When girls are young what do they usually talk about?  Well, when I was young I daydreamed about being on my own with a husband that loved me and children of my own.  When I was a teenager I didn’t want to do this alone.  You are about to meet one of my dearest friends for over 25 years.  She was one of the friends that I used to dream life with.  If you  see yourself in her story, I pray that you will be encouraged.

Where is My Happily Ever After?

 My name is Lynn. I am a Survivor. A survivor of Cancer, of disappointment, of loss, of life. At 15 years old, life was amazing! I began dating the man I knew I would marry; he was “the one” and everyone who knew me heard me talking nonstop about this perfect (for me) guy and knowing my forever would be with him. At 16, I was engaged and planning my dream wedding. One week after my 18^th birthday, I walked down the aisle and pledged forever to the man who had consumed my heart. We were very young and very much in love. We had dreams of setting up a home, having a family, going on adventures together, and just doing life hand in hand. And that’s what we set out to do. We rented a home in the country and began our life together. We both worked and went to school full time, which kept us busy, along with frequent road trips to see family. We had decided before marriage that we would wait at least 5 years to start trying to have children because we just wanted to enjoy “Us” and to have amazing experiences together without having anything or anyone else vying for our attention, and that’s exactly what we did. We enjoyed each other, grew closer with each day we shared, and really lived life fully.

In 2005 (6 years into our marriage), we were actively trying to conceive but had suffered a miscarriage that our families didn’t know about and we were personally struggling with. We were trying to stay positive, knowing that both of us were still very young and had plenty of time to start a little family but dreams of having two children were quickly turning into, we would be happy if we could just have one. The thought of wanting to conceive and give my husband a child became all-consuming; our intimate moments were often overshadowed by my desperate desire to become pregnant.

When a Dream Turns Into a Nightmare

 As time passed, we became more concerned with bigger issues and my health began to decline. I went through a couple of different medical procedures to regulate things but still had issues with a proper menstrual cycle, etc. Then, in 2007, a positive pregnancy test! One that we stayed silent about given the issues we had been having for a few years. Several weeks later, on a Friday evening, I got extremely sick and began to heavily bleed and miscarried..again. My mom and husband were there with me that night and even my mom didn’t know what we were losing; that it was so much more than just extreme bleeding.

I went to a local doctor where we were living at the time and she put me back on birth control to stop the bleeding and try to regulate my cycle. It didn’t work. 2 pills a day and nothing was improving. So, I went to a different doctor who scheduled a dilation and curettage procedure (D&C) and biopsies. To our horror, I got a Monday morning call that the doctor needed to speak to me right away. Feb 5^th, 2008, my husband and I went into the office, hand in hand, and my doctor sat down in front of me. Tears in his eyes, holding my hand, he told me that I had uterine cancer and that it would require fairly immediate surgery which would also eliminate my chances of ever having a child. In that moment, so many of our dreams died and I was left with the despair and guilt of not being able to give my husband the family I knew he had always wanted. What kind of a wife would I be now? 26 years old, childless; a failure.

Several days later, we drove to Pittsburgh on a snowy morning to meet with the oncologist; we got in the car and the song “I will praise you in this storm” was playing on the radio. So we cried and prayed and cried some more. I met with the Oncologist and chose to postpone surgery so that I could undergo IVF at Cleveland Clinic to give us one last chance at biological children. I began IVF at the beginning of March that year. I went through 3 grueling weeks of shots and pills, blood draws and ultrasounds, to finally be where the specialists needed me to be for an egg retrieval. I had my egg retrieval surgery on March 25^th, 3 days before I was scheduled for a full hysterectomy to remove the cancer. They were able to harvest 4 eggs and needed 2 embryos to form to give us a fair chance at a child(ren).

I’m Not Ready

On March 28^th, I underwent major surgery to remove the Cancer. The Oncologist made an 18’’ incision down my torso to check all major organs and make certain that the cancer hadn’t spread. He told me that if the cancer went through the uterine wall by 50%, I would need chemo but we wouldn’t know until after the surgery and biopsy. The surgery took 4 hours, 4 blood transfusions, and then I went into recovery. I lost so much blood and my body was so weak and traumatized that I was tachycardia (heart rate in the upper 190’s, low 200’s). I remember the nurses telling me to calm down and try to rest but I felt calm. I just kept looking at my heart monitor and praying; over and over, I prayed “please God, don’t take me. I’m not ready yet. I can’t leave my hubby alone. I can’t leave my family yet.” Then, I saw my husband, my mom and stepdad walk in and I knew the doctor expected me to die. I knew I was in recovery and family isn’t allowed back there unless there is a chance the patient will be lost. My loved ones stood there with tears in their eyes and kept telling me how much they loved me. I just kept praying that same prayer. I couldn’t speak to them but I heard them and I felt their love and their angst in that moment. They walked away not knowing if they would speak to me ever again; I laid there trusting that God would let me go back to them.

Without faith in a God who loved me and would carry me through this traumatic health challenge and heartbrokenness, I fear I would have gone into surgery and not made it off the table. I prayed before going under the knife that God would guide the surgeon’s hands and keep my body strong enough to withstand the trauma. I prayed as I went under. I prayed during recovery. Without God, without the hope of Him hearing me and answering my prayers, I fear I would’ve given into the dark shadow my heart was covered by and would have allowed death to take me.

After 9 ½ hours in recovery, God answered my prayer and stabilized my heart enough that I could be moved into a regular hospital room in the oncology wing. 3 days later, I went home. I was on bed rest for 8 weeks and then tried to resume whatever “normal” life would be. Most days were full of tears and prayers for some sort of miracle but then a wave of gratitude would rush over me because, despite it all, I as home; I was alive; I was with my Love.

My Angel

Years passed, life continued, hubby and I shared many adventures and continued to make incredible memories, all the while hoping to one day meet our child(ren) via surrogate. In 2014, we had an angel of a woman be a surrogate and carry our babies. Everything throughout the entire process went smoothly. God ordained the financing, the appointments, the right attorneys, everything. Through every step of the process, we had smooth sailing. At the very beginning of 2015, we took our surrogate to Cleveland Clinic and our sweet embryos were implanted; I got to hold her hand as we watched my little ones be snuggly put into their temporary home.

I finally felt like I could breathe a little; we were less than 9 months away from meeting these little ones. We began to, in faith, buy little things for the nursery, pick up little outfits, buy a diaper bag, etc. We began to plan like every expectant parent does. Things were progressing. Our surrogate went in for a standard blood draw and test mid-February of 2015. Following that appointment, my phone rings and the nurse on the other end says “I’m sorry but your babies are gone. We lost them.”

In that moment, I felt something in me die; I was angry at God, angry at the world, completely shattered. I watched my husband crumble to the ground and cry harder and more despairingly that I had ever heard before and I couldn’t help him because I was equally as broken.

Such a Patient God

In the days to come, we moved through despair to a feeling of numb helplessness. We didn’t pray; couldn’t pray. I felt like God had lifted us up to drop us; like it was a cruel joke to let us go through years of waiting and to move through the process so seamlessly to take our babies from us this way. I didn’t want to listen to music and didn’t step foot in church… for two months. I couldn’t. When I tell you I was angry at God, I was angry. For the first time in my life, I didn’t believe His promises; I questioned the promises I read in the Bible, and I couldn’t worship. I felt like maybe God’s promises were only for certain people and not everyone gets those things. I felt like He would answer prayers for other people but I couldn’t ask Him for anything for me. So I stayed silent… and He waited. He let me be angry; He let me sit in the grief and the emotions that I needed to process. He let me feel the darkness and despair, knowing that it needed to be part of my healing process. Yet, even in that darkness, I always saw a glimmer of light; of hope. It was small and seemed very far away but it was present. You see, my God is a gentleman; He doesn’t push; He isn’t aggressive. So He waited for me and loved me through the brokenness and through the anger.

Days turned into weeks and as time moved forward, the deep wounds began to scab and scar. I found myself occasionally talking to God and missing my worship music in the house. I knew that God and I had a rocky road ahead because my trust had been broken but I also knew I needed to get back on that road and stop sitting in the pit. There were certain songs I couldn’t sing because I didn’t believe them to be true anymore and my prayers were short and never about me but God and I were talking again and He was patient with me. The only “me” prayer I could muster was that God would use what I had gone through to help others; that our brokenness would mean something and would somehow offer hope and encouragement to someone else who was utterly shattered by life.

When you read my story, you may see despair, a girl who was forsaken, brokenness and devastation, shattered dreams. But when I read my story, I see an infinitely loving God who knew I would be tested and broken, who knew I would be stripped of so much, and instead of abandoning me, He cradled me in His hand…just tightly enough that I didn’t completely lose hope and give up. I see a story of strength and resilience; of deeper love than many will ever experience, and a will to truly live life to its fullest. I see blessing upon blessing, from God breathing life into my lungs when I should have died, to giving me a husband that loves me unconditionally and has walked every step faithfully with me, family who has offered support and laughter when my heart was most dark, and I see music; a song that my heart only briefly lost. My plans were not His plans but despite all I’ve lost, I have so much to be thankful for: an amazing marriage, my health and a second chance at life, family and friends, a warm beautiful home, plentiful provision, serving in worship ministry, and sharing my story to help others find hope in hopeless circumstances.

My Story Without Jesus

My story, without Jesus, would be darkness and death. When I laid in that hospital, if I had not had a Savior to pray to, my family would have been saying their true goodbyes to me. When we lost our sweet babies and faced depression, without Jesus, I fear there would have been no reason to continue living and I may have chosen a darker end to my story because the pain I felt was unbearable and unrelenting. See, without Jesus, my story would be of a depressed woman who faced tragedy upon tragedy and finally gave up on herself, on others, and on life. I wouldn’t have understood that there is a greater story being written than the one I tried to pen for myself. I wouldn’t have the hope of one day holding my sweet children in my arms in Heaven. I needed someone bigger than me, stronger than me, and smarter than me to control the storm I faced and Jesus was the Captain. Without Him, despair; with Him, glimmers of hope and of light that pulled me through the darkest night. Without Him, brokenness and heartbreak; with Him, the truest form of love and redemption because God wastes nothing; every moment of brokenness will be redeemed into something beautiful.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have changed my focus very early on. We probably would have pursued adoption at an early age. I wouldn’t have gone through the IVF and we would have worked on being “okay” with not having children long before the devastation hit. I would have known to just breathe more; to know that I’m going to survive; that those moments where I felt like I couldn’t take one more breath and that my heart had literally shattered apart would end and I would begin to slowly feel like pieces were being put back together. I would recognize the need to lean on Jesus to pull me through instead of pushing Him aside because the dark moments are when I most needed a Savior. Above all, if I knew then what I have learned through all of this, I would understand that if God had to sacrifice the life of His only Son for the redemption of all, there is no reason why He shouldn’t be able to sacrifice portions of my life to reach someone too.

-Lynn

Were some of you hoping to read that Lynn was able to have a baby miraculously or that she found a new surrogate?  Or were you expecting to hear that she adopted two children and finally understood why she went through these tragedies?  See I’m understanding that our faith gets shaken when the end of our story is different than what we expected?  So the question remains… is that real faith?  Does our faith have fine print like on a contract?

Weekly Challenge:

One of the most powerful men in the New Testament was Paul.  He was so powerful that he healed many, even his shadow could heal.  Paul found himself in the need of healing as well.  Read 2 Cor 12:6-10 this week.  Is there something you are praying for but there is no answer to your request?  Can you stand to survive a lost dream?  If you do not have a therapist or a counselor that you can go to, here is a link to Bedrock Ministries Bedrock Ministries.  Bedrock is a counseling ministry that will help walk you through this painful season.  They are a counseling ministry that can at least can advise and begin to point you in the right direction.  We would also love to be there for you.  Please feel free to contact us through our email @thruthewinters@gmail.com or comment below.