by Aly Taylor
GIVE FROM YOUR PLACE OF PAIN
—ALY—
After hearing Josh out, we decided to stay the course with IVF, though we were both so frustrated and sad. We desperately wanted to give our friends and family an optimistic report, but that never seemed to happen. On top of that, many of our friends started getting pregnant. We were thrilled for them, of course, but it was hard not to hurt for our own loss. I had to learn how to have joy for other people when our situation was anything but joyful. I once heard someone say the best thing you can do is to “give from your place of pain.” That often feels impossible because our pain makes us feel as though we have nothing left to give. But giving from our pain forces us to take our minds off ourselves, focus on others, and allow ourselves to feel joy for them—no matter what’s going on in our own lives.
When you struggle with infertility, it can seem like everyone around you is getting pregnant at the drop of a hat. Many of our friends started having kids while I fought cancer. We rejoiced with them and prayed that we’d join them in parenthood one day. Later, as we struggled through IVF and other friends got pregnant, it was more of a challenge for us. I cried every time I found out someone else was pregnant. I’d like to say they were tears of joy for my friends, but many times they weren’t. They were tears of sadness for the loss Josh and I felt. I wallowed in this for a while before I remembered my “not made to be a mother” moment from months earlier.
I realized I had a choice. Would I continue to feel sorry for myself and our current situation, or would I choose to be happy for others and believe God had a plan to grow our family? I chose the second option. It was much easier said than done, of course, but God gave me the strength to show others how happy I was for them. I wanted my friends to feel comfortable talking to me about their pregnancies and how they were feeling, so I had to separate their joy from my heartache. It was hard, though.
THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF IVF
We kept going with IVF, and the day finally came to attempt an egg retrieval. Despite the doctor’s doubts, they were able to retrieve not one but two eggs—and both were confirmed to be fertilized with Josh’s sperm! Success! Finally! We praised God because we knew, no matter what happened, we currently had two Taylor babies. There were still plenty of uphill battles ahead of us, but we let ourselves celebrate this good news.
Five days after getting the good report, we went back to the doctor to have the embryos put back into my body. The doctor called while we were on the road to tell us that one of the embryos had not survived. Josh took the call and was very clear with their office to make sure the embryo really did not survive, not that it just didn’t appear unhealthy. We would never discard any embryo. But, sadly, it was already lost. We were heartbroken because we had hoped to save one of the embryos for a second Taylor baby later. Now we were down to one. One embryo. One baby. One shot.
I went into the implantation with complete confidence. I knew I was going to be pregnant when this was all over. Like the sick man in Mark 2, I felt the prayers and faith of my friends and family carrying me straight into the healing presence of Jesus. I couldn’t wait to proclaim from the rooftops the power of God in working miracles for His children. First, He healed my cancer, and now He was going to give us a miracle baby. It was going to happen. I just knew it!
—JOSH—
It would be another week before we found out for sure if Aly was pregnant, but we already knew. Aly had been writing letters to our future baby in a special journal, and we both wrote a note to this baby in Aly’s belly. We spoke of the miracle he or she was and how we were believing against all odds. We were truly excited and didn’t even entertain the possibility that we weren’t pregnant. Aly went in for a blood test to confirm the results, and we knew we would get a call from the nurse that afternoon telling us the good news. We built such great relationships with the nurses at the clinic, and they were praying and personally invested in this journey. We all couldn’t wait to celebrate this miracle IVF baby together.
As we waited for the phone call, Aly asked me to set up the video camera. We were convinced we were about to get the greatest call of our lives, and we wanted to document the moment to show our child later.
Finally, Aly’s phone rang. The fertility clinic’s phone number flashed on her screen, and she rushed to tell me to turn on the video camera. Sitting on the couch together, Aly and I answered the call that would change everything. The camera across the room was taking it all in.
“Hello?” Aly answered with a smile in her voice.
When we were greeted by a man’s voice, we knew it was the doctor calling us instead of his nurse. I thought, He wants to give us the good news himself because he can’t believe it worked! There was absolutely no doubt in my mind—until he said one of the most heartbreaking sentences I’ve ever heard.
“I am so sorry, Aly, but the test is negative. You are not pregnant.”
—ALY—
To this day, one of the hardest things to look back on from our whole journey is the video we recorded that day. We forgot all about the camera once the doctor delivered the devastating news that we weren’t pregnant. Watching that little window into one of our darkest moments, you can see me collapse in a heap of tears on Josh’s lap. I was so confused. I believed, really believed, that my womb had been protected and would produce a miracle baby. We had our Mark 2 friends praying for us. We had promised to give God the glory and shout His praises from the mountaintops. We had been told this was the only way we’d be able to have a child, and now that chance was gone. It was over. Our dream of becoming parents was over. And we got it all on video.
The news didn’t get better in our follow-up appointment a week later. We were looking for options, for some glimmer of hope that there was still something else we could try. The doctor explained that the whole ordeal had proved what he’d initially feared. I had very few eggs left, and they were all severely damaged. Even if I miraculously became pregnant, it would most likely end in a miscarriage. That felt like the end of the line for us, the last stop on the fertility train. However, he had one more suggestion. He said that, despite everything else, I would be an excellent candidate to carry a baby using an egg donor. He explained that I would still be able to carry a baby in my womb and deliver the child myself; the baby just wouldn’t have my DNA. We hadn’t considered this before, and it was a lot to take in. We went home with a new huge question to pray about.
CHAPTER 7
ADOPTION: THE BEST CHOICE
—ALY—
The egg donation option weighed heavily on us for several days. We prayed about it constantly, trying to discern what God wanted us to do next. During this time Josh started asking a hard (but reasonable) question: “Are we trying too hard for this?” We were stuck trying to figure out what the future held and why we didn’t seem able to start a family. We wondered if a family wasn’t in the cards for us at all and if it was time to give up this family dream altogether. It was a challenging, terrible time of soul searching for both of us.
In the middle of all this, I heard God speak to me, sending His word directly into my heart. Clear as a bell, I heard Him say, “You aren’t starting a family. You already are one.” This was a pivotal moment for me in realizing I already had a wonderful family. The past couple of years had shown me with crystal clarity how blessed I was to have such amazing people in my life—not to mention the absolute best husband in the world. Somewhere along the way we had turned the word children into the word family, but God reminded me they aren’t the same. He showed me that I didn’t necessarily need a child to have a family.
Our branch of the Taylor family started on July 22, 2006, when Josh and I said, “I do,” but I don’t think we understood what that meant at the time. About a year before our IVF failure, we attended a silent auction fund-raiser and accidentally won a family photo session. I say “accidentally” because Josh had just wanted to get the bidding started; he never intended to place the winning bid! We laughed when we
won, and we decided to save the photo shoot for later. After all, family photo shoots are for families, right? That means kids, two dogs, and a cat. We didn’t have any of those, so we set it aside. Why waste a professional family photo session on just the two of us?
A year later, we still hadn’t used the session. We hoped to be parents by then or, at least, be pregnant. The unused photo shoot became a symbol of our failed fertility efforts, a reminder that we weren’t a family. But we were. Josh and I were a wonderful, happy, committed, goofy, blessed family—just the two of us. We’d lost sight of that, of the fact that “just the two of us” is enough.
So, armed with our new understanding of family, Josh and I finally scheduled that photo session. It wasn’t a maternity shoot, an anniversary shoot, or a massive group shoot with kids, grandkids, and pets running around. It was a session just for the Taylor family circa 2014: Josh and me. And for the first time in a long time, we knew that was enough. If God chose to bless us with kids, that’d be awesome. We were excited for that. But if He didn’t for whatever reason, we wanted to be fine with that too.
We didn’t come to this place overnight; it was a difficult process to work through. However, God taught us in that season to embrace where we were. That’s a message I share loud and clear now: embrace your family today. Whoever it is, whatever it looks like, understand that you have a family. Don’t wait to take your family pictures until life looks the way you think it should. Do it now!
—JOSH—
From that point on, we changed our perspective and the language we used about where we were. We weren’t starting a family; we were growing our family. We already were a family, but we wanted it to get bigger!
This was a wonderful season of healing for us. We had been through so much with cancer, surgeries, infertility, and failed IVF. Neither of us were ready to rush into anything, so we took a break. In that time of rest, God entered in and reset our hearts in a meaningful way. By the time the fertility clinic called us with a potential egg donor match, Aly and I had a shared peace about saying no. On the one hand, it was a big leap of faith to turn down an opportunity to have a child; on the other, we were sure this wasn’t what God wanted for us and we didn’t want our desire for a child to lead us out of step with His will. We thanked the fertility clinic for their help and commitment to us, but we turned them down and continued praying about which direction to go next.
IT WAS ADOPTION ALL ALONG
All through our journey, people asked us if we’d ever consider adoption. The answer was an immediate yes; we both always wanted to adopt a child. However, we also believed strongly that God had protected Aly’s womb. That was clear in our minds, so we were confused about why we were having so much trouble getting pregnant. Even after the failed IVF, we still believed God could work a miracle in Aly’s body, allowing her to have a child naturally. While we never considered adoption as second best, we also didn’t want to allow adoption to cut short our belief in God’s ability to produce a child through Aly.
We both spent a lot of time praying about adoption during this time, but we were scared to bring it up with each other. I knew adoption was becoming a greater focus for me, but I didn’t want to influence Aly. I found out later that she felt the same way! We didn’t realize that God was leading both of us toward adoption. And as we discovered shortly thereafter, His timing, as always, was perfect.
—ALY—
As we were praying for direction in how to grow our family, my cousin reached out to me out of the blue and asked if Josh and I wanted to adopt. I told her we were praying about the timing, but that we both wanted to at some point. That gave her the green light to start a conversation that changed our lives forever. My cousin, an OB-GYN nurse, explained that a pregnant teenage girl had recently come into their office. As she got to know the girl, something about her and her boyfriend reminded her of me and Josh. When the expectant mother admitted that she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to keep the child and mentioned adoption as a possibility, my cousin thought of us.
As I listened to this news, something in my spirit was immediately drawn to this couple and this baby. Everything in me wanted to reply, “Yes! Yes, we’ll take that baby!” However, I had no idea where Josh was emotionally and how he was feeling about everything. As Josh said, we weren’t actively talking about adoption much because we didn’t want to put any more pressure on each other. Plus, we were still healing from the news that I’d likely never have a biological child. Things were calming down a bit for us, and I didn’t want to drop this new bomb on him. However, I also didn’t want to miss out on what might be a huge God moment, so I decided to go to his office that day and casually mention the call from my cousin. Sure, that seems silly; how do you casually mention that someone wants to know if you’ll adopt a baby? I was just trying to feel him out to see how he’d respond.
Let’s just say there was nothing casual about this conversation with Josh. I have never seen him more certain about anything in his life! I could barely get the whole story out of my mouth before he exclaimed, “Yes, of course we’re interested!” I just about peed my pants! This was the moment I realized Josh was just as ready as I was to move forward with the idea of adopting. I had all these thoughts and fears of us not being on the same page, but he was the one willing to just jump in. I was the one who was overthinking everything!
With Josh’s agreement and after lots of prayer, I was all in. The first step was to create a profile book, a collection of pictures and information about ourselves that the prospective birth family could use to get to know us. I put that book together in a single night! I wanted to get it to my cousin as soon as possible so she’d have it the next time she saw the pregnant teen. I was so excited to think about this young girl and wondered if she was carrying our baby. Now all we could do was wait.
A month later we found out that the girl decided to keep her baby, which we learned was a little boy. Thankfully, we were never officially matched with this couple, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t started picturing us adopting this baby. Learning this wasn’t our child was a disappointment, but the whole experience gave us an incredible gift: it showed us how excited we were to start the adoption process. Isn’t it funny how God puts different situations in your life to prepare you for the situation? It really is true that every no prepares you for a bigger yes.
Josh and I were convinced now that adoption was how God wanted to grow our family, but we were clueless about how to start. So I went into deep research mode, reading everything I could find and talking to everyone we knew who had adopted. I discovered there are several ways to adopt with different agencies, states, processes, and even different countries. How would I know which route was best for us? Once again I found myself confused and wishing God would write the answer on the wall for us. This was a tense time of research and discovery, but I didn’t feel weighed down by the pressure at all. In fact, I felt downright giddy. It dawned on me that I was pregnant in a way. I was adoption pregnant. I didn’t know if I’d be pregnant for a day, three months, or three years, but I was pregnant. It’s the only way I can describe how I felt at the time.
—JOSH—
The more we talked about and researched adoption, the more excited we got. Honestly, we felt silly for doing IVF and for trying so hard to get pregnant. Not that there’s anything wrong with IVF; I know it’s the right choice for many families. For us, though, it became clear that adoption had been the answer all along. That said, I was still scared. I think if Aly had gotten pregnant, I would have been scared but would have fully embraced it—even though there would have been a huge chance of having a miscarriage. As scary as a pregnancy would have been, though, I think adoption scared me more. I could feel myself wanting to fully dive into the process, but I also felt like I needed to protect myself a little.
Aly, on the other hand, was going full steam ahead and talking to anyone and everyone she could think of who could help her understand how adoption works. Every night she�
��d mention an agency she found or someone she talked to. This made me a bit nervous. I didn’t want to rain on her parade, but at the same time I didn’t want her to get hurt again. I didn’t know how much more bad news we could take.
God went to work on my fear. One night while I was on a hunting trip, I felt the Lord tell me I needed to let Aly enjoy and fully embrace this process. My protective nature had not allowed me to go all in yet, and I realized I was preventing Aly from experiencing what most women go through when they’re pregnant. Yes, it was scary; but if we were going to do this, we needed to do it all the way—together. When I got home I apologized to Aly for being so overprotective, and I promised to do everything I could to help her experience every part of her adoption pregnancy.
GOD FUNDS WHAT HE FAVORS
With both of us on the same page and fully committed to the adoption process, it was time to consider some practical matters. The past few years had been really, really expensive. The medical bills from Aly’s treatments had been significant, and we had just spent thousands more on IVF treatments. If adoption was God’s plan for us, we knew He’d have to provide a way to make it happen. Soon after, as we were researching fund-raising options, a friend told Aly something that changed how we viewed the financial side of adoption. She said, “God funds what He favors.” That simple statement took a lot of the pressure off us. We knew God had called us to adopt, and we knew He favored adoption. After all, Ephesians 1:5 says that He has adopted us! “He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.” God had shown us time and again that He’s bigger than our financial obstacles, and we trusted Him to do it again. But how would He fund it?