Way back when my husband and I started to talk about marriage, we dreamily looked in each other’s eyes and said:

“We’re going to have as many children as God gives us!”

A few things got changed along the way.

When we said that, we were imagining a large family. We weren’t expecting that God would “give” us zero offspring. (We also imagined a mess-free life when we dreamed up all these children, but that’s a different topic.)

Early in our marriage, I zealously began charting signs and cycles. This gave me the first heads-up that things might not go exactly as planned.

My memories are fuzzy, but I think it was in September 2000 that I became pregnant for the first time. Joy! We began calling our bean sprout by the name we’d picked for him (I was sure it was a boy).

A week later, we made an emergency call to our doctor, telling him I was in excruciating pain. We lost the baby.

In the long-term sense, I wasn’t overly worried yet. God had always been there for me and had seen things through. I felt like my life existed for a purpose. I was sad, but this would all end up to His glory, wrapped up in a neat bow.

I miscarried a second time the next month, which prompted the doctor to put me on a treatment that I now regret. It was not a standard treatment, but I didn’t know that.

By this time, I was shaken – especially as my husband started getting cold feet in the light of potential medical bills while he himself was accruing massive medical school debt. I started feeling a little anxious to know things were moving along properly with God’s bow-tying.

As the months passed, I kept waiting for God to show up, to show me a sign, to provide some sense of meaning and purpose.

For the first time in my life thus far, he didn’t.

For the first time, no one’s words of encouragement and wisdom were followed up with a matching coincidence that assured me God was “in” this with me. There were no random Bible verses, followed by a pastor speaking on that exact verse the next day, telling me just what I needed to hear. There were no poignant dreams, no dramatic ideas from my husband, no provision of exactly what I needed.

I’m not sure why I had experienced an active relationship with God in my life previously. Like Doubting Thomas, I suppose I’ve always needed a little something to keep my faith going. I don’t expect heavenly rewards for having a “faith” that is so supported by God’s recognizable work in my life. I took God’s involvement for granted. Especially in the lowest time of my life, of course He would be there – more than ever! His silence was confusing, when I most needed to know the purpose for our loss and disappointment.

Months threatened to stretch into years, and I decided it was time to just ask God for a sign.

It would be an easy sign. God apparently was reluctant, and I didn’t want to stress him out. The day I picked was a rainy one, mixed with sunshine. It should be relatively simple for God to show up with a rainbow. So that was my request:

“God, just show me a rainbow. Then I’ll know you’re in this, and I’ll know that everything is going to turn out ok.”

I saw nothing.

I wasn’t particularly surprised or disappointed at that time. It didn’t alter my faith, not right then. I wasn’t ready to ask questions yet about the validity of all of those prior faith experiences. I had no idea how bad it was going to get.

Of course, I did see rainbows after that. I was always sort of watching for them… thinking God might just be delaying the sign. Every time, I’d wonder whether this was the month – God was finally telling me I was pregnant!

Any possible signs from God turned out to be illusions, though. If there were coincidences during that time, it was the teasing rainbows followed by faint “false positive” ghost lines on occasional home pregnancy tests.

God… I wonder where you went during that time?

I always dreaded hearing stories of people going through deserts for “years.” On the opposite side – now that I know, years later, that there is an opposite side – those times have become a precious part of me.

I could still never wish a desert of silence on anyone, though.




This post is part of a series on our journey through unexplained infertility. To read the rest of the story so far, please click here to see the index of posts.