Yeah, I made it to two entries! Ok, now that I have that out of my system, many of you (as though I had hundreds of fans reading my online journal – who am I kidding, I’m no JennyCam) urr, where was I…oh yeah, many of you do not know the struggles Stephanie and I went through to get Baby Zander. So, I am posting our testimony here:
Stephanie was informally diagnosed with Endometriosis shortly after we were married. To be formally diagnosed, she would have had to have surgery. Her doctor put her on the pill to regulate the symptoms of the disease. Over the first few years of our marriage, her doctor changed the brand, and dose of these hormones to stay ahead of the disease, but after three years the pill was becoming more and more ineffective and Stephanie was missing menstruation cycles altogether. Her doctor gave her two choices: get pregnant or have surgery. We decided to start trying for a baby even though we were not financially where we wanted to be.
Stephanie’s doctor put her on fertility drugs on November of 2002 in an attempt to regulate the symptoms of Endometriosis so that we could try to conceive. After several months of missed menstruation cycles but no pregnancy, her doctor put her on one drug to get her to ovulate and another to start her menstruation cycle. In March of 2003, her doctor was concerned that we were still not pregnant and advised us to schedule surgery. We believed God would intervene in our situation, and rejected surgery as an option. Stephanie asked the doctor to give us one more month. We had been trying for four months without results and her doctor was concerned that the Endometriosis was severe but agreed to push surgery off one more month, adding the statement – “Stephanie, we both know what church you go to, and we have both seen the things God has done there.”
We knew if we could just get one of the Elders of the church to pray for us, we would conceive. Wednesday night April 23rd 2003, Bro. Gilkey prayed for us stating in his prayer that Stephanie was “ordained and appointed” to be a mom. Stephanie took the pregnancy test five times to be sure, but the results from the first test she took on Monday April 28th never changed, we were pregnant! Nine months later, Baby Alexander Dale was born and all symptoms of Endometriosis are gone. We believe it was the anointing of WHC and Bro Gilkey’s prayer that brought us this miracle baby.
God never goes half way – I was very concerned about our finances. Since November of 2002, God provided me with a healthy sized raise, allowed us to move from our condo on the west side of town to a three bedroom house just 3 miles from the church, gave us a renter for the condo so that we could continue to earn equity and gain the investment, and Stephanie was able to quit her job, become a house wife, and is now a stay at home mom! God is good to His children!