.” Those teachings ring true to me. We do all that we can for the healing of a loved one, and then we trust in the Lord for the outcome." (Dallin H. Oaks, Healing the Sick, April 2010 Conference.)

That is in a way the point where John and I are. We've done everything we can thus far. There's always something else we can try (and you can say that about anything), but I think we've really done our best. We have been to at least three different doctors, we have two adoption profiles, a blog, a Facebook group, and pass-along cards for adoption. We try to be good citizens and we pray to God as a family and by ourselves, we study the scriptures, we serve in our church. Friends and family pray for us all the time--and yet. We still have no calls, no emails, no leads for adoption, and no positive pregnancy tests.

Scriptures give me so much peace and I love to read the stories of the women in the scriptures because some of the best-known women struggled with that awkward word--infertility. Sarah was a wife of Abraham--the prophet. She was a righteous woman. Sure, she doubted when she was told that she was to have a child after "it ceased to be with [her] after the manner of women" (meaning that she had already been through menopause).

But I bet you that even through all those years of waiting, of wanting, of yearning for a child, and even after menopause, she never lost hope. And that is what we women cling to.

Sometimes it feels like hope is a cruel invention. One of my new favorite movies (one of those 5-hour long ones) is Cranford and at one part one of the characters says something along the lines of, "Despair is easier to cope with than hope." The reason is because with despair, at least you know the outcome, and most likely despair will dissipate with time. But hope seems to spring eternal. And even when the facts are laid out in front of you, you deny them. You cling to hope.

And praise God that that hope of having children can be fulfilled through adoption. I don't have to carry the child myself to have the exact same feelings toward a child, or that fulfillment of long-waited-for desires. I hope, and I always have hoped, and I know that Heavenly Father will bless John and I when it is time for us to be parents.

Poor Sarah! Age must have been such an issue for her. But getting old is no issue to Heavenly Father. Our lives must seem so very short and so very small to His almighty mind, yet He loves us so dearly. He hears our prayers. And He does answer them in His own time and way. That is why I have faith in Him and in His Son, Jesus Christ. And after all, faith and hope are supposed to go together.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrew 11:1).

"For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith" (Gal. 5:5).

"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity" (2 Cor. 13:13).

Charity is love--the pure love of Christ and adoption definitely requires faith, hope and charity!