Leadership Journal

I was ecstatic. I never thought I'd become a senior pastor so soon. I was a youth pastor who had just been asked to be a candidate for senior pastor at the church I was serving.

The news of the congregational vote bowled my wife, Jan, and me over. Who would have thought our dreams would arrive so soon?

But the dream was reality. Jan and I were given the keys to a huge, old, two-story, red-brick parsonage right in the center of the church parking lot. The main floor had tons of space for entertaining, and upstairs were four bedrooms, including a nursery all decked out, with baby-specific wallpaper and miniature hangers waiting for infant outfits.

We looked around and said to each other, "Great! We'll fill this place up with kids." The same thought was on other people's minds. They dropped little hints: "Isn't it wonderful—you're a young couple, you've got this big parsonage, all these rooms … "

Translation: "Okay, get going, you two."

A year went by, then two, then three. No baby, in spite of our trying. Four years, five years …

Young women in the church who'd been married only a year would sometimes phone Jan: "Every month I'm not getting pregnant, and I'm so upset!" She would calmly reply, "Well, guess what—we've been married five years, and no results either."

We weren't desperate; we assured each other that God would give us a child in his timing. Meanwhile, Jan sang in the choir, led a children's choir with another woman, hosted a weekly growth group in our home, and often invited the young people to Sunday night blasts in the parsonage.

As I moved into my thirties, and Jan was now 28, people in the church kept mentioning a fertility specialist, the son-in-law of a former pastor, so we scheduled an appointment. On our first visit, Jan and I sat in the waiting room, surrounded by babydom. Every hallway in the office suite was plastered with pictures of smiling infants. There was a special collage of all the children this doctor had helped into the world—baby pictures by the dozen, even some twins.

Following the examination and some testing, we were ushered into an office for a summary. The young, confidant doctor folded his hands and pronounced, "Well, you came to the right place. You'll definitely have a baby."

He put Jan on a high dosage of Clomid, assuring her, "I've had patients who have taken much less of this, and they're parents today. You'll be pregnant any time now."

To the medications were added charts for tracking morning body temperatures, the request for sperm samples to analyze, and other procedures known all too well by those struggling to conceive.

Meanwhile, Jan's two sisters were happily having more children—an eventual total of four in the one case, two in the other. Jan and I had talked about someday naming a daughter Julie, in honor of my mother. Finally Jan's younger sister used the name for her newborn. The implication was obvious.

Over time, the awkward mechanics of trying ...