Amanda Hope Haley - Barren Among the Fruitful: Navigating Infertility with Hope, Wisdom, and Patience

Endorsements

Women will DEVOUR this book. Some might even sleep with it under their pillow. It brings beautiful comfort and rich insight from a friend who understands the heartbreak of infertility and miscarriage. Amanda hands us women a true GIFT with the words of this book.

Lysa TerKeurst, New York Times best-selling author of Unglued and president of Proverbs 31 Ministries

A calming and peaceful portal into the lives of families suffering from infertility with an approach of stoic surrender and acceptance of Gods will. Soothing to the soul!

Elizabeth Maxwell, MD

2014 by Amanda Hope Haley

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

Page design and layout: Crosslin Creative

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Scripture quotations are taken from The Voice translation. 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4016-7975-0

ISBN: 978-1-4016-7976-7 (eBook)

14 15 16 17 18 [RRD] 6 5 4 3 2 1

For our precious godsons, Elijah and Jack. You unknowingly snuggled David and me during the coldest years of our lives.

Contents

by Dana Womack

I never planned to write this book, so I had no idea what I was doing when the publishing process began. There is no way I could have finished this manuscript without the input and guidance of my editor and friend, Maleah Bell; but I wouldnt have started it without the encouragement and faith of my publisher, mentor, and friend, Frank Couch. Everyone at Thomas Nelson is a consummate professional, but you two are the best of them. I am blessed to be learning from you.

I was inspired by my dear friends and relatives, who sacrificially told me their personal stories for this book. You each reopened wounds to share your pain and perspective with women suffering as you have; then you prayed for me and all the readers who will encounter your stories. I love you all.

Way back in 2002 my best friend and adopted sister, Melinda Phillips, dreamed I was an archaeologist in Israel and a mother of four children. You saw David arriving at my dig site fresh off a planegathering our daughter in his arms, kissing me, and corralling our three unruly boys. You dreamt of the life I wanted, but I know you agree that God has planned a journey better than we imagined. Thank you for choosing to stick with me through my decade of insanity.

No one has given me more prayer support through the writing process and through my life as a whole than my parents-in-law, Robert and Julie Haley. You prayed for me before you met me, you knew Id married David even before he did, and youve loved me not as your daughter-in-law but as your daughter. Thank you for being the best second set of parents a girl could have.

My parents, Ross and Dana Womack, traveled this road of infertility more than two decades before David and I did. If you hadnt sought medical help, I would not be here. I thank you for the literal life you gave to me, the instruction that made me into the adult I am today, and the selfless love I always feel from you no matter how far apart we are.

David Haley is my darling husband and one true love. You tell me I can do anything, and you help me achieve any goal I set. I am genuinely thankful that I wake up next to you each morning and that this crazy journey has pushed us together instead of pulling us apart. I know the next eleven years of marriage will be better than the first as we continue to grow together with Gods blessing over us.

My heart aches for my daughter and son-in-law as they deal with the struggles brought on by infertility. Amandas father and I tried for several years to conceive a child after we first married. We did not have the medical options then that are available today. Of course, we were advised to do the typical procedures of that time: check my body temperature regularly for that all-important timing and keep a daily chart. My husband needed to go through the embarrassing ordeal of sperm testing, and he was told to switch from briefs to boxer shorts. We tried these scientific approaches. Nothing worked.

One day I went to see my gynecologist for a regular checkup. Looking at my charts, he blurted out, You havent ovulated! Lets put you on fertility pills. My thoughts ran amok. We had found the reason that I had not conceived after trying for four years. Wonderful! And now, just maybe there would be a solution. But at what price? Could my baby have birth defects? I well remembered the thalidomide scandal of the 1960s. I was promised that fertility drugs were safe. Would I have multiple births? My doctor assured me that within the time period his team had been using the drug Clomid, they had delivered eight sets of twins and no multiple births larger than twins. So, twins... I could handle that. In fact I would welcome that!

I went home from the doctors office and discussed this with my husband. We decided we must give the pills a try. After taking the pills for two months, I was pregnant. It seemed like a miracle. After seven months of extreme nausea, two months of not-so-bad nausea, and fourteen hours of labor, Amanda Hope Womack was born. She was six pounds, seven ounces, and nineteen inches long. All of her digits were where they were supposed to be, and there was only one of her. The good Lord had truly blessed us with this beautiful little redhead.

Now that our only child is an adult and of childbearing age, I must admit I often wonder if the very pills that enabled me to become pregnant with Amanda caused her to have her own issues with infertility. It is always easy to see new medical breakthroughs as Gods will. However, that gnawing thought that maybe we did not trust God enough to let Him take care of our infertility problem in His own way is omnipresent. On the other hand, were the fertility pills Gods solution for my and millions of other womens infertility? With more questions than answers, I simply must remember that God is always in charge of everything. His plan is perfect.

After Amanda and David married, we turned Amandas childhood bedroom into a study for my husband. At this point, I decided to do a little more updating of the house. Using pretty pastels, I turned one guest bedroom into a room for my future granddaughters. Amanda had collected porcelain dolls as a child. Since she had no room in her house for them, and with her approval, I displayed them in an antique case. I bought a daybed with a trundle and made pretty pillows, a dust ruffle, and drapes. I even found a white ruffled bassinet at an antique store and secretly tucked it away for future use. Then, in the room directly across the hall, I expanded an existing hunt theme to include things for a little boy. Amandas own Jenny Lind crib in the attic would be perfect in this room when the time came for grandbabies to sleep here. So whenever Amanda and David decided to start a family, I was ready.

My first cousin is an only child. (Her mother, my mothers sister, had a stillborn baby, followed by several miscarriages. Finally little Robin, a seven-month preemie, was born.) Robin now has three healthy adult sons and her first grandson. After David and Amanda married, whenever anyone asked David how many children they planned to have, he would say, As many as the Lord blesses us with. Their dream, my dream also, was that children would come as they had for Robin. This dream has not been realized as many of us assumed it would be.