To flip through the Psalms in my Bible is to revisit the manifold memories, emotions, and prayers of our six years of infertility.
Psalm 128:3 is circled again, and again, in red: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.” A note to the side reads: What about for us?
Psalm 62:1 is underlined in black: “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.” A date is scrawled in the margin, followed by six words that contain unwritten volumes: On the eve of our loss.
For years, doubts filled our minds, weighed down our hearts. Will we ever have kids? Why would you let Lauren get pregnant, only to take our little girl away?
However, even as we walked through the valley, God was faithful. Through His Word, the Spirit, and the Body, He oriented our eyes heavenward, to His throne, where He sits sovereign. And so in silence–though punctuated by occasional groans of the soul and pleas for mercy–we waited, and waited.
In the summer of 2023, we transferred our last two embryos adopted through the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program. The first three we had long ago bid farewell to. The first week after transfer was one of quiet waiting. By this time, we had gotten weary of asking for a particular outcome. Certainly, we longed to hear that one or both of our children made it.
Nevertheless, that was a prayer uttered in our hearts, at our unawares, in the still small hours. Our spoken request was simply: Your will be done.
Ian Eukairos was born on March 2024. Ian means “Gift of God,” and Eukairos is a Greek, biblical word meaning “good timing.” It is easy for us to speculate that perhaps God waited this long (in our estimation) to give us Ian, so that we would learn to grow in faith, hope, and love. However, in all likelihood, He was busy at work, authoring and perfecting our salvation in a million other ways.
People ask how parenting is going. “Humbling” is my go-to answer. Gratifying, challenging, but above all, humbling.
And so it is that the faith that sustained us all those childless years, is the same faith that helps us through sleepless nights, endless bouts of “wah-wah-wahs,” and the like. “How are we going to get through this?” Lauren asked me several years ago. “By faith,” was my answer. “If we don’t have faith, how are we going to make it when the kid’s a fussy baby? A hyperactive toddler? A sullen adolescent?”
(I am hoping Ian turns out to be a mellow child and a chipper young man. It is in His hands.)
Having written several other such reflections that ended on a sad note, I am grateful now to conclude one that is more reminiscent of something written in a major key, and with tension yet resolution. All the same, I am mindful of the many other untold stories that end with the shedding of a tear, the lamenting of a loss.
To my brothers and sisters out there–we grieve with you. We sit in silence with you, in the tension of the already-but-not-yet. And when it is time to arise, let us lift our eyes to the celestial city, remembering that this grand old story ends with the truest, most lasting happily-ever-after.