I found myself in a moment of disbelief the day we first realized we might be pregnant. The FAM data I had told a different story -- that we had likely missed the current cycle. The doctor had already provided higher dosage prescriptions for the next round of fertility treatments, and so we were just awaiting the start of the next cycle. In fact, we also had a growing frustration with the cycle -- then approaching 60 days long -- that we thought we might ask the doctor about possibly terminating it and jumpstarting the next cycle. But before taking such adverse action, we decided to take a home pregnancy test (HPT) in order to avoid having the doctor do the same test for $200 (charged to insurance) at our next appointmrnt.
In EXHIBIT#1, I did not believe it was positive because the documentation (especially the images) indicated that the test line would be darker than the control line. My wife believed it was quite positive nonetheless. So the next day, we did another test (EXHIBIT#2); we expected to see a full "+" but it only looked like 2 parallel bars. Hmmmm! The next day I personally picked out a digital HPT hoping it would remove all ambiguity (EXHIBIT#3). But even after that, I was not fully convinced until we could see a sonogram at our next doctor's appointment.
In my disbelief, I wondered about how often HPTs reported false positives, and whether it was possible to have appreciably high Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) levels when you weren't really pregnant. Indeed, if a woman has an ectopic implantation, a "chemical" pregnancy, or has recently miscarried, hCG levels will be high enough to produce positive HPTs. If she has ovarian/cystic cancer, a thyroid problem, or a hydatidiform mole, the hCG levels will also be elevated. Beyond these possibilities, I came across reliability complaints against Clearblue and the high incidence of false positives in their HPTs. It was as if I really did not want to believe the current evidence ... until I could see an ultrasound.
In that moment, I was like the disciple Thomas who would not believe that Jesus had actually risen until he could touch the scars himself (John.20:24-27). I was like the father who needed to believe that his child could be healed (Mark.9:21-24). And like him, I needed help with my unbelief. It is not like I did not believe we would get pregnant, but that the timing seemed off. I was at the familiar crossroad of science and faith, with the science weighing more on my belief than my faith.
The issue is practical faith and its precedence in our lives. On this journey of pregnancy, I realize we will need more faith than science as we see God orchestrate a new life in our midst (Psa.139:13).
4 comments:
We will discuss this further. Good post. Sometimes it seems that we tie our faith to science and not God. In other words, "if science can prove it, we believe it to be possible". Pure faith is actually very difficult for most people to live by. Doubt is the destroyer of faith. It is an interesting topic.
I love this! Will be continuing to pray for you guys on this journey. Our God truly is an awesome God!
So you believe now that you're pregnant after having seen the ultrasound. That's great. It seems to me the lingering question is how? Was it just the practical aspects of timing and medicine or did God do something special here?
Also, on a tangent, I'm sponsoring a movement to ban the use of the word miscarriage as it implies an error on the woman's part. Let's say something else like "the pregnancy didn't take."
Ryan
I think the reality is that faith at some point began to yield to science, the more we learned about our situation. In another post, I'll show why I think the interventions perhaps did not contribute to this pregnancy, the source of my initial doubt.
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