Of God, Faith and Understanding

 Dellaina and I first started dating in November, 1991. We knew immediately that we each had met our mate for life and wanted to begin starting a family as soon as possible. We were married on July 24, 1993 and as you can expect, started to try for a baby. After about 6 months, we began to worry that something was wrong and spoke with a Dr about fertility. We were encouraged to attempt the basil body temperature approach before we began any other form of treatment. We tried this for a few cycles and had no success. Even more concerning was that Dellaina was not having regular cycles and actually only menstruated one or two times a year.

Our next step was clomid. Clomid is supposed to induce ovulation so we thought this may be our answer to the months of infertility. After trying this for four cycles, we had reached the max amount of clomid allowable and still no ovulation. The Dr. then suggested doing a laparoscopy to which we agreed. It was determined that Dellaina had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and had endometriosis so bad that her left ovary was fused to her rectum. The Dr. took the opportunity while doing the laparoscopy to clean up the endometriosis as much as possible and showed concern that the ability to conceive may be reduced considerably due to only having one working ovary.
The Dr. then prescribed Provera combined with Clomid to attempt to induce ovulation. After trying this for a few more cycles, we began to get very discouraged and I have to admit, I lost hope for a bit. We looked at possibly trying to get a surrogate to finally achieve a pregnancy and eventually have a baby of our own. We also looked in to In Vetro Fertilization (IVF) but found that the procedure was well beyond our financial means and was out of the question. Time passed and we pained over the inability to have a child of our own. We also began to rationalize that it was meant to be. I had brought in two boys in to our relationship from my first marriage and had full custody of them. Marcus and Michael were 4 and 1 respectively when Dellaina and I began dating and she was the only mother they knew or would remember. We reserved ourselves to the possibility that God gave us Marcus and Michael knowing that we would be unable to conceive, so we gave up trying for a bit.
In June of 2001 I had the great fortune of landing a job with Walmart as an assistant manager. My career moved very quickly and I was a store manager within 3 years. The game changer for us was that I now receive a compensation that was well beyond anything I had ever made before and we had a nice bonus structure for stores that succeeded well through both sales and profit. We were fortunate to have good stores with great associates that helped us achieve some very high goals and found ourselves in a position to be able to afford an attempt at IVF. We were in Rensselaer Indiana and looked for a good fertility doctor and found one in Merrillville Indiana named Dr Pratt. She was an expert in her field and had a very high success rate.
Dr Pratt ran some tests, performed an ultrasound and also administered another laparoscopy. This is the first strange occurrence that we had in our journey. After the laparoscopy, Dr Pratt told us there was no evidence of endometriosis or any previous issues evident through the lack of scarring in Dellaina’s uterus. More importantly, Dellaina’s left ovary was totally functional. Dellaina and I were both very surprised at her findings and were again hopeful that we may conceive. We wanted to begin the process immediately and were sent home with medication to induce ovulation and prepare Dellaina’s body for the procedures that lay ahead. I had the joy of injecting Dellaina with her meds twice a day at home and help us to get ready. When the time was right, Dr Pratt harvested Dellaina’s eggs and found twenty eggs that had potential. Of these eggs fifteen fertilized and twelve eggs began to grow.
We attempted our first IVF in the spring of 2004. The procedure was very quick and then we had the long wait to get the call from the Drs office to let us know if the eggs took. We spent the days waiting by imagining what our baby would look like and praying that we would conceive. Then we got the call, the eggs did not take and we had to start over again. I cannot even begin to let you know how this hurt in us both. We know we did not conceive, but it felt like we lost a child.
Spring of 2005 we made another attempt, then 2006, and 2007. Each time got harder and harder to accept. We cried, we fought and I cursed God. The pain was so bad and I wondered why God would do this to us. Were we being punished for our younger years and the trouble we both had caused? Why and how can this be fair? In 2009 we had heard of another procedure called Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIG), and its use in conjunction with IVF to promote pregnancy. We found a Doctor in Chicago, Doctor Carolyn Coulam that wrote books on the procedure and has been a world renowned Doctor in her field for 30 years. We were so excited to give this a try. We attempted the procedure which required us to drive to Chicago to for a weekly injection to help sustain the eggs in Dellaina’s belly. We were excited to find that this time the eggs took….we were pregnant with twins. At our 6 week appointment, Dr Coulam did an ultra sound and could not find the embryos. And it was concluded that we had lost the pregnancy. Prior to this day, we had moved back to Bay City Michigan and had the long drive from Chicago to Bay City crying over our loss.
That was the final straw for us. We couldn’t take this rollercoaster ride anymore. We reached such highs and joy and then were driven down by such deep depressing information. We couldn’t do it anymore. This would be our last attempt. These emotions were tearing us apart both internally and martially. I wasn’t sure how much more we could bear. There were moments of pain that were so bad that it more than once nearly ended our marriage.
Shortly after our last attempt and the pain that followed, my sister Rose had asked us about possibly fostering to adopt a brother and sister. The Boy was 4 and his sister was a newborn. We were reluctant to get involved because if it did not work out, we were sure to get hurt again. After much deliberation, we decided to give it a go. We received our Foster care license and began to build a relationship with the two new children in our lives. Unfortunately, due to laws, I cannot speak much about this. I can only say that after nearly two years of building this bond and expecting an adoption, this too was not to be. God had another plan for these children and we were left again in deep pain and with a big hole where they once were. So again, we struggled as a couple. But this time, we saw a different light.
Through all of these issues, one thing remained clear. We had done much good in other areas. We raised Marcus and Michael to adulthood and they are great kids. We had the opportunity to help raise my sister’s three children whom we are still very close to today and we had the chance to be involved in another sisters two boys lives. And we also helped raise another nephew. All these things have merit of their own and we are proud that we could give so much to them all. But with all of this, we still had a desire to have a child that we conceived together.
Then on Dec 20, 2001, we received a call from Adoption Specialist (our agency that we worked through) and asked if we would be willing to pick up a little 4 year old girl from Charlotte. They could not find a local home to place her in and the current foster family was opting out of an adoption. We briefly talked it over and found ourselves driving to Charlotte to pick up this little 4 year old. We were told that she is ready for adoption and that the courts had already terminated the parental rights and if we decided we wanted to adopt her, they could start the ball rolling. We brought her home and immediately fell in love with her. She was full of joy and happy all the time. Not once did she cry in fear of seeing a new home. Isabell and I bonded almost immediately. She was the answer to our prayers, a little girl of our own that we could love and raise together. The adoption was finalized August of 2013 and we thought that our family was complete.
In March 2015, while in church, Isabell had expressed her desire to have a little sister. Her actual words were, “Mom, I don’t care how you do it, but I want a little sister”. Dellaina approached me with this and asked what I thought about fostering to adopt another little girl. Our biggest concern was that we got very lucky with Isabell, would our next be this good or would she be a handful and corrupt Isabell. We had a nice little happy family and I wasn’t sure I wanted to rock the small boat my family was in with another child.
We had a trip planned to Disney World Florida and thought we can use this time to decide what we wanted to do. The trip to Disney was refreshing and we had a clearer mind now and were contemplating the possibility of adoption again. After our return home, one of our nephews had a baseball game in Kentucky. I couldn’t go, but Dellaina and Isabell took the trip to cheer him on. Upon her return Dellaina began complaining about pains in her stomach. We of coarse feared the worse, was it cancer? So Dellaina made an appointment with her doctor immediately.
The Doctor said that before he did anything, he wanted to be safe and verify Dellaina wasn’t pregnant. She had to pee on a pregnancy stick and wait for the results. The Doctor came back and said, well you are pregnant. Dellaina didn’t believe him and was in denial at first. Then it sank in, it was really happening. She called me at work and said, “Mark I need you home right now”. I feared there was something very wrong and pleaded with her to tell me what is wrong. She began to cry and said “I am pregnant”! Then as you can imagine, I began to cry.
Things were going great, then week 18 hit us like a brick. I was in Colorado at a company meeting and I received a call from Dellaina that she was being admitted to the hospital and that her cervix was short and in danger of miscarrying the baby. Worry then set in again. Why would we go through all this and then lose our baby again. They put a cerclage in and placed Dellaina on bed rest and saw her weekly to check her progress. During her procedure I spent at least a half hour in the hospital chapel praying to God, asking him to please have mercy on us and our baby. The Doctors said that if we made it to week 27 they would be surprised. Week 27 passed, then 28, 29, 30, 31 and so on and things seemed to be going great. Dellaina carried all the way to week 38 and gave birth to Gabriella Love Torres on Dec 19, 2015.
So why do I title this Of God, Faith and Understanding? First, things happen in God’s time. He has a plan for us and we need only open our eyes and hearts to him to understand that what he does may not seem fair, but is for the best. Second, knowing the first will be, have faith that God is there for you and is there to comfort you. You need only ask and let him in to your heart. And last, understanding, we cannot always see or agree with things that happen, but we must understand that we are only a small part of a larger plan. Please let me explain in my life how I see this.
If Dellaina and I would have conceived immediately way back in 1993, would the relationship that Dellaina has with Marcus and Michael be as strong as it is and would Marcus and Michael have the love and understanding of mother that they have now? The struggles of the failed IVF cycles tested our marriage but in the end, strengthened our marriage beyond all belief. If we would have conceived in these attempts, we would not have the opportunity to help raise my nephews and nieces and help instill in them the values that they have today. Not that they only hold our values, but that the values we taught supplement the values of their family. And the brother and sister we nearly adopted, we did give them something as well as they gave us the ability to love and care for children again. But had we adopted them, where would Isabell be right now? Isabell taught us to love again and to enjoy life and gave us the courage to follow through with this pregnancy with optimism and a hope for a new life to add to our family. And or course Gabriella is the final leg in our journey. We have found that through God we can achieve many things.
Dellaina and I thank you for reading this story and hope that it brings you all joy and those whom have not conceived, hope that you too can be blessed with a miracle. God has a plan, have and keep your faith and understand there is a reason for everything that occurs in our life.

May God Bless you all,