King Solomon wasn’t credited with wisdom for nothing. He was known as the wisest man to ever live, and it was with his God-gifted wisdom that he penned these famous words:
“For everything there is a season . . . a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
Paige and I have known well the time to weep and mourn. Over the last 3 years, we’ve done our fair share of crying. We’ve cried until empty of tears; screamed until short of breath; cursed until lost for words. If it was just a season, as King Solomon suggested, it was a long one.
A few weeks ago, though, Paige and I had the distinct pleasure of announcing a sweet new addition to the McMichen family. It seems, by God’s good grace, that we’ve finally entered a new season. We’ve traded our weeping for laughing, our mourning for dancing.
And for that we rejoice.
But one thing we didn’t want to do was just move on and pretend like our season of suffering never happened. For those unfamiliar with our story, we want to share it so that you know the immense struggle we had to get to this point. Because, as you likely know, looks can be deceiving – especially in a day and age where social media gives people a platform to show the world what their lives look like by using only the highlight reel. It’s too easy to pretend that everything’s okay; to pretend we’re just as normal – if not better – than everyone else. Well, Paige and I didn’t want to do that. We want you to know that this precious child didn’t come easy.
For those of you already familiar with our story – from those who have known very little and have only watched from a distance, to those who have known much and have often held our hand as we tried to navigate the dark journey of infertility – we wanted to recount some of what you already know, but more than that, we wanted to illuminate a lot of the dark things you likely didn’t know. You’ve known well our pain and heartbreak. But, did you know that the pain was so extreme at times and our hearts so broken that we nearly walked away from God? Did you know how angry we were? How lost we seemed? How hopeless we felt? It’s this aspect of our story that we want to share with you.
Why We’ve Written this Post
Before I get too far, though, let me start by saying a little about why we want to share our story. Why in the world would we share these depressing memories? We’re supposed to be rejoicing right now, after all – so why the sob story?
One thing’s for sure, we don’t share this to elicit your sympathy; this isn’t a woe-is-me! post to get everyone to come pat us on the back and tell us how much they love us and how strong we must be to have gone through this. This isn’t a post to show everyone how raw and authentic we are, either. Yes, we want to be open and honest about how difficult infertility has been, and yes, we want to admit that our faith in God was tested like never before and nearly lost; but we share none of this for the simple purpose of garnering attention or “being real.”
Instead, we share our story because we love God and we love you. We share it because we want to point you to the surpassing beauty and goodness of God, even amidst much pain and sorrow. We want you to know how dark, how scary, and how painful our season of suffering was – we want you to know how extreme was our weeping and mourning – so that you can join us all the more as we now laugh and dance; so that, together, our joy may be full. Lastly, we share our story because we want to offer ourselves as a resource and hopeful encouragement to other couples facing challenges with infertility. We know well the hurt and the sorrow infertility brings. We’re all too familiar with the crisis of faith such suffering can cause. Let us weep with you in your pain; let us wrestle with you in your doubt; and finally, let us encourage you that no matter what your broken hearts tell you about the goodness and love of God, He is ultimately so incredibly good and His love for you is beyond comprehension.
With all of that said, let me first start by briefly recounting some of the specifics regarding our journey, and I’ll finish by sharing what the Lord has taught us along the way.
Our Story
While I think the first year of marriage was harder for us than it is for most newlyweds, the first two years overall were relatively good. Life was sweet. Truth be told, Paige and I actually wanted those first couple of years to be without children; like most young couples, we thought the timeline really was up to us. We could take as long as we wanted getting to know one another and building up our savings. And so that’s what we did.
But after two short years, we decided it was time to take the next step and expand our family. If you’ve made that decision yourself, you know how exciting it can be. Parenthood – the incomparable gift from God of coming together with your spouse and creating a little human that shares in your likeness and depends on you for sustenance – while frightening, is an inherently good, noble, and beautiful thing, entirely worthy of our desire; and so desire it, we did. Unlike most men, I didn’t need much time to come around to the idea of being a father; I had looked forward to that day for many years. As for Paige, I can readily attest that God created her to be a mother; she practically dreamed of motherhood from the day she exited her own mother’s womb – as a matter of fact, if the dolls of her youth could speak, I’m sure they’d eagerly tell of her gentle, loving touch and her nurturing spirit. They’d be sick with envy that some incredibly lucky child will one day experience her motherhood in all its real, life-giving glory.
To say the least, we were both thrilled to finally enter this new chapter of life.
I don’t think we would’ve been so eager, though, had we known what chapter of life we were actually entering. We thought we were trading sweetness for more sweetness; a quiet, peaceful joy for a loud, screaming bundle of joy. But instead, we were trading sweet for bitter; joy for sorrow.
The first few months of single-lined pregnancy tests didn’t bother us too much. While it certainly frustrated our patience, it didn’t carry the same gravitas as later negative months. About 10 or so months in, though, we started to worry. We’d gone that entire time with no sign whatsoever that things were working as they should, so we decided to see a doctor. After a handful of tests, the doctor found no issues and cast us despairingly into the “unexplained infertility” bucket. But that was the last thing we wanted to hear; tell us you figured out why we’ve been unsuccessful, give us the fix, and let’s get this show on the road – that’s what we’d hoped for, anyway. Unexplained infertility, on the other hand, while it meant there was nothing “wrong” with our fertility, also meant there was nothing an ordinary doctor could do to help.
And so with that, we booked an appointment to see a fertility specialist. After sitting across the desk from this specialist and being told point-blank that we would get pregnant, our hopes were re-inflated and higher than ever, but we would ultimately walk away from that practice after nearly 2 years of failed treatment. I could write a whole post with all the details of that period (4 or 5 rounds of IUI, and a full round of IVF that included 4 separate transfers of 9 embryos), but for the sake of brevity, I’ll refrain. None of it worked. All the horrible mood-altering pills that Paige had to take, the constant sketching out at work with minimal explanation to our bosses and coworkers, and the countless needles that Paige had to endure (many from my own hand) . . . all of it in vain, except for the one month when Paige did get pregnant, but I’ll come back to that in a minute.
First, I want to take a moment and tell you what those 21 months were like for Paige and me from an emotional and spiritual standpoint. It’s easy to gloss over the above paragraph and think nothing of it, but those 21 months were the worst months of our lives. I don’t say that as a figure of speech, either. We have literally never experienced anything like it. As I sit here and think about how best to describe that period of our lives, I’m struck with the near impossibility of really capturing our pain with words. No words can do infertility justice. Suffice it to say that infertility is a very real, very painful trial, capable of catapulting even the happiest of people into a flurry of recurring depression. But unlike most forms of suffering, which hits with devastating force at one point and then slowly recedes into healing over time, infertility’s pain is prolonged and constant; it’s an ongoing, month-after-month trial that pushes and pulls its victims up and down a seemingly never-ending roller coaster of emotions. Hope, anxiety, despair. Hope, anxiety, despair. This is the life cycle of emotions during infertility, as you experience the renewed hope for pregnancy at the beginning of each month, anxiety as the verdict approaches, and despair when the devastating news hits you. Hope, anxiety, despair . . . repeat.
And those feelings are magnified during the months where you attempt a more advanced form of treatment. We had renewed hope during the first couple of months of seeing the specialist, as he prescribed simple medication that would make Paige’s ovulation certain, and he told us specifically when to . . . well, you know . . . and so we attempted things that way to start. We wanted to get our toes wet with the whole fertility treatment thing, and this approach was the most basic, least aggressive way to start out. But even then, our hopes were a bit inflated beyond prior months because we were seeing a specialist and trying something new. But with inflated hopes came inflated anxiety, quickly followed by inflated pain and heartbreak when the stick again demonstrated only one pink line. And so we got more aggressive and took a step further into the fertility treatment pool by trying our hand at IUI. We did 4 or 5 months of this with similar results, but again, amplified all the more. Surely this would work, we thought. But no, once again we were heartbroken at each month’s end when the pregnancy tests told us the same familiar story.
And so, finally we dove headfirst into fertility treatment when we moved on to what, in my mind, was the most advanced treatment we would attempt, IVF; our hopes had never been higher. Surely this would work. Given our age and the fact that our infertility was simply “unexplained,” there was no doubt in my mind that IVF would be successful for us. It had to be. It just had to be. But it wasn’t. Not that first transfer, anyway. We yet again found ourselves heartbroken at month’s end with another failed attempt, and this one hurt more than ever.
Infertility’s Impact on Our Faith
I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but somewhere in those months, the lights started to dim with our faith in God. I say ‘dim,’ because it felt slow and subtle. Every month, we got our hopes up and prayed, prayed, prayed for positive results, but with every negative result came tear after tear, as if each time we cried, our bucket of faith drained a little. Until one day, after months and months, and then years and years of crying, it seemed our tears had dried out and so too our faith.
Of course, this didn’t happen along the exact same timeline for Paige and me. God grants each of us varying degrees of faith, as well as differing personalities, such that no one person responds to suffering in the same manner. Not only did we have varying degrees of faith and differing personalities, but infertility’s impact was different for each of us as well. Yes, I wanted to be a father – more than I can put into words – but my desires for fatherhood paled in comparison to Paige’s longing for motherhood. I think the women reading this post will understand this more than the men, but there’s something in most women – deep, deep in the core of their being – that yearns for motherhood; it’s wrapped up in their identity and even plays a part, I think, in the definition of who they are. God did create women, after all, with this unique role of carrying the child for 9 months and giving birth to it; men can’t do that. And so, I believe that some women – not all – were created to bear and raise children, and their desire to do so is unlike anything men can even come close to comprehending.
So infertility was more potent to Paige; it drained her bucket a little quicker than mine. As Paige’s husband and spiritual leader, though, I felt the need to be her rock. While both of our faith in God was dwindling, hers was more rapid, and so I did my best to plug the leak. But as the hole in my own bucket grew wider, my ability, as well as my resolve, waned. Before we knew it, our confusion with God turned into anger, our questioning to accusing, our hoping to doubting. For a Christian who always prided himself on trusting God’s sovereignty and goodness – for one who held fast to Romans 8:28 – that’s a terrifying place to be.
I can still remember the day when I felt like the lights of my faith had gone out completely. I know now that an ember remained, but it certainly felt at the time like my faith was gone for good. As I mentioned earlier, 21 months of intrusive doctor visits, painful needles, and a roller coaster of emotions had been in vain, except for one month.
It was after our second IVF transfer, and we were anxiously waiting for the results, which we would receive the following day. As we sat around the house that night, trying in vain to get our minds off what we thought would inevitably be bad news, my phone rang. It was my sister.
“Matt . . . buddy . . . are you sitting down?”
I answered yes, but I knew what she was going to say before she continued on. I could hear it in her voice.
“Dad’s dead.”
My heart crumbled within me, as a pain I had never known enveloped me. To this day, I can’t think for long about that phone call – those words – dad’s dead – I write them through tears, as they awaken a sorrow and hurt that’s still buried deep in my heart.
Paige spent that night consoling and comforting me, and I can’t thank God enough that He gave me such an amazing woman to be my wife in that moment. For two straight years, I had tried to be a rock for her. I had tried to console and comfort her. But that night, on the eve of a day in which we were sure to receive more bad news that yet again we didn’t conceive, the roles reversed. She was my rock, and she spent that whole night in its entirety simply holding me. Crying with me. Talk about love pure and simple. Talk about grace. Praise God.
The next morning, I awoke to the sound of Paige stirring in the bathroom, and I knew she had decided to self-test prior to the doctor’s call that afternoon. As I lay there, remembering last night’s bad news, I accepted the inevitability of more bad news to follow. The test would be negative. It always was, and today would certainly be no different.
I rolled over in bed to set my eyes on the bathroom door and wait for Paige to exit. A few moments later, the door swung open, and there before me was that same old monthly expression. A face pale and blank, teetering on the edge of tears and rage, but instead settling for nothingness. Seeing my searching eyes, she confirmed my expectation. Negative. Had my heart been able to sink any lower, to break into any more pieces, it would’ve. But as it was, I was already in too much pain, numb to bad news, so I rolled back over and attempted sleep.
Of course, sleep evaded me. There was far too much to be done in the way of planning my father’s funeral and organizing a trip back to Alabama. So I got up, walked into the bathroom to prepare for the morning, and my eyes caught notice of the pregnancy test on the counter top. Despite telling myself to abstain, I stole a glance at that wretched, bad news-bearing device, and my heart nearly leapt out of my chest. Surely my eyes were deceiving me. Lying there before me was a test which bore not one, but two lines – the second line faint and easily miss-able, but present no less. I called for Paige and she joined me in the bathroom, and for two whole minutes we stood there, peering questionably over that stick, watching the second line materialize into a more prominent shape.
Paige, fearing the test was faulty, cautioned me against getting my hopes up too much. She didn’t want me to hurt any more than I was already hurting, and she knew if I believed we were pregnant when we weren’t and found out later, it would crush me. It was too late, though. My hopes were through the roof, so I asked her to take another test, and this time we would watch the line to see if it formed within the allotted time.
It did.
And for the first time in our lives we were hugging and crying with tears of joy from a pregnancy test. We had finally received the news we so long desired.
But that’s when it occurred to me – I hadn’t thought much about my father’s death over the last five to ten minutes, and for the first time since receiving the bad news of the prior night, I was actually smiling. Of course, I hadn’t just forgotten about his death, and the terrible ache in my heart certainly hadn’t vanished, but the good news that morning was undeniable and provided me with temporary reprieve from the pain.
Over the next few days, I leaned into the grief of my father’s loss as Paige and I flew back home to be with family and attend the memorial service. But even then, I couldn’t escape the newly formed dim light of hope which had now implanted in my heart, and more importantly I couldn’t shake the feelings of awe and wonder at God’s wisdom. The timing was just too crazy to be a coincidence. I began to see reason – wonderfully wise, beautiful, and gracious reason – behind all the waiting Paige and I had endured. God had wanted to help ease the suffocating pain that would come from my father’s loss.
Two weeks later, Paige and I went to see our doctor to check on the progress of her pregnancy. Of course, nothing’s ever sure in the early stages of pregnancy, but I wasn’t feeling much in the way of fear or anxiety. This was it. Again, it was just too perfectly timed to be anything other than a wise and loving gift from God.
In the room, as we waited for the doctor to come in, my heart was so full of joy and eager expectation that I danced around the room like a child. For the first time in a year of numerous visits to that room, I had a smile on my face and not a care in the world. I danced with joy.
In came the doctor, business as usual, and he told us that we should see our child’s heartbeat for the first time. We were actually unaware that this was the case, and I was now even more excited, but Paige (from what she later told me) immediately felt bad about things. Of course, her feelings won out; seconds into the ultrasound, the doctor sighed and mumbled something about not seeing what he’d hoped and that the pregnancy wasn’t viable and would result in a miscarriage.
And just like that, the slow hardening of my heart accelerated beyond my control, and before I knew it, I was questioning God’s goodness like never before. I couldn’t reconcile why, in the span of two weeks, God would take my father and then mitigate the pain with a long-desired pregnancy, only to rip it all away.
It was during the drive back home from the doctor that afternoon that I truly thought my faith had finally dried up completely. I can’t tell you just how dark my thoughts were, and how scary it was to even think the things I was thinking. The months that followed were a blur; all I can remember now is that I wrestled with my waning faith. I was so angry at God. All I wanted to do was be vindictive and walk away, but walking away meant convincing myself that God either wasn’t real or didn’t love me the way I always thought He did.
I failed on both accounts. Praise God, for He wouldn’t let me go. I wrestled and wrestled to free myself from His hand, but He wouldn’t loosen His gentle, but firm, grip. Over time, I think I wearied myself with all the kicking and screaming, and slowly but surely my heart began to soften again. The lights slowly flickered back on, as God breathed new life into my faith. I remember that moment, too, like it was yesterday. I was sitting on the back porch of a rented beach house in Florida, and the beauty of the moment struck me. I was dumbfounded. How could God’s sovereign goodness and love be anything other than wise and true? My heart broke in that moment with regret and conviction for how foolish and hard-hearted I had been, and so I repented and never looked back.
That was September of 2015. Fast forward through a few more months of treatment with our original fertility specialist to March or April of this year when we transferred to a new specialist. We spent a few months taking some recommended medicine, and then Paige endured yet another trip under the knife to hopefully correct something the new doctor thought might be an issue before diving back into a second full round of IVF. But that was it; afterwards, we started the new round of IVF, and we did the first transfer on August 1. Just 2 short weeks later we were dancing around the room like children on Christmas, rejoicing in God’s gift of double lines.
What We’ve Learned
And so, here we are today rejoicing like we’ve never rejoiced in our lives. Our hearts are filled to the brim, overflowing even, with joy and gratitude. I try to thank God every day for the sweet little girl growing in Paige’s belly. It’s difficult to put my feelings into words at this moment; I’m overwhelmed by God’s grace, His goodness, His love for us. Do we understand exactly why God sent us down this path to parenthood? No, of course not. It was a path filled with so much pain and heartbreak, so many tears and frustration, terrible fear and doubt. Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things for the good of those that love Him, our difficult journey through infertility – as well as the seemingly cruel timing of my father’s death and Paige’s miscarriage – included, and I firmly believe that’s true. But, if you ask me exactly what that good was, or why this particular path was necessary to achieve it, I don’t have an answer for you. I simply don’t know.
And that’s okay, because there is still much that I do know.
I know that God’s wisdom is infinite and beyond my human comprehension; I’m reminded that God did the unthinkable when He sent His own Son to die on the cross on our behalf. All I can do is trust that God’s path for us was ultimately the best path possible.
I know that God’s timing is perfect; I’m reminded that when the time was right, God sent His Son to redeem us. All I can do is trust that God wanted our baby girl to be born at a specific time, and that time was perfect.
I know that God’s love for us is without question; I’m reminded that God demonstrated unfathomable love when He sent Jesus to die for us. All I can do is trust that no matter my subjective feelings or what my circumstances may tell me, the cross trumps all and is ultimate proof of God’s love for me.
Lastly, I know that suffering is not unique to Paige and me. Christians are not promised easy, burden-free or pain-free lives. Because of the Fall, brokenness is part of our world, and so to experience it doesn’t mean God is out to get us, or that He’s turned His back on us. The truth is, life as we know it is rife with paradox. It’s delicate, yet harsh; beautiful, yet ugly. It’s sweet, yet bitter; simple, yet extraordinarily complex. Life isn’t one-dimensional. No one walks the earth for a reasonable amount of time and escapes without some combination of these seemingly contradictory elements. No life is easy, always; no life hard, forever. We don’t live our lives in a constant state of happiness, nor in perpetual sadness. Instead, life is multi-layered and precious, each of our stories interwoven throughout with a lovingly planned and delicately placed combination of highs and lows, ups and downs, joys and sorrows.
There’s no better picture we can draw for this than the one nature paints through the changing of the seasons. For what season lasts forever? Summer burns into Autumn’s cool; Autumn falls into Winter’s chill; Winter dissolves into Spring’s thaw; Spring blows back to Summer’s swelter. Seasons come and seasons go, each carrying with them different elements. Some seasons we lovingly embrace, while others we despise; but no matter our feelings for each season, none of them lasts forever. In fact, it’s often the elements we hate most about a given season that amplifies our joy for the season that follows. My enthusiasm for Fall abounds all the more for the relief it offers me from Summer’s heat.
Our God is a wise and good God, and so even our seasons of pain and sorrow are not wasted. They simply amplify the goodness and joy we derive from the sweet seasons that follow. I don’t know what our joy would’ve felt like had we gotten pregnant the first time we tried. I won’t minimize that joy for anyone whose path to pregnancy was that easy. Like the benefit and enjoyment of the Fall season is good in and of itself, so too is the enjoyment of an easy pregnancy. But, I have to believe that our joy for this sweet child is unique; it’s not necessarily more joy, but it’s certainly a different kind of joy.
And so, Solomon was right; for everything, there is a season. Praise God for that. As strange as it is to say this, thank you, Lord, for our season of weeping and mourning. Not because that season is good in and of itself, but because your use of it is good and wise. Thank you for using the pain of that season to amplify our enjoyment of this new season of laughing and dancing.
And thank you for granting us this outcome and opportunity to write this post. But not just that, thank you for the opportunity to write it this way. To write it with this ending. We don’t deserve this blessing. More than that, we don’t deserve you. Indeed, you owed us nothing, and yet, you have given us everything.
Our hearts might have told us otherwise – especially when we were at our lowest, and we wanted nothing more but for the pain to go away and for you to grant us the desire of our hearts – but Jesus, you were always enough. We couldn’t believe it then, but you were. And you still are. Yet, you’ve lavished us with grace upon grace; you’ve flooded our hearts with a joy incomparable through the blessing of this sweet baby girl.
Jesus, you were always enough, and yet you’ve given us more. Thank you.
Muse in the Morning 