by Jenn Darby

I’ve always wanted to be a mom. But for as long as I can remember, I’ve had this feeling I would struggle to have a baby. When I married my high school sweetheart, I was so excited about the idea of starting a family someday. We got pregnant unexpectedly just 6 months into our marriage and were equal parts terrified and excited for this new chapter in our lives.

For our first anniversary, my husband and I decided to drive to Louisiana and stay at a bed & breakfast. I was feeling “off” all day but thought I was just exhausted from a long work week. That night, I woke up in labor. It happened so suddenly. I was bleeding and having contractions every couple of minutes. I called my mom while my husband called 911. My mom tried to remind me to breathe through the contractions while my husband stayed on the phone with the dispatcher. After what felt like an eternity, the ambulance arrived and rushed me to the nearest hospital. By the time we got there and the nurse checked me, I was 10 cm dilated and my son was coming. I was only 22 weeks pregnant but thought “surely they’ll be able to save him”. Moments later, he was born, taken to the warmer, but then given back to me. The nurse apologized and said there was nothing they could do. For 6 minutes, I held my son in my arms as he struggled to breathe. And then the breathing stopped. Everything around us went still and silent. I can so vividly remember holding my son’s body and feeling absolutely broken but also feeling indescribable peace. The kind that only comes from Jesus. I knew our boy was in the arms of our Savior.

I truly believe God set my testimony in motion that night. Soon after burying our son Noah, we started trying to have another baby. Not to replace our son, but to give us joy and hope again. Month after month, I was getting negative pregnancy tests and my grief turned into bitterness and anger. We saw a specialist and finally were given some answers as to why we weren’t getting pregnant. I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and my husband was diagnosed with Male Factor Infertility. The doctor gave us a less than 5% chance of ever having another baby naturally.

From there, it felt like one slap in the face after the next. Months of fertility medications, procedures, appointments. So much money, time, and energy poured into desperately trying to get my body to do something that seemed so easy for everyone else. With every turn, I felt bombarded by pregnancy announcements and baby bumps. While so many people around us didn’t understand, my husband and I were fighting this battle together and it made our marriage stronger.

After a year of trying, I felt God tugging on my heart to surrender. To surrender to His will over mine. To refocus on the truth that He is good and His plans are good. We stepped away from fertility treatments for about 8 months and took that time to just be us again. Then, we felt God leading us to IVF. What had previously felt like a big obstacle, suddenly God was making a clear way for us to do this. After a lot of prayers, we dove into IVF and successfully got pregnant with not just one, but TWO miracle babies.

Since then, we’ve lost two more baby boys. And when I started to lose hope again, God reminded me of His faithfulness in every season. In the hurt, in the anger, in the pain, in the frustration, in the brokenness. He is there. So we tried again, and God gives us ANOTHER double rainbow, our twin girls.

Never did I expect to be the mom of two sets of twins. But God knew all along. He knew that night in the hospital room as I watched my son take his last breath and he knew when I felt so alone in my infertility and losses. God wants to write us the most beautiful story, friend. So no matter what season you’re in, trust Him. Because we were never meant to carry the hurts alone. A huge help for me was finding a community of women who get it- the infertility, the loss, the waiting. I’m praying that Jesus will surround YOU with Godly women, to support you and encourage you on this journey. And that He would bring you indescribable peace in the wait.