The following story comes from a dear friend of mine.  It is a two part-story, where she shares how her faith brought her through a difficult time.  Be inspired!

That Triplet Mom, the lady with the triplets, that busy mommy‘¦those are the names people give me, but that doesn’t bother me.  I am not a mom who fears I have “lost my identity” after becoming a stay-at-home mom.  I craved those names. I have always wanted children.  When I got married, we thought it would be just a couple of years until we would start our family.  I married my husband 14 years ago; however it took almost 6 years for me to become a mom.

It never occurred to me that I might not be a mom.  That was always just the plan: get married, have kids. When I imagined being a mom, for some reason I always felt like I would have twins. I can’t explain why, but I just saw myself with twins.  One thing that never occurred to me was that I wouldn’t have children at all.

Once my sweet husband and I had been married a couple of years, and I had completed graduate school and started working a bit, we decided it was time to have kids.  So we started trying, knowing that it could take us a few months to conceive.  According to our timetable, I would get an extra year or so of work under my belt, before I began to stay at home with our children.   Lucky us!  We got an extra three years of me working.  Hah, that was our first indication that we were not the ones making the plans!

Each month, I eagerly anticipated the day that I could take “the test”.  I have never been the most patient person.  I would take the test on the earliest day possible.  Month after month it was the same result: not pregnant.  I began to get really discouraged; I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t happening for us.  I would mentally go through all the reasons why it should…we were happily married; we loved the Lord; we both had jobs and a stable income; we loved children… What was missing? Why couldn’t we conceive?  Why could a sixteen-year-old high schooler get pregnant by accident but I, a late twenty-something married lady, couldn’t get pregnant on purpose? Why?

My sweet husband just kept telling me, “Relax, it will happen.  These things take time.” But I knew he was starting to get frustrated as well.  Finally after over a year of trying to have children with no success, I went to see my doctor. He suggested I have surgery to take care of my endometriosis.  I had the endometriosis surgery and a few more procedures that followed, but months later, we were still not pregnant.

We finally decided it was time to seek the help of a fertility specialist. We met with a wonderful doctor, and decided to start with a procedure called IUI.   IUI is intrauterine insemination, which is also known as artificial insemination.  This is an in-office procedure, whereby sperm is placed directly into a woman’s uterus to aid in conception (justmommies.com).  I had this procedure and we were very excited about the possible success.  Sadly, the IUI did not work.  I was “not pregnant” once again.   We met with our doctor and he recommended IVF, In-Vitro-Fertilization, which involves combining eggs and sperm outside the body in a laboratory. Once an embryo or embryos form, they are then placed in the uterus (WebMD.com).

Fertility treatments are very expensive and we were so blessed that I was working for a company that completely covered all of my procedures.  This allowed us to be free of financial strain though we were still under stress from the treatments.  So many couples are faced with both, and it makes the process that much more difficult.  At this time, I started going to an infertility support group.  It was very helpful to have women who understood my plight, but also very scary to hear the other women’s stories of failed attempts at various fertility treatments.  I tried not to get discouraged.  During the entire process, I felt frustrated and often sad, many times I asked God, “Why me, why can’t I have a child? What could possibly be the reason?” I just really didn’t understand.

I have to share with you that during the time when we were trying so desperately to have children, many of my friends were having babies of their own.  I have always been told I have the gift of hospitality and so, you guessed it!  When my friends were having babies, I was the one hosting and planning their baby showers.  It was really tough to pull up my big girl panties and put on a happy face, but I knew that I could just not be that person, you know, the bitter girl in the corner.  However, if my true feelings during that time were known, I probably was that bitter girl on the inside.  I remember once, after a baby shower at my house, I was cleaning up and chatting with the mom-to-be.  She thanked me for the shower.   But before she left, she asked me if it was hard for me to give a baby shower when I was struggling to have children of my own?  She was not trying to hurt my feelings, she was just concerned.  I remember that night crying to my husband, “Is this really how it is going to be? Will we really not ever have any children?” I spent many hours on my knees, in prayer, during that time.

We started the injections to prepare for IVF  and I turned into a very crazy person at that time.  God bless my sweet husband, I’m certain that I was driving him crazy too!  We had the retrieval procedure on the day before Thanksgiving and the transfer three days later.  When our embryos were transferred, our doctor was concerned that they were not of “good quality”.  Because of this, he recommended that we have three embryos transferred.  The doctor thought we would have been lucky if just one of them implanted.

Two weeks later I had the blood test to confirm my pregnancy in my doctor’s office.  Patience-challenged me, I had already taken 12 home pregnancy tests with positive results.  But it wasn’t until the doctor confirmed the pregnancy, that I could believe it was true! We were ecstatic! The most exciting part was our doctor told us that he had a feeling there were twins given our extremely high blood values of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). This hormone is produced by the placenta shortly after the embryo attaches to the uterine lining and builds up rapidly in your body in the first few days of pregnancy (americanpregnancy.org).

The day before Christmas Eve, we had our ultrasound. As our doctor was looking at our baby on the screen, he informed us we were having, not one, but two babies.  It was twins! We were ecstatic.  A few minutes later, his nurse asked him to look again.  To the surprise of us all, I was carrying TRIPLETS!  That was the best Christmas present we could have ever received!  We were thrilled!  We couldn’t wait to tell our families!  We were so thankful.  Somehow, I had always believed I was meant to be a “mother of multiples”, and I was thrilled that it was three.  The Lord had answered my prayers  above and beyond what I had asked.  I am three times blessed!  While we were going through our time of infertility, I couldn’t understand why could not have a child.  But during my prayers, I claimed Jeremiah 29:11.  I had to trust in God’s plan.  I just didn’t realize what an amazing plan it was!

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

After all of our struggles, we thought we were in the clear, but that was when my pregnancy got a little tricky.  More on that next week…

3xBlessed