06 Oct God’s Timing Doesn’t Always Match Our Own

“And if not…God is still good,” I repeated to myself again and again over our wait to conceive. Not that my heart always received the message I was saying, but speaking the truth sustained me through the storm of delayed fertility. My husband and I had been trying to conceive for about 3 years, with a failed IUI cycle and multiple rounds of various fertility medications. We did not feel settled about pursuing the “next step” in fertility treatments by attempting IVF, so the year after our IUI failed, we decided to take some time to focus on ourselves (we referred to it then as our “selfish year”, but I think we needed to focus on healing and growing by attending to the the needs that had been building over the discouragement we had been facing).

We further established our careers, learned to limit stressors, and traveled. At the end of that year-while traveling to London, my husband and I both felt like we would be more at peace finally pursuing IVF. My pastor’s wife told me she felt in her gut we would still get pregnant naturally, but we decided to do the initial consultation to get some more information. We began the preliminary testing procedures and were waiting another month for the point in my cycle where I could do additional blood work. Meanwhile, a new amazing job fell into my lap in the matter of days. Three days before starting my new job, before I could even have the additional blood work scheduled, I took a pregnancy test one afternoon and it was POSITIVE. God’s timing doesn’t always match our own, but He needed me to wait for the perfect time to bring my daughter into the world. Ava Jane (meaning “living grace”) is expected in October.

A thank you to Moms in the Making for the encouragement from your Facebook and Instagram accounts. I ordered Caroline’s daily devotional and continued to refer to the posts, which reflected nothing but positivity during the hardest trial I have faced and encouraged me to try harder to not let the devil wedge his way into the relationship I have with my Heavenly Father. I am so grateful!

Alissa Hamburger