Abraham & Sarah

Abraham and Sarah must have felt out of control too. God had promised Abraham many sons, but he and Sarah were getting past the age of fertility and hadn’t had a child yet (Genesis 15). So, Abraham lost patience and took control of the situation himself. He slept with his maidservant, Hagar, who bore him a son, Ishmael (Genesis 16). This act of impatience led to jealousy, heartache, and tragedy. We can certainly learn from that!
One benefit of having the Bible is that we know the whole story from beginning to end, and we can learn about God’s character through the example of others. We know that God gave Abraham and Sarah a baby in his perfect timing. But, in their human-ness, they got confused and impatient and tried to take matters in their own hands.

We decided to go to a fertility doctor to make sure our reproductive organs were healthy. We went in hoping that this doctor would take the time to investigate us and figure out what was keeping us from getting pregnant. I went in with tons of questions about hormones, stress, hypoglycemia, and anything else I could think of. But, doctors are busy people. They don’t have time to investigate why this is happening. They want to get to the quickest, simplest solution. We had hoped this doctor would be different, that she would take time to ask questions and do tests, but after a couple of tests she said we were both healthy and she wanted us to begin fertility treatment right away.

This was not the first doctor who had recommended treatment. In fact, after one year of having unprotected sex with no pregnancy one is considered infertile. Pretty much every doctor you see after that point recommends treatment. This day our file bore the label “Unexplained Infertility.”

It seemed that most doctors assumed we wanted to get pregnant right away. But we learned from Abraham and Sarah that impatience breeds tragedy and since we knew we were healthy we knew that God would give us a child in His perfect timing and He didn’t need any help. We also had heard of a pastor and his wife who waited nine years for a child, and just when they buried their hopes and dreams, got pregnant. They ended up having three children! I couldn’t imagine having to wait NINE years, but we felt that going through fertility treatment would have been a display of our impatience. It wasn’t that we felt fertility treatment was wrong, but for us it was not right at that time.

People thought we were crazy for not accepting treatment. They said things like, “well, you’re not getting any younger. You better do it now before your biological clock stops tickin’.” I’ve heard that after 30 years of age your pregnancy is considered “high risk.” I didn’t want that. But, in the back of my mind I felt I had been forewarned. We decided not to listen to everyone else’s logic.

We say our infertility is NOT “unexplainable.” It would have made sense for us to accept treatment if we found out we weren’t healthy, but we are. You don’t go to a doctor because you’re well, you go because you’re sick—and we aren’t. There can be only one reason that two completely healthy adults haven’t had a child yet when so many others are getting pregnant so easily—God just isn’t ready for us to have a child. We felt excited about the decision to reject treatment, because we knew if we were obedient that God would bless us in a great way. We wanted nothing more than to please God, even if that meant not getting what we wanted when we wanted it.

Next Post: 4/26/07