My Tubal Reversal

By 1996 we had been married 4 years and had two children and one on the way. This was going to give us 3 children 3 and under. I was stressed emotionally and we were both stressed financially. I knew nothing about budgeting, child raising, or managing a home. It was a good day if I did the dishes and the kids ate more than mac-n-cheese, hot dogs, and canned fruit for lunch. They always had cold cereal for breakfast. I cleaned house sporadically, and spent a lot of time in front of the TV.

I was not a horrible mom, I stayed home, breastfed, took my children outside and walked with them a lot! I just didn't have my priorities straight. (Boy, have we come a long way)

Anyway, we had been having trouble with our finances. We were using WIC, and the state was paying for our health insurance. We were trying really hard to get off the assistance when I found out I was expecting. The lady at the state office said they would tie my tubes for free. What a relief. (Never, never, never make a decision when you are stressed, and/or pregnant.) It was all too easy, and everyone was so supportive.

Hubby never let on that he was having second thoughts even on the day of the surgery (the day after Amy's birth) when I asked, "Are you sure". I was having second thoughts but I chalked them up to pre-surgery jitters. Boy was I grumpy when I came to. I blamed that on the anesthetic.

Amy was the perfect baby! (as far as the world is concerned). She rarely cried, she slept for long hours and would fall back to sleep very quickly and easily. It wasn't long before I was pining for another baby.

Six months later I was saved! My prospective slowly started to change. I started learning these crazy ideas of how to be a good wife, and to train my children.

I prayed for God to heal my womb. In 2000, I was on a Christian woman's homekeeping board, and say the signature of a woman there. She listed her children and then added and our tubal reversal babies... I actually thought she had had a tubal pregnancy moved. When I did a search on tubal reversals, I realized what she had done. Then we were pointed to Psalm 127. We also read the book "A Full Quiver". Our eyes were opened, we had not trusted God. We had leaned on our own understanding. What were we to do. We talked and prayed for God to heal my womb. We knew that we couldn't afford to get a reversal as they cost $12,000-15,000.

Praise be to God, we found that there are doctors scattered around the country that did this surgery at a very reduced cost. We found a doctor a few states away that charged $4375 all inclusive. This was still a HUGE amount of money for us, as we had never saved any money. The next paycheck we were able to put $200 in a savings account. We figured at that rate it would take.....

Well, God had other plans in mind. Apparently we needed to learn to trust. Every paycheck we put money in the bank we had to take it back out for an unexpected expense. For months and months we never accumulated more than that original $200. I really felt that God wanted us to do this, but if we could only save $200 in six months it would take....... Ahhh. One day I re-read Psalm 127:1 "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it". Now I understood, that I was trying so hard to build my house, but if the LORD wanted this surgery, He would provide for it.

I then quit worrying about it. Then in January I was figuring our taxes and about went through the roof. Some of the tax had changed and we were a lot of money back. $4175 to be exact. $200 shy of the amount we needed for the surgery. Then I remembered the $200 still sitting in the bank! We couldn't believe the money was the exact amount! (Actually, when I refigured I had made a mistake, we actually ended up with $7 more. Hmmm) Praise God! He did it all!

Hubby told me to go ahead and make the appointment. I could get in March 21, which just happened to coincide with the month that Hubby gets an extra paycheck because of how the weeks fall. That money would pay for our travel.

Dr. Curlin was great! He had pictures of his sons and grandsons (he didn't have any girls) on the wall with Bible verses underneath them in his office. He was retired as an OB-GYN and did these surgeries as a ministry. The surgery went well, and I went home early the next morning.

The next four years were a huge test of faith, and I constantly had to go back to the beginning of Psalm 127. I had since found out that one tube had scarred closed, and it was the side my body favored for ovulation. That made it very hard to conceive, and when I did I kept miscarrying. I had to keep giving this back to God. I had done what I could to fix my body, and the rest was up to God. At one point during a Bible study, I realized that my worth was not wrapped up in whether I could have more children, how many I had, or good a wife and mother I was. My worth was because God created me for His purpose-not mine. I was finally able to rest in the Lord.

August 14, 2004 Hubby's dad went to be with the LORD. Now we know that God knew Hubby would need something to look forward to in the dark days of depression when he was missing his dad so terribly. Two weeks later we found out I was expecting. We conceived the night after Dad's passing. This was our first (and so far only) son, named after his grandpa. God is so good, he knows all things. If we could only look into the future and see what God had planned for us, we would always say, "Yes, LORD, your ways are always right".