My Story, His Glory

Hello again friends! So, I mentioned in 'My Word for 2025' post that I am pregnant {I am currently 31 weeks with about 9 weeks left to go.} Long time readers of mine know about my extensive struggle with infertility as I have written about it on occasion and know just how huge of a blessing and miracle this is. I had really thought I would write about it before now, when there is only 2 months left in my pregnancy. Regardless, I am excited to be able to share in more detail the great things God did through this huge testimony.

Where do I even start, friends? It all feels like it was yesterday... and yet a lifetime ago. I guess I should start with this new place that God has planted me, the place that is now not so new. God had moved us from Japan all the way back to the states in the summer of 2023. To be honest, I didn't want to leave Japan. My only consolation for this move was that we would be able to see family more often. Even so, we were moving about as far away from family as we could get while being in the same country. Because of this, I remember not being very happy about the new duty station upon finding out. Man, if past Ashley had only known half the goodness God had for her here...

Let's step back even further for a minute. Some of you may know that while in Japan we found out a lot about my health. I wrote about it while going through my kneel journey (where I challenged myself to physically get on my knees every single day for 30 days). During that time I had an MRI where they found a pituitary gland tumor. It is benign, something I was born with, and is the sole cause for my infertility, as well as a couple other hormone imbalances. With this knowledge, I was able to get on medication that solved the other hormone imbalances I had, but there was no fertility specialists that I could see in Japan that didn't require lots of money and an interpreter.

Upon moving here though, we found that we didn't even have to leave the base to see a reproductive endocrinologist. There was one on base that, because treatments are for the purpose of teaching, would be completely covered by our insurance. After seeking God's wisdom, we got an appointment as soon as we could.

I want to take a moment here to point out how God knew what He was doing when He decided to move us here. Out of all the military bases in the world, only 8 provide this. Only 8 and my God had moved us to one. This makes me look back at my hesitance about moving here, shake my head, and quote Jesus, "You of little faith..." The blessings don't end there, my friends. Not only were the appointments covered by insurance, but the expensive fertility injections they started me on the following summer were also covered. By my research, if we had paid for them, they would have costed us at least 10,000 dollars.

In the spring, before starting the injections, I was given an awesome opportunity - to be a guest speaker at my new church's women's event. I asked the kind lady organizing it if I could have time to pray and she generously gave me as long as I would need. My friends, I have to be honest, this opportunity scared the daylights out of me. Sure I'd been putting my thoughts into words for a few years via this blog, but I had never stood up and given a speech in front of a room of people outside of school. To be honest, I wanted in my flesh to refuse it, to be let off the hook, but I had a feeling in my spirit that this was from God.

Instinctively, or rather, led by the Holy Spirit to do so, I didn't labor in prayer over it. I had always labored in prayer, bringing Him what I wanted an answer to multiple times a day. Not this time. This time I laid it at His feet only once and left it there. I knew He would make it apparent what He wanted me to do. A week later, He answered, not with a 'yes' or 'no' like I expected, but with a concept of what to speak on. I knew then, I was meant to do this. I was called to do it. And friends, I was terrified to do it.

God wanted me to speak on our identity in Christ with a few of my testimonies weaved through. When I started composing my speech, I had no intention on speaking about my infertility, but I was letting Him lead and His intentions were different than my own. This story ended up being a huge part of my speech.

In the weeks leading up to the event, I kept drifting between feeling His peace, knowing that what I had written out was from Him and that He was leading me to do this, and fear, unsure if the girl who once was so shy even had the ability to do this. Looking back now, it's obvious to me that the girl wasn't capable, but God who was working through her was.

During these bouts of uncertainty, God began to give me an image that made the fear flee. Just like how Peter had stepped off of the boat and walked out to meet Jesus who was standing on the water in Matthew 14, in this image, I could see myself walking on the water, in faith, toward Jesus. He told me that as long as I kept my eyes on Him while walking out His plan, I wouldn't sink or fail. This gave me so much comfort.

Up on that stage, in front of all those women, I gave the speech the Lord gave me, and whenever I got nervous, I imagined Jesus in the back of the sanctuary and I would focus on Him. My friends, I gave this speech, which included the testimony of my heartbreaking battle with infertility, almost one month before I became pregnant.

If you would have told me that this would happen before I gave my speech, I would have not believed you. It happened though. After only one round of the fertility injections, I was pregnant. When I took the test, I honestly thought it was wrong. Maybe the factory messed up a batch and accidently put two control lines in there. They were the same color, so I figured that a real 'positive' line be paler in comparison to the control line. Now, I can't help but shake my head at my past self once again.

I didn't tell many people about my pregnancy at the beginning, but I did tell a friend at church who had been praying. I mentioned my speech and testimony, how it had not even been a month beforehand. "It was so all the glory would go to God," she said, smiling. She hit the nail on the head! This miracle, this child, this testimony... it's all for His glory and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Despite the hard things that came with the fertility treatments, the uncertainty, the bruises on my stomach at the injection sites, the stinging sensation every night as we injected the medication, despite all of that, what a blessing it was that I got to pray during the whole process. I got to see the follicles grow at the weekly doctor's exams and I got to ask God to choose the follicle that He wanted to be my future child. I got to see the life that would become my son before the Lord had breathed that life and made it grow from a cell, to a heartbeat, to a full on baby. And I got to worship during it all. During the process of every shot, I would sing the chorus of 'Make Room' by Community Music and The Church Will Sing - "I will make room for you... to do whatever you want to... to do whatever you want to." It felt good to surrender it - to leave it in His hands instead of carrying it.

After the news, I began to see more ways of how God's timing was perfect. I won't go into detail of them all. Many are personal and I know there are many I have yet to see, but I do want to mention the presence of the number seven in His timing. The number seven in scripture is the number of completion and God uses numbers all throughout the Bible in very specific ways. Because of this, I believe He uses them in our lives too. As for me:

• I got pregnant in the 7th year of trying.

• I got pregnant in July, the 7th month of the year.

• I am due in the year '25 - if you add 2 and 5 together you get seven.

• All together I got 21 fertility shots. The number 21 is divisible by the number 7 three times. Funny enough, three is also a Biblical number.

• I got to hear his heartbeat for the first time at exactly 7 weeks pregnant.

Now, I can't help but look back at it all in wonder - to look at just how God's timing played out, from the MRI discovery during a time that I was practicing surrender in a physical way, to now with my son currently moving and kicking inside of me. I'm reminded of how, during my kneel challenge, I had surrendered a lot of things to God, including the pain of not being able to become pregnant. Of course there was still a scar, but the pain was gone.

I am starting to realize that I needed to surrender the circumstance to Him before the ball could start rolling on His plan to give me a child. Otherwise, my heart would not have been in the right place to receive it the way He wanted me to - to appreciate it fully and give HIM the glory for it.