A Bundle of Myrrh

A few weeks ago I asked if anyone would be willing to discuss a topic that isn’t easy and share the story of their fertility journey. I’m grateful to the women who chose to respond.

In this series women with different experiences will share the pain and blessings that the gift of fertility carries with it, in the hope of bringing out God’s grace and promise to those couples struggling to welcome this gift when it is not known how it will turn out in a sinful world.

This is Rebecca’s Story.

I was born the 10th child out of 12. I always knew that I wanted a lot of children, like my parents.  I married my first husband and we waited for 3 years to have children.  Then after our daughter, he did not want any more.  We later divorced and I thought that I would only be blessed with one child.  It made me very sad.

I married my second husband and we had a son. (We talked about the fact that we would not wait to have more children, if God would so bless us.)   I felt like I was given a second chance to be a mother again.  Our son died from Congestive heart failure at 4 1/2 months old.  I felt like I was being punished for my past sins and that maybe God thought that I was not a good mother.  (I know that Satan was planting those seeds of doubt and unbelief in my heart, but it still crept in).  My husband and I both knew that we wanted God to make the decision of how many children we should have and how spread apart they would be but it was scary to think that we could have another child with a heart defect.

We then went on to be blessed with another daughter and two more sons.  During this time,  my health started to suffer a little.  I had a stint put in my aortic valve after our fourth child was born.  After our 5th child, I had to have open heart surgery.  We were told that we had two choices.  One was to have an animal valve put in my mitral valve or to have a mechanical valve.  With the first option, I could have more children, but most likely I would have to repeat the surgery in 1-3 years.  With the second option, I would need to be on a blood thinner that would be a high risk for a baby.

We talked to others and prayed about it and decided that God had given us five children and we could be thankful for that.  We felt that by getting the mechanical valve, I could be a better mother to the children that I already had.  We also found out then that because of my families heart history, we had a 25% chance of having another child with a heart defect.  I am glad that I did not know that after our second child died.

After my surgery,  we decided to have my husband have the procedure done to prevent any more pregnancies.  Our initial thoughts, when we were first married, was to never do anything that would prevent us from having more children. My physical health changed that whole plan.

There were times that I was so sad to think that my baby was my last one.  I do know that now I am content with the beautiful family that God has blessed us with.  I truly feel like children are a gift from the Lord and that God allowed my heart to be okay through five pregnancies and deliveries.  I hope to hear other stories and hope that you all can read each of these stories with an open heart.  I know that I do now.

 

—Click HERE for more from this series.—

I would love to hear your story. If you would like to share that with us please see these posts:

Fertility Stories – Would You Share?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2014 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Fertility in a Fallen World Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.