Do you know what causes it?

God gave us another baby!

One of our most frequently asked questions is, “Do you know what causes it?” Of course most people are just teasing us and Todd often answers back, “Yeah, we think we are starting to figure it out.” However, often wish we could set aside the teasing and share our bigger story.

In an earlier FAQ post titled, “Did you always want a big family?” we shared how losing our second baby to an ectopic pregnancy left us in a fog of grief and questions.  We were newly married, young parents, and we were stunned that we had lost a baby and I (Tami) had nearly lost my life.  We were looking into the future knowing that we wanted more children but hadn’t really ever settled on a number.  But now we were forced to realize that the number of children was not up to us.  We really had no control.  I had lost my left reproductive side and had less than a 50% chance of conceiving again.   The doctor prescribed a three month hormonal therapy.  With my hormone levels so low I had no chance of conceiving.  We cried  out to God in our sadness and grief.  We thanked Him for sparing my life, but asked Him to heal me completely.  We asked Him to give us peace while we grieved our loss and help us come to grips with the possibility that we would only have the opportunity to parent one child.  Although we prayed for peace, I found myself pleading with Him to allow us more children.

By the middle of my second month of hormone treatment and after several more blood tests, I was starting to think that maybe my body would never get back to normal.  I had not had a menstrual cycle and I was still not feeling well.  On one particularity rough day in July, I began to realize that my symptoms were similar to the way I felt when I got pregnant with Ashlin.  It made me upset that my body was having such similar symptoms to a pregnancy.  It was a cruel trick to my heart and mind to experience this.  After about 5 days of this, I decided to go ahead and take a home pregnancy test in an effort release my heart and mind from all the false hope. Much to my surprise I was pregnant. We were being gifted another baby!  Remember…I was on the hormone treatment because my body was not producing an egg.  I wasn’t having my monthly cycle either.  This was a miracle.  Our news shocked the doctors…we were shocked as well but also overjoyed to know that God was going to give us at least one more child!

Ashlin and Jaylin

Through it all we felt like God was telling us…”I am in control…not birth control.  See, I have given you a child even though the doctors have said it would be impossible.”

Our second daughter Jaylin, was born Feb 9, 2000.  I felt that having Jaylin was God’s way of helping me move past my disappointment and grief.  However, I still wasn’t sure if I was healed. We decided that we were not going to prevent pregnancy and we were absolutely elated when we found out we were pregnant with our third daughter Evalin, who came to us on Jan 1, 2002.

Ashlin, Evalin and Jaylin

We had three beautiful girls (three and under) and life was busy. Todd was deep into growing the junior high youth ministry. We were quickly outgrowing our little three bedroom ranch home and now we were coming to the understanding that a youth pastors salary quickly ran thin with a family of five! We considered all of these things as we thought about having anymore children.

We decided to take some time to pray and think about having more children.  During this time we took precautions but before we knew it, we were pregnant with our fourth.  Our doctor joked with about our “precautions” saying, “You know what I call people who use the rhythm method… parents!”

The new baby would only be 13 months apart from Evalin and with the coming of our fourth child, we decided to look for a larger home. We also decided that I would go to work outside of the home to help provide for our quickly growing family.  I began working at the front desk of a Marriott hotel. I  also trained to be a mortgage broker.  On top of all of this, I was watching two neighbor children full time during the week.

Evalin, Jaylin, Ashlin and Madelin

Our fourth daughter was born on February 2, 2003 .  Although we were overwhelmed, we were thrilled to have her. We named her Madelin Faith because we knew we needed a lot of faith at this point in our lives.  One of our biggest concerns was how we would make it financially.  When I got pregnant with Madelin the pregnancy caused me to not be able to nurse Evalin anymore.  We were so worried how we would afford formula.   God knew!  At this time my good friend who lived across our back yard announced that her family was moving away to Texas.  I was sad about losing her and overwhelmed at the thought of having four kids (four and under) without her friendship to support me.  New neighbors moved in quickly, and we made an effort to get to know them.  They had a daughter around the same age as Ashlin, so we found an easy point of connection.  I had shared with her that I was pregnant and was honest with her about not knowing how we were going to afford formula for Evalin.  In that conversation she revealed to me that she was a Similac dealer and that she would be able to get me all of the formula I would need!  God is always one step ahead of us!

We moved into our new house about two months after Madi was born.  We THOUGHT that our lives were complete and that God would now give us the peace to be done having children.  We assumed that the next thing for us would be establishing my career and settling down to enjoy and raise our four beautiful daughters.  But once again, God was in control and God had different plans…

Perhaps our best answer to our FAQ “Do you know what causes it?” should be,  “Yes, we know what causes it, GOD!”

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.”

~ Proverbs 3:5 ~