Our Journey

After meeting and dating in high school, Josh and I were married on December 14th, 1996 while we were juniors in college. We almost immediately decided to try to start a family in March of ‘97. While I was interning as a teacher in October of ‘97 we found out that I was pregnant. However, we suffered a miscarriage at 10 weeks. We began trying again as soon as we possibly could. Two years later we began to look for a reason why we were still not parents. The summer of ’99 we found out that I had a tumor, the size of a pea, on my pituitary gland, the one that controls hormones. We immediately began treatment for the tumor, but still we had no success in becoming pregnant. Without going into too much detail, we found out that I had to have a surgery. The surgery was successful, but still did not lead to a pregnancy. During prayer in the spring of 2000 I felt like God had told me “August”, I wasn’t really sure what that meant or that was even really God speaking to me, but “August” kept coming up over and over again in my prayers. Josh had felt that God had told him that we would have kids, but still we weren’t seeing any results. This whole time we were praying and believing that God would provide us a child. Pastor Mark had asked us to serve as interim children’s pastors, a role that we filled for 7 months. After that we served in the youth department as sponsors. We were serving the church and continually praying. From late in 2001 to the summer of 2002 we tried many assisted cycles, that are less invasive than In Vitro Fertilization. The medical bills were beginning to put a strain on our finances. Our state provided insurance for teachers did not cover any of our expenses. By September of that year we decided to take on a second mortgage to pay for IVF. The first attempt was positive, but for a second time we lost our baby. We tried a frozen cycle and were unsuccessful in that attempt as well. We were out of money and options. All told we spent around $38,00, all out of pocket. We were forced to quit trying. With every August that passed I became more devastated, and questioned God’s voice. After we were out of money Josh was sure that God had lied to him, and that we weren’t going to have children. In January of ‘05, I found INCIID, a foundation that gives grants for IVF to people who have tried and failed, and do not have access to insurance that covers fertility treatments. We filled out an application and didn’t hear back so we assumed that we were not awarded a grant. Along the way Josh and I had restored our faith in God, but things weren’t the same. We didn’t feel like we could serve in the church because our faith had been wounded so much, but began being faithful again and asking our church family to pray with us for a miracle. I had also found out that certain Arkansas teacher insurance will pay for one cycle of IVF. We had both been teaching in Glenpool, our home town, for over five years. Josh was the head basketball coach his mother lived about 200 yards from my classroom. My mother and I taught across the hall from each other. The decision to move was extremely hard. Josh had his dream job and I taught with my mom. We decided our only option to continue treatment would be to move. We moved in July of ‘05 and within a week got a call from INCIID, saying that we had been awarded a grant. We accepted the grant and never got the insurance we had moved a hundreds miles to get. At this point Josh really felt God telling him that we were going to have twins. We were paired with a clinic in Las Vegas with Dr. Fisch who was, and still is, a leader in the field of fertility research. In March of ‘06 we flew to Las Vegas and went through another IVF cycle and got pregnant again. There was one little heart beat. We were confused because it wasn’t twins, and wasn‘t in August, but at this point we were more than thrilled with the baby. Unfortunately, we lost our little girl at 8 weeks. We were devastated, but determined. Dr. Fisch called us and told us that he would like to include us in a different study and that most of the expenses would be taken care of. In the end they provided us with about $28,000 in medical expenses.
August 4th we had another embryo transfer. August 13th we found out that we were pregnant. This time the numbers in the pregnancy tests were really high, indicating multiples. The first ultrasound showed three sacs, triplets! By the next ultrasound there were only two. We had lost another baby, but still had our twins. God delivered Emily Lynn and Abigail Grace to us on March 26th, 2007, exactly ten years after we had began trying and in the exact way He had been telling us He would. Praise God for His miracles and loving us despite our shortcomings.