Our journey to become parents has been 10+ years long and has included adoption, infertility, and IVF. All three of our kids are miracles + sweet gifts from a good good Father. Six months after we brought Camp and Asher home from Ethiopia, we started our IVF process. That was August of 2013 and sadly after too many failed treatments, we decided our hearts (and my body) needed a break.
Our break ended up lasting about two years, and our IVF journey re-started after we moved to Bryan, Texas in 2015. My younger sister was actually the one who recommended a new reproductive endocrinologist in her town, Dallas. I remember exactly what room of our home I was pacing in when I called Dr. Marynick’s office for the first time. If you’ve walked through infertility, then you know.
Starting over with a new doctor takes a lot of energy, trust, resiliency, and guts…but our hearts had never stopped longing for a biological baby.
All my babies are MY babies, adopted or biological doesn’t matter to us. However, my desire to carry life and bring forth life from my womb had never left me. It’s easy to feel shame for that because a lot of my adoptive mama friends didn’t have that desire anymore. But I did! The Lord had put it on my heart in 2009 and I knew that He was faithful.
We said YES to starting over with Dr. Marynick, and soon we found ourselves in his office in downtown Dallas (about 200 miles from home). We absolutely loved his approach to fertility, he’s not an OB and he’s not a surgeon so his first move isn’t surgery (which was not the case with our first clinic). He took the whole hour and a half of our first visit to simply get to know us and our story. We didn’t even look at my chart!
His caring demeanor felt so peaceful to us. We started doing blood work and tests and making sure my body was ready and able to carry life. Crazy enough, we actually FedExed our remaining 3 embryos from our clinic in Austin to Dr. Marynick’s office in Dallas. Talk about holding your breath all day.
Almost one year to the day that we started working with Dr. Maynick, our miracle girl Rivers Glory was born. We transferred two of our remaining embryos and had 1 precious girl.
Fast forward to late fall of 2019, we called up Dr. Marynicks office and decided to do the process all over again. We had ONE more frozen embryo left. After months of blood work, tests, needles, medication, we transferred that last embryo on MLK day, January 20, 2020.
Words honestly fail me to describe how I felt during bed rest and my 2-week wait. However, my faith has grown so much during our infertility journey, that I knew it was totally out of my control. All we could do was wait, hope, and trust.
As it got closer to blood work day, I was so much more nervous than I remember being with Rivers. I had fully convinced myself that it was going to work, and we were going to be pregnant, and then the doubt came in. Isn’t the enemy so tricky like that!
After a fun, yet suspenseful family day adventuring in Dallas (and one million checks of my phone), our precious nurses called and on speakerphone, they shouted in unison - “YOU’RE PREGNANT”!!!!!!!
The happy tears ensued, and calls to our family began. We absolutely cannot wait to welcome baby number four into our lives and home this October. God is so good to give us “immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine.” The story is continuing to be written…
God is able to do abundantly more than all we could ask or imagine.
The Story of Our Miracles
Infertility
Rivers Glory Elder
“Behold I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” Isaiah 43:19
Rivers Glory is a miracle, and a gift we had been patiently waiting for for 7 long years. The faith that was built while waiting for her was Gods “river in the desert”. We clung so tightly to the promises in Isaiah 43 and loved the imagery of RIVERS in the desert. We didn’t tell anyone about her middle name, Glory, until the day she was born but after the experiecenced we had in the delivery room - we just knew. The Glory of God has been displayed in her story, and we pray it continues to be displayed in her life.
POSTS WRITTEN DURING my infertility journey
Informationl & Encouragement
-There's Always Hope
-Currency of Heaven
-My Heart on Paper
-The Ugly Cry
-Loss and Miscarriage
-Missing Out
-The Weight of Waiting
-Shame in Infertility
to help you in your own journey to fertility
-I'm One in Ten
-Endometriosis
-How Do I Find My People
-Not Forgotten
-Megan Smalley
-Waiting in Hope Infertility
Resources
The work God does in us while we wait is just as important as what we're waiting for.
Our Story
The road to bringing our sweet Rivers Glory into the world wasn't easy but we are beyond thankful for how it all turned out.
Friend, first off I just wish that I could reach through the screen and give you a hug. If I could sit with you over coffee, I would look straight in your eyes and tell you I was so sorry for what you are going through. I first want you to know that I’ve been there, and in this current season I am back here again. Infertility is a club that none of us asked to be a part of, but yet here we are. We are in this together. I know the deep hope and longing you have to carry life, and I want you to know if you are in a season of waiting - YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Even if you have other children (through birth or adoption), it is OK to continue to long for a baby. I know for me, God put this desire in my heart and He has not forgotten. My journey the past decade with infertility has grown my faith in ways that nothing else has. I know in the middle of the wait, it’s so hard to see GOOD that can come from our pain and longing, but I know that God is good and He is faithful.
His word says, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you….fear not for I am with you”. Isaiah 43:2-5
I pray that you allow yourself to have hope, and you are able to claim and believe in the promises of God. He doesn’t promise us a baby, but he promises us that He will be with us and never leave us. Lean into Him, let Him comfort you. I pray you let people into your journey, whether that’s just a few people or the whole circle of friends + family God has given you. None of us were meant to walk through trials alone, so pray about who you can be real with and then let those people know what you need and how they can walk alongside of you. Especially if you don’t have friends who have walked this road, they don’t know how to best love you unless you tell them. It’s also completely ok to say , “I don’t know how you can walk alongside me during this, but I need you to be there with me”.
Above all of that, I pray you are able to always have HOPE. “and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5
Be encouraged, sweet friend. God sees you, He loves you and He has not forgotten you.
Wynne
dear sister
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