Hi ladies,
I wanted to post this originally in the IVF Support Group thread and stumbled upon this instead. Looks like the Holy Spirit must have prompted me to do so.
This is my story:
We tried for a baby for 5 years before we conceived our first girl naturally. After this, we experienced secondary infertility and just could not conceive no matter what we did. 5 years came and went and I was more barren than the Sahara Desert.
Finally, at the end of 2009, we decided to try for IVF because age was not on my side. This was a very very difficult decision because I was struggling spiritually to find that inner peace and assurance to go for this UN-natural procedure. Isn't God supposed to be the creator of life? Am I not replacing Him with one of the doctors? I struggled internally and had to deal with many emotional dilemmas raging within me. In the end, my desire for another child over-ruled all my other nagging thoughts.
During that time (in Dec 2009), my family had gone to Japan for a holiday. When we returned to Singapore, I realised that I had missed my period and God had answered my prayers! I was finally pregnant! I remember buying so many test kits to get myself tested just to make sure I didn't jump to wrong conclusions. Prior to this, a church leader had made a prophesy that I would have a child in 2010 so imagine my unspeakable joy when I found out that I was indeed pregnant in Dec 2009. During this second pregnancy, I was plagued by flu. Nevertheless, I clung onto the vision that I would have this child. The same church elder also claimed a few weeks later that God told him that I would bear a son. Unfortunately, the baby lost her heartbeat during the 8th week. One week, we saw her little heart pumping away on the screen and the next, it lay in my womb lifelessly. I had to undergo a D & C to remove the baby. Though it was a short 8 weeks nurturing the little life in me, I had already formed a special bond with her. I cried buckets before the procedure and this surprised many of the nurses who kept telling me that this was common. That was not what I wanted to hear. What happened to the prophesy? Wasn't this baby meant to be? I didn't understand it? For 5 long years, I tried so hard to have another baby. I greeted every period with tears that I could only shed privately. Those friends whose children were my daughter's age had already gone on to their number 2s and here I was, pregnant one moment and filled with emptiness and bitterness the next. Notice that I mentioned that it was a baby girl and not a boy which was in the prophesy. Yes, I sent the fetus for testing and found out that it had chromosomal defects and so NATURE had spontaneously aborted the life. To me, this was a terribly cruel joke and not at all a natural occurence!
I sank into a terrible pit of depression for such a long time that my cell group members could do nothing to lift up my spirits. What really slowed down my recovery process was the very fact that someone had prayed and prophesied that I would hold a baby boy in my arms in 2010. It was very very difficult for me to reconcile with the fact that it was a prophesy that didn't come into fruition. Finally, I decided to go for IVF last year after my miscarriage.
My 1st cycle in July 2010 was an outright failure. I didn't even have to complete the 2WW for only 8 days after my transfer of 2 embryos, my period came. I cried so hard that I went to work with puffy eyes the next day. Of course, nobody knew that I had undergone the IVF procedure. I was too ashamed to share this with anyone.
Not wanting to give up, I went for the frozen embryo transfer in Oct. I didn't harbour too much hope for fear that this would be another failed cycle. I was hoping that the defrosted embryos would make it to Day 5 before the transfer but on Day 3, I was hauled to the doctor's office and the transfer was done.
Thank God that this frozen cycle was a complete success. I conceived last Oct and just delivered a healthy baby girl in June this year. She is a beautiful gift and I am so thankful that she is a girl because the last one that I lost was also a girl. I had prayed specifically for this baby to be a girl so that I could have some kind of a closure to the bad episode last year.
Yes, this sounds like a happy story with a wonderful ending but I have been wondering about the 13 frozen embryos in storage. I know at some point, I would have to discard them. Can't possibly implant all these in me. Moreover, at my age, (I'm approaching 40), I don't think I want to try for another child. This means that I would have to destroy all those innocent embryos.
I didn't think this would be such a huge issue until now because every time I look at my baby girl, I tell myself that she came from a frozen embryo. All my other embies could have been my the children that I never knew I would have. What would God say about this? Is this right?
Please tell me that I am not the only one struggling with these thoughts? I did wonder if I should go for another frozen cycle and try for number 3 so as not to waste the embryos but this doesn't seem like a logical practice because ultimately, I cannot afford to transfer all 13 of them.
Am I robbing the embies of their chance to be planted in my womb? Is this, crudely speaking, committing murder?
In moments like these, I wonder why God would put me through such trials and tribulations but I am truly thankful that I have got 2 wonderful children when medically it is impossible for us to conceive naturally because my dh has one of the worst sperm count/quality etc around.
Sorry for the ultra long post but thanks for listening. Hope to hear from the Christian sisters here. Nobody knows about this..not even my cell group members so you can imagine the lonely journey that I have been travelling these last six years...
Thanks so much and God bless...