For a long time, I didn’t understand what was wrong. People would casually
say, “Don’t worry, it’ll happen in God’s time.” And I tried to believe that.
But every passing year felt like a silent scream that no one could hear. Until
I finally got the answer—blocked fallopian tubes. It was a quiet diagnosis. No
fireworks. No breaking news. Just a sentence from a doctor that shifted the
ground beneath my feet. My body had been holding a secret all this time, and
now I knew: I could not conceive naturally.
The pain of that realization is something words can never fully express.
It wasn’t just a medical statement—it was a declaration that the dream I held
so close might never come to pass in the way I imagined. I cried that night.
Not the kind of tears that come from momentary sadness, but the kind that rise
from the depths of a soul mourning a loss it doesn’t yet know how to name.
When we decided to begin IVF, I braced myself. I had read enough to know
it wouldn’t be easy. But nothing prepared me for what it truly was. The
injections—sharp, daily reminders of what was at stake. The medications—piling
up like a mountain I had to climb with trembling legs. The endless blood tests,
ultrasounds, appointments—it felt like my life had been reduced to numbers,
measurements, and probabilities. And yet, despite the fatigue, the bruises, the
emotional rollercoaster, I held onto hope. I believed. Not blindly, but
fiercely.
After the embryo transfer, I started imagining a different future. I could
feel the life that might be growing inside me. I treated myself as though I
were already pregnant. I prayed, I whispered promises, I made room in my heart
for a child I had never met but already loved. I was so sure. I told myself,
“This is it. After all this, surely God will say yes.”
The day of the blood test came. I had barely slept the night before. My
heart pounded as we drove to the clinic. After the test, they told us to wait
for an hour and a half. Ninety minutes. Ninety minutes of imagining all the
ways my life was about to change. I started thinking about names, baby clothes,
how we would tell our families. I wanted to burst with joy.
Then the call came.
Not pregnant.
I didn’t hear anything else. Just that word. Negative. A word that felt
like a death sentence to every hope I had nurtured. I don’t remember what I
said. I just remember the sound of my own sobbing, raw and uncontrollable. I
went home, crawled into bed, and cried myself to sleep.
In the days that followed, I walked through life like a ghost. I couldn’t
talk to anyone. I didn’t want comfort. I didn’t want scriptures or
encouragement or any of the well-meaning platitudes people say when they don’t
know what else to do. I was angry—furious, actually. But most of all, I was
hurt. I felt betrayed.
I asked myself over and over: What have I done? Why would God not let me
have this one thing? This beautiful, natural, sacred thing? Had I sinned so
deeply that He couldn’t forgive me? Was I being punished for something I didn’t
even remember doing? The questions haunted me. And for the first time in my
life, I felt resentment toward God. I, who had loved Him, served Him, trusted
Him, now looked at Him with cold suspicion. It felt like He had turned His face
away.
It is a terrifying thing to lose trust in the One you once believed was
your refuge. I didn't want to pray, because I didn't know what to say. I didn't
want to read the Bible, because I was afraid of reading words that no longer
felt true. I didn’t want to worship, because every song felt hollow. And yet,
even in the silence, something in me still ached for Him. Even in my
bitterness, I couldn’t let go completely.
One night, lying in bed with tears streaming down my face, I whispered the
only prayer I could muster: “Where are You?” It wasn’t eloquent. It wasn’t
theological. It was the cry of a daughter, abandoned, alone, desperate for a
glimpse of her Father. There was no immediate answer. No vision. No warm
feeling. Just silence.
But the silence was different this time. It wasn’t empty. It wasn’t void.
It felt... intentional. Like a pause in a conversation, not an end. And in that
pause, a memory returned to me—Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Crying out to
God in agony. Saying, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me. But not my
will, but Yours be done.” He, too, was crushed. He, too, was denied the answer
He had hoped for. And He, too, felt forsaken.
And I remembered Job, whose story I had always skimmed through because it
felt too harsh, too distant. But now, it felt achingly close. He lost
everything—his children, his health, his livelihood. He didn’t get answers. He
got silence. But in that silence, God was still present. Still watching. Still
holding all things together.
I realized then that faith is not proven in the moments of answered
prayers. It is forged in the moments of deep pain, when nothing makes sense,
and yet you choose to believe anyway. Faith is not the absence of doubt. It is
the courage to stay even when you are angry, hurt, and confused.
Slowly, I began to speak to God again. Not with fancy words or
declarations, but with brutal honesty. I told Him I was disappointed. I told
Him I was angry. I told Him I didn’t understand. And in that vulnerability, I
found something unexpected—comfort. Not the comfort of explanations or quick
fixes, but the comfort of knowing He was still there. That He could take my
honesty. That He was not repelled by my sorrow.
I started to see the pain not as a punishment, but as a place of
transformation. I don’t mean that in a cliché, “everything happens for a
reason” kind of way. I mean that God was meeting me in the very place I had
feared He had abandoned. The suffering had not driven Him away—it had drawn Him
nearer, even when I couldn’t feel it.
I still don’t have a child. I still cry sometimes when I see pregnancy
announcements or baby showers. I still feel a pang of longing when I pass the
children’s aisle in stores. But I also feel something else now—a strange, quiet
strength. A hope that is no longer dependent on outcomes. A peace that doesn't
require explanations. And a love that has been tested in the fire and found,
still, to be real.
Maybe I will try IVF again. Maybe I won’t. Maybe the story will turn in
ways I can’t yet imagine. But I know this: I am not forgotten. I am not cursed.
I am not unworthy. I am loved by a God who weeps with me, who sees every tear,
who is with me in the waiting.
There are days I still wrestle. Days when the grief returns like a wave
and knocks me down. But even then, I have learned to bring that grief to the
only One who can carry it with me. I don’t have all the answers. But I have
this truth: I am not alone. And if God is still writing my story, then it is
not over.
So I will wait—not passively, but with hope. Not with clenched fists, but
with open hands. Not demanding answers, but trusting the One who holds them.
And in that waiting, I find a strange kind of worship.
Because even in the no, God is still God. Even in the silence, He still
speaks. Even in the absence of what I long for most, He is still enough.
And though my womb may be empty, my heart is still full of longing, still
full of faith, still reaching out into the unknown, asking—is there still a
miracle waiting for me?
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