Jayden Bryan Donham

Jody and I had been married a little over a year and looked forward
to starting a family. We embraced the perfection our “Angel Baby” would bring into our lives. Every time I held an infant, I envisioned the day I would hold my own baby.  In anticipation of a quick conception, I started a journal to my angel baby.  However, instead of a quick conception, we faced years of infertility.

            Time had left us empty handed and fear began to trickle in.  I expressed our concerns with my doctor and pleaded for some sort of resolution to our unsuccessful attempts to conceive. My doctor explained that we would need to undergo extensive testing and quite possibly—fertility treatments. We were about to embark on a difficult journey towards parenthood.

            I spent the next few weeks secretly scouring the bookshelves of our local bookstore for answers.  I consumed every morsel of information to satisfy my hunger for knowledge of infertility.  I clung to anything that gave me hope for the future.  My journaling quickly changed from anticipation to apprehension and it became my therapy.

            While attending a special service at our church, a minister came over to pray with me.  He told me that God had a message for me: “You are going to conceive a child.”  Tears streamed down my cheeks as I told him of the uncertainties we faced.  He assured me that God heard my prayers and was going to bless me with a child.  Little did I know that this promise would be all I’d have to hold onto over the next few years.

            A few months after the visit with my doctor, we began to make our way through the maze of infertility testing and treatments. The tests were painful and humiliating.  The treatments left me with mood swings, hot flashes, and empty arms.  I poured my sorrow onto paper and pleaded with my angel baby to come.  My desire turned to desperation and our situation went from worse to impossible: Jody was diagnosed with an extremely low sperm count—he was clinically sterile.

            The same minister who prayed with me months prior, talked to us about adoption.  He knew a young lady who wanted a Christian couple to take her unborn child.  I was absolutely flabbergasted.  Adopt?  That option was never a consideration for us until now.  The adoption fell through; it was not the Lord’s will for us at that time.  But now our hearts were opened to a new direction.  Where would it lead?

            I continued to use my journal to my angel baby as an emotional outlet, describing the hellish nightmare we were in. We had few options to choose from.  The adoption avenue seemed too draining, both emotionally and financially.  We were offered a new procedure involving in vitro fertilization with intra cytoplasmic sperm injection, but this would cost twenty thousand dollars and held no guarantee.  Our last option was surgery.  Maybe they could reverse Jody’s problem and restore his fertility.  

            During our decision-making within this desperate struggle, we were introduced to a family member’s year-old child.  Her mother was sick and they needed help.  We eagerly accepted the responsibility to temporarily care for this sweet girl. Not long after little Hope came to stay with us, her parents asked us to adopt her. In the meantime, we continued our quest to conceive our own child and opted for the surgery to restore Jody’s fertility.  We knew it would be a long shot, but it was the least expensive option and worth a try. 

            The surgery was not successful. Jody’s counts actually decreased from the initial results.  We were absolutely devastated and I lost faith.  Prayer no longer seemed to penetrate the heavens.  Why had God abandoned me?  What did I do wrong to deserve this?  Jody and I shared bitter words.  I locked myself in the bathroom and wailed in agony. I screamed at God to take away my pain and the desire for my baby—I didn’t want it anymore.  That was my turning point.  God reached out to me that night and picked up the shattered pieces of my heart and I started on the long road to emotional healing. 

            If the anguish of our infertility was not enough, Hope’s biological parents were very flippant about the adoption.  They changed their minds four times in one week!  After many prayers and a long battle, the birthparents finally relinquished their rights to Hope.  On July 6, 1999, she was legally our child—we were finally parents. We accepted this as the answer to our prayers and desperately tried to ignore our desires to conceive our own child.

            Thirteen months later, I had a chance encounter with a friend. She told me the IVF treatment we needed was offered here in our home state, and it was less than half the cost we had expected.

            From this point, we went on a whirlwind excursion towards a miraculous pregnancy.  We overcame many obstacles to achieve a pregnancy through IVF/ICSI and were later told that we had been their worst case.  My pregnancy also took an unforeseen course.  What started out to be an average pregnancy, ended up high-risk as premature labor started at only twenty-two weeks gestation.  I spent most of the remainder of my threatened pregnancy on bed rest.  I documented the startling details while encouraging my baby boy to grow healthy and strong.

            On May 10, 2001, Jayden Bryan Donham amazingly made his way into the world.  His birthday was woven with the humorous side of labor, the sadness of losing a thirteen year-old cousin the week prior, the fear of unanticipated complications, and the astonishment of laying eyes on him for the first time.  We reveled in our victory as the chains of our past fell and we were no longer slaves of infertility—our prayers had been answered.