Mark 5:25-34 “And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ “

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

I think that maybe this woman, like me, had PCOS.  I have read this passage of scripture over and over, praying that God would heal me just as he healed her.  Those weeks (and months) when I think that the bleeding is never going to stop, I cry out to him and wonder why He allows me to have this awful problem the prevent me from having a baby when all that I have ever wanted was to be a mommy.

James 5:13-16 says “Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

I have prayed for healing.  I have been prayed over for healing.  I have been healed from other things…including a shattered wrist and hand that doctors said would require me to wear a brace for the rest of my life because it would never heal properly.  But God has not healed me of PCOS and has not allowed me to have a baby.

I have tried bargaining with God.  “Um God…if I promise to  _________ (fill in the blank), would you heal me?” And then “OK God, you don’t have to heal me, just let me have a baby.”  Sure I know that you can’t barter with God, but sometimes I can’t help but think if I prayed harder, more often, louder, or less selfishly perhaps I would get my heart’s cry.

Psalm 10:17 says “You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry.”

I John 5:14 “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

According to HIS will!  As my heart becomes more like His heart, I will know His will and pray accordingly.  Right now, all that I know is that I want to be healed.  I want to have a baby.  I will be honest and say that I don’t know why it wouldn’t be in God’s will for me to be healed and have a baby.  And I will be painfully honest and admit that I know that I do NOT know God’s will for my life.  And not only do I not know it, I don’t understand the things that He is currently doing!

Psalm 37:3-4 says “Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

So here is what I know.  I know that God CAN heal.  I know that God’s WILL will be done.  I know that God desires my heart to be focused on HIM.

No Other, by David Ruis

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Infertility is a really common thing.  One in seven couples experience it.  The blogs about it are numerous.  Many of them are a seemingly unending list of failed treatment attempts.  Many of them have an unhealthy obsession with getting pregnant.  But I can understand that.  When you want a baby more than anything else, that is all that you can focus on.  Thoughts of your infertility invade every aspect of your life.

I have wanted a baby for as long as I can remember.  I have been married for five years.  During these five years we have never used contraception.  But we have no baby.

I have PCOS and Endometriosis.  I have scar tissue on my organs from a botched appendectomy.  I have had numerous surgeries to help with the endo and the scar tissue.  Two years ago, I started taking metformin for the PCOS.  For the six months that I was on it, I never had a normal period and never ovulated.  What I did do was throw up 4-6 times a day.  My body did not like the metformin.  When I realized the havoc that the metformin was having in me, I stopped taking it.  I still don’t feel “back to normal”.  Since stopping the metformin, I have not been back to the OBGYN…not even for my annual you-know-whats.  I know. I know…that is a bad thing and I should go.  But I am broken and I don’t think that the doctor can fix me.  And I don’t want to jump through all the hoops (and expenses) of infertility treatments just to have them fail.  I have had other infertile women tell me that I just don’t want a baby as much as they do or I would do all the things that they are doing.

HOW DARE THEY?

How dare they say that because I am choosing to do what is right for me and my husband that I don’t want a baby bad enough?  How dare they say that because I refuse to blog about my mucus that I don’t truly understand what they are going through?  How dare they imply that because I refuse to spend $100,000 on FAILED fertility treatments that I am not as worthy as them to have a baby?

Maybe I am the responsible one here!  Maybe they are the ones who have chosen to let infertility defeat them.  Maybe I am the one who is choosing to not let infertility ruin my life.

Yes…I want a baby.  When I see a baby, all I can do is think about how wonderful it would be to hold my own baby in my arms.  My sleep is filled with dreams of babies.

I am not a mother right now.  But I am a wife.  A daughter.  A friend.  An employee.  Who I am doesn’t stop just because I’m not a mother.

My friends have babies and I rejoice for them.  I allow myself a moment to grieve for myself, but I don’t punish my friends for my infertility by avoiding them and their babies.  Nor do I punish myself by avoiding places like church or even shopping just because I will see babies and be reminded that I don’t have one.

Yes.  I want a baby.  But more than that I want to be a great wife to my husband and a woman who will make God proud.  Why should my husband and my relationship with God suffer because of something that I cannot even control?

I am not trying to seem harsh or calloused about this.  I really do understand the ache.  I have asked myself “Why not us?” more times than I can count.  But I refuse to put my life on hold for something that may not ever happen.  I will let myself mourn and I may have days when the pain is worse than others  But my infertility is not going to rule me.

I want a baby. I have wanted one for as long as I can remember. When I was two, I asked my mommy when I could have a “baby in my tummy”. She told me that when I grew up and married a man who loved Jesus, then I could have a baby.

Well, I am grown up and have married a man who loves Jesus, but I still don’t have a baby.

When I was eighteen, I started to have “girl problems” that resulted in me having to have numerous surgeries. After each surgery, the first thing that I asked the doctors was, “Can I have a baby?” And their answer was always, “I think so, but can’t guarantee anything.”

I had another surgery two years ago. I didn’t ask them that time. Not because I no longer want a baby, but because I feared the answer. When I met with the doctor a few weeks later, she started me on a vigorous regime of meds in the hope that I would conceive. I didn’t. But I did get violently ill from the meds every day for six months. I couldn’t take it anymore so I stopped taking the meds.

I still have no baby. I cry out to God daily asking for a child. But I remain childless.

Sometimes at my weakest, I wonder if maybe God won’t let me have a baby because I won’t be a good enough mom.

I get angry when I hear of children that are abused and babies that are aborted. My heart aches when my friends and family have babies. It is not that I don’t want them to have babies. It is because I can’t help but think, “Why not us?”