When you’re going through infertility, you wonder why things aren’t working out. Why aren’t you able to have a baby? It’s especially upsetting when you try fertility treatments, and you KNOW for sure that the components are perfectly lined up. (For example, the hormones are in a healthy range, the timing is perfect, the sperm and egg have an opportunity to meet in an IUI or the embryo has already been formed through IVF.) Sadly, too often, for a woman experiencing infertility, she tries many things and she’s STILL not pregnant. And it’s heartbreaking when a woman finds out she’s pregnant, only to learn days or weeks later that she has miscarried.

What I’ve Learned

One thing I’ve come to strongly believe is that God has divine timing. We may not fully understand it here on earth. We might wish it were different. But God sees the past, present, and future. He knows the calling that He intends for our children. God knows the history-making events that will affect their lives. Also, He knows the people they will interact with, the friends they’ll make, the person they’ll marry. He knows the timing for our grandchildren to be born!

When I wrote Embracing Hope During Infertility, I interviewed a friend experiencing secondary infertility. (She has birthed 2 babies since then!) She shared with me something that our pastor mentioned in a sermon.

One Sunday morning, he preached about the passage in Esther 4:14 where Esther’s uncle  Mordecai says to her, “You were born for such a time as this.” This pastor explained that God had specific purposes for the times his own children were born – that the Lord had already prepared in advance the people they would meet, the world events they would be part of, and the specific moments in which God intended to use them. My friend said that she left the service that day realizing that it wasn’t just about getting pregnant, it was about what God had planned for her future children.

I see this in my own life. I trust God even when my children are joining us much later than we ever anticipated. This is evident in the lives of others whose babies have come after long delays. We trust that God has a reason, He has a plan, and He has a purpose for each person.

What to Do

Sometimes during infertility, we need to take more action, such as pursuing fertility treatments. Sometimes, for reasons I do not understand, people who want children never become parents. Couples who seem cut out to be Mom and Dad or women with mothering hearts sometimes never have children. It breaks my heart, and I don’t have the answers, but together with these friends, I trust God. For some of us – many people that I can think of – the babies have simply come much later than planned. Many people experiencing infertility, even several of us who have written publicly about it (authors Sara Hagerty and Natasha Metzler come to mind as examples, along with my own story), simply get pregnant after years of nothing. Only God knows why.

If you’re in the middle of a delay right now, and you want to be a parent but it isn’t happening, I encourage you to first of all PRAY. Seek God’s direction for your family. If you need to address a medical issue, do so. Or if you believe God is prompting you to seek medical intervention, go for it. (We did this for a while.) Perhaps you sense God telling you to wait, then wait. Remember that He knows the exact time for each and every person to be born, and He has plans for each of us. Let’s trust Him together.

If you’d like me to pray for you, leave a comment or send me a message through social media, or an email through betsyhermanauthor at gmail.com.

Thanks for reading! I’m Betsy Herman, writing to you from sunny Hawaii.

I invite you to read more of our story in my first book, When Infertility Books Are Not Enough: Embracing Hope During Infertility.

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