Many of you know about my struggle with infertility. After inexplicably losing 5 babies (including twin girls), and undergoing months of testing, the doctors were able to find no medical reason for why this was happening. The only answer I got was that it might be some sort of autoimmune issue, but no tests gave any answer as to what kind. We finally gave up on trying to have a baby for awhile and dove head first into the adoption process. We believe that God has called us to do this at some point in our lives. But God had another plan…
Still puzzled by why this was happening to me, I began researching recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL). I knew I didn’t want to be pregnant while we were focusing on adoption, but I wanted to be healthy and whole, so I started looking into natural ways to improve my situation. Among other things, I found that BPA was linked to RPL. So I began taking steps to eradicate this harmful chemical from my life. But I wanted more.
Enter providence. Through a series of divine interactions, I ended up working with a Christian naturopath named Cheryl who gave me the ALCAT test. ALCAT is a food sensitivity test that measures inflammatory reactions in your blood when it is exposed to various foods and chemicals. It turned out that I was intolerant to several foods that I had no idea about (lobster, avocado, basil, broccoli, white potato, button mushroom, and splenda aka sucralose.) Cheryl taught me that health begins in our guts. I learned that all the antibiotics I had taken several years ago when I had chronic tonsillitis, and the birth control pills I had taken for years, had likely torn up the lining of my stomach. I learned that consuming harmful chemicals can make it more difficult for your body to absorb necessary nutrients (and more importantly for my babies to get the nutrients THEY needed!). I learned that eating the wrong foods can cause inflammation in MANY places in the body, possibly including my reproductive organs. I learned that food is medicine, and that by eating wholesome healthful foods I could begin to heal my body from the inside out.
In addition to removing my food intolerances and BPA, I also began living the Real Food lifestyle. I cut out processed foods, and anything with ingredients that I couldn’t pronounce. I began taking probiotics to help fortify my gut, super vitamins to amplify my immune system, and drinking raspberry leaf tea daily to tone my uterus. I began eating whole, organic, and locally farmed foods. I limited the amount of meat I was eating to once a week, and exchanged hormone laced, GMO corn-fed beef for organic grass fed beef. I cut out coffee. I began exercising. And I began drinking a LOT of water. 75 ounces a day! I’m not saying it was easy to change all of this. In fact, one time I was at the supermarket almost in tears because I felt like everything I was used to buying was off limits. I texted Cheryl saying, “Grocery shopping is too hard, I think I’ll just buy wine and go home.” She laughed hysterically and then gently encouraged me to press on. It was very difficult at first, but I was committed to doing this right.
And after just 6 weeks of this new lifestyle I found myself pregnant…. again.
As the weeks passed I could tell this pregnancy was different. For one thing, I experienced zero spotting. Every single other pregnancy started out with spotting. Secondly, I had morning sickness which I had never had before. After I passed the 10 week mark (the farthest any of my babies had ever survived) I began to seriously wonder if this was actually going to be the one. Week by week this baby has carried on. We’ve gotten to see our sweet little monkey on an ultrasound, actually looking like a baby! This is a completely new experience for us since normally we get terrible news when we have ultrasounds. Systematically during this pregnancy I have eliminated one unnatural thing after another. GMO foods, chewing gum, listerine, face wash, moisturizers, deodorant, and the list goes on. I’ve replaced MANY things with coconut oil. More on that later. I’m still taking vitamins, probiotics and drinking the raspberry leaf tea daily.
So now, at 18 weeks pregnant, I am finally believing that God is giving us this baby… this boy. My son. 
There’s one other aspect to this process that I want to share with you. In addition to getting my body on track, God began to put my soul on track. He taught me that He is good if He gives me a child, and He is good if I lose 20 more pregnancies. This was a fact that was very hard for me to understand in the midst of my losses. I wondered many times why a good God would let this happen to me over and over again. He taught me that these children were all His before they were mine, and that He was just as brokenhearted over my suffering as I was. I realized that in all of my suffering I forgot the fact that my 5 little sweeties never had to experience loss, suffering, heartache, or rejection. They had the amazing privilege of going straight to Heaven! He is holding them in His hands. Hands that are infinitely more perfect than mine. How could I ever be sad about that? I learned that while God had not yet answered my prayers to heal my body, He kept His promise in the bible that He would heal my broken heart (He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. Psalm 147:3).
And finally God asked me the question that I had been so afraid to answer for so many years… “Do you trust Me?” I thought I had trusted Him, but the truth was, I never had. I finally surrendered my fertility and my life to the God of the universe, knowing and believing that He knows my desires, and wouldn’t place this deep urge to be a mother inside me and never fulfill it. When we stepped forward to adopt, I was certain that this was how God was going to fulfill that desire in me (and we still hope to continue with that in the near future) but I can now see how He was molding me and shaping me to become a whole person, inside and out, so that I could become the best mother possible for my children.
If you’ve been through loss, I sincerely encourage you to consider crying out to God and ask him to make you whole. He loves you, and He knows your hurts more than anyone else. Trusting Him has been a journey, but my life has never been so peaceful or fruitful.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18
Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. Psalm 127:3
) and whipped it into my frosting. This not only gave my frosting the delicious irish coffee kick I was going for, but it also ended up being the exact shade of creamy beige I wanted. Feel free to up the instant coffee amount if you want a stronger coffee flavour. It would taste great with more coffee, but I didn’t want to make it too strong for my guests. I would have used Starbucks Via, but its really PRICEY! It is tasty, but not for $10+ for 12 packets. I remember having Nescafé in Paris and being surprised at how delicious it was (imagine going all the way to france to find a good cup of instant coffee!), plus its only $1.50 for a box of 8.
