…hasn’t really started yet, though I am very anxious to begin. Let me feel like things are moving by telling you a bit about it.
We’ve been married for very nearly five years (our anniversary is around Christmas). Birth control was not something we wanted to do or can do with clear consciences. God commands His people to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28) and proclaims that children are a blessing and a reward (Psalm 127).
I will admit that we did very loosely practice the calendar method for the first year or so of our marriage. We didn’t want to, but we didn’t have health insurance through my job, my husband was a full-time student, we couldn’t afford to buy our own insurance and didn’t qualify for state benefits due to residency requirements. The tough decision was made, and let me tell you, I regret it completely. I wonder almost every day if our one chance to conceive was during that year and we threw it away for the sake of what we perceived to be social responsibility.
After that year I got a job with benefits and we quit watching the calendar. This was in January 2008. I tried to relax and we prayed. We were pretty patient for a year, then I started getting a little concerned. At this point my insomnia had been going strong for seven months and I saw a doctor. She ordered bloodwork to check a myriad of things. The results showed nothing abnormal and cost us $800. I bought and read “Taking Charge of your Fertility” by Toni Weschler. We implemented the BBT method for the entire calendar year of 2009. I also bought and used Dr. Lee’s progesterone cream that year. It helped neither my insomnia, nor my painful periods, nor our infertility.
In January 2010 I quit my high-stress job I’d held for two years. I wondered if that would make a difference (but that wasn’t the reason I quit). It didn’t. In spring that year, my husband finished the classroom portion of his seminary studies and was assigned his internship in a tropical climate. We moved from the Midwest to the subtropics. I wondered if the sun, the gentler climate, and working part-time would open my womb – nope. In summer 2011 my husband was assigned his first church as a pastor, back in the Midwest, and this is where we are at.
I think that when we got the $800 doctor bill for the bloodwork I got done in January 2009, we decided that we weren’t going to pour any more money into tests or treatment for this. I don’t feel right putting money into testing that may or may not give answers. Even if answers were found, there’s no guarantee that the medical field can fix them. And we have moral issues with many of the ‘treatments’ for infertility, including IVF, IUI, and AI. Rather than even start down that road, we want to dedicate our time and our finances to being parents to a child that needs us. I have cousins who were adopted when I was a teenager, and that has always been on my heart. Adoption was the natural next step to parenthood for us.
To be continued in next post: “Adoption” is a very broad term in today’s world. The two types we are looking into are domestic infant adoption and international adoption.
2 comments:
I'm curious, you went through all the tests, but did your husband? It could be a low sperm count or something of that nature.
I only had the bloodwork done, no other testing. When it didn't reveal any problem areas, we decided that we didn't want to pour money and time into testing that may or not reveal any answers. We really have no desire to look into things medically when we could be focusing our finances and time on getting a child who needs parents as much as we need a child. I am not putting down anyone else who chooses otherwise, but this feels right for us and we are very much at peace with it. Thank you for visiting!
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