Walking through infertility while trusting in God | Ben from Sidewalk Prophets

If you don’t hope for anything you can’t be hurt” with Ben from Sidewalk Prophets

Infertility is a common issue, and it can be an isolating experience. Ben shares his story about how he and his wife struggled with infertility for 12 years before finally getting pregnant. He talks about the toll it took on him and his wife as they battled and trusted God.

View this infertility journey video with Ben from Sidewalk Prophets and other Healing Out Loud videos in this YouTube Playlist.

Ben Transcription:

I always wanted to have kids by the time I was 30. We thought it would be easier when we started. And it’s been, you know… I’m 41 now. And through a series of events, it was one roadblock after another can get naturally pregnant.

We go to this doctor and he’s like, “Well, you won’t be able to have kids” “Wait. Like we’re not able to have kids?”

The seed of doubt or hopelessness or depression starts to build. And it started to weave its way into our lives.
Uh, you know, a year later. And she’s like, “Well, maybe we should go to this fertility center and check it out.” And so we feel found out our odds were not high, but it wasn’t that we couldn’t have children. And so there’s a little bit of hope there. IVF is a very time-consuming thing.

We were chained to the house. I’m giving my wife shots every night for, I think we counted over the entire period 300. This process of, of doing this night after night, after night after night.

Then you finally go… anybody that’s dealt with infertility, anybody that’s gone through invitro knows that you go and they’ll take the embryo and plant that embryo. You’re hoping it takes and you’re pregnant. You’ve got this window of time that you’re waiting. And, and then you go in to do a blood test. My wife is sitting there waiting to feel pregnant, to like to have a symptom, to have those things. And we’re like, this is our, our chance. This is our chance.

And find out we’re not pregnant.

Now at this point, we’re nine years into this process. Hopelessness is racking up and, and the weight is getting heavier and heavier. The sadness is getting heavier and heavier. And then at some point in all of that, you stop and you lose hope. Completely, you know, positive/optimistic Ben has now become jaded/cynical.

And here my heart, it’s transformed into this thing. That is like, I’m safe here in this bubble where, uh, if you don’t hope for anything, you won’t have to be hurt. And that’s a tough place to be.

My wife said I’m ready to go. And so, we went to go do it again and again, we’re going, we’re showing up and we’re thinking we’re expecting the worst. And then we’re there. We are in the, in the waiting period, the seven, 10-day waiting period. My wife and I are just like, at this point, we’re just, you know, we’re down to our last bit.

So we’re, I remember my wife’s at, at work. And she gets the phone call, uh, gets another call. And she’s like, “Hey, they call the again.” I said, “well, one way or another, like, whatever the answer is gonna be, I want to, we’ve gone through so much. I want to hear it together.” So she comes home, I’m sitting there in my sunroom on my hammock going, here we go. Like, here we go again. So we listened to it and actually, I’m gonna play it for you.

Dealing with infertility? There is help and hope available here!

Doctor:

“I have really good for you. Your test is positive six eighty nine, which is a really strong, positive”

Ben:

After 12 years of infertility and everything that’s going on, I start crying immediately. My wife’s just so excited about it. But so here we are, you know, we’re 16, 17 weeks pregnant now, and we’re on the flip side of that.

And so for me, from where I’m at right now, I can’t say I’m not still struggling with depression or other things that I deal with, but you can pick the light spots out. But it leaves the question what does that mean for the person that doesn’t get pregnant, right?

Along your infertility journey or your life journey, you hear people say, “Oh, God gave me this miracle.” But for every one of those, you’ve got somebody that doesn’t. And what do you say, what do you say to that? You wanna be able to answer this question of like, Why?

And honestly, I don’t know that anybody has a good answer. And I think you’ve just gotta keep hoping and praying. I’m just the guy searching and going through life and leaning, trying to lean into the light more than I am the dark.