Infertility and Waiting: This Man's Perspective

For those who don't know me, my family, our lives, our situations, our disappointments, I'll sum the majority of it up in two words - "infertility" and "wait". Each word can be individually devastating for some and earth shattering for others. It's an earthly journey that no one would dare desire. It's misunderstood - even in "church" circles. It's numbing and debilitating in it's very nature. There's a root hopelessness - a vivid picture of the limitations in self-reliance. As with death itself, I don't know how people without the hope found in Christ cope and exist in the darkness of infertility.

While my personal struggles in this journey may not be as emotional or forefront as that of a wife who desperately awaits the joy of motherhood - the disappointment and anger is still there...just buried a little deeper. It either takes more time to work itself to the surface or it grows bitter roots deep and strong.

See I'm a problem management professional. While that might not be my professional title, it is exactly what I have hung my career cap on for over a decade now. Ability to analyze and discover roots of issues and deficiencies and then champion the effort to correct and improve to a more desirable situation -- that's been my career in a nut-shell and God has richly blessed me in it. As for infertility - no fixin' infertility. No project to tackle the issues. Sure there are options and percentages and opinions that can be pursued, but nothing that offers any reasonable "guarantees" for a successful resolution.

After sometime in this dark cold valley, God perfected His working in our lives (okay mostly mine, Jennifer was way ahead of me on the spiritual maturity meter).  A little light began to break through the darkness while a little warmth tackled the cold. God was revealing His plan in us that we would adopt, all the while revealing more clearly to me how that is EXACTLY what He did for me (Romans 5, Romans 8, Ephesians 1 and 2).

I'm so thankful that He did for me just as he did for the disciples when - as Luke 24:45 - states "He opened their minds, so they could understand".  So I began to understand there was a purpose for the infertility...

• a closer/clearer picture of Christ's amazing love and grace toward me
• the magnificence of God as a Father and his majesty as a King
• a deeper appreciation for Him
• a firm recognition of the great need to involve myself in the lives of orphans

Jennifer and I are convinced adoption is a calling God has placed on our lives, not just the option or alternative to our situation.  Adoption is the road we are to travel, it is in no way a detour.  Adoption it is.

After careful and prayerful consideration of the options for us, we decided on domestic adoption and chose our agency.  Based on our openness concerning the child, we were prepared for a wait of 12-18 months, but in my mind I was convinced it would be sooner than that...it had to be, right?  What kind of success story would this be anyway if after years of infertility and coming to the realization that adoption was our calling, we would have to wait as long as the "typical situation"?

As of this post, the calendar has flipped twice and months keep counting and the journey keeps going.  Remember that second word..."Wait".  We wait.  Waiting isn't fun, it doesn't flatter us, it's painful, it's frustrating.  We wait.  Today's culture doesn't prepare us for this concept of waiting.  Who waits for anything anymore?  We wait.  Waiting can often be a great deceiver, you often think you see an end in sight.  We wait.  Friends in their most sincere love for us try to offer encouragement, try to lift our spirits wearied from the waiting.  We wait.  No answers, no time-line, no realizable expectations.  Oh, we're not hopeless - just waiting.

In His grace he has allowed for the renewing of our minds - to think new thoughts about an old thing.  And so we have come to love the truth found in Romans 8.

"But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  Likewise the Spirit

helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but

the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."
-- Romans 8:25-26

waiting for it with patience,

jdj