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Can you imagine how they felt? The pressure to carry on the covenant of God must have been overwhelming. They probably stayed away from relatives and community functions for years. I can just hear Isaac's friends telling him to leave the field for a couple of weeks and go hunt some game. Or suggesting he just needed to loosen the cloth around his loins for a while. And I can imagine Rebekah's friends telling her to stop worrying so much and to make sure that she tried all the latest conception strategies and positions. 

The Bible doesn't give us much detail about their 20-year wait, but we do know that Isaac petitioned God (prayed with urgency) on behalf of Rebekah, and the prayer was eventually answered with the birth of twins, Esau and Jacob. From this story I saw an example of patience and trust that God's ways are the best ways, no matter what. Again, this patriarchal narrative played out in an eerily similar manner in our own story as Angie and I started our family by adopting twin boys, one of which (the younger, of course) we named Jacob.

The third couple I studied was Jacob and Rachel. Jacob was blessed with ten sons by his first wife, Leah, and two of the maids, but because Rachel was barren, the couple was neither content nor blessed. And the entire family system was in chaos because of their pain and obsession. Although Rachel did finally get her own sons, the second one cost her everything. She died during Benjamin's birth.

The Lord used the narrative of Jacob, my favorite hero, to challenge my perspective. Would I be so consumed with the desire for a biological child that anything short of our own conception would bring depression and despondency? Would my lack of contentment destroy the gifts of joy and encouragement that He had blessed me with, but which I was starting to withhold and deny?

Unbelievably, after the adoption of our twins, Angie became pregnant for the first time. But the celebration turned into fear and anxiety as Angie became very sick in the third trimester. Pre-eclampsia ravaged her body. Her kidneys started to shut down and her blood pressure soared. At her seven-month check-up she was admitted to the hospital so she could receive around-the-clock care. As we waited for the drugs to prepare both Angie and our baby for a premature birth, Angie's body gave out. One early morning she suffered three quick and progressive hemorrhages as her placenta ripped from the uterine wall.

An emergency C-section brought Alivia into the world with only four minutes to spare before a lack of blood flow would have resulted in long-term brain damage for our baby. Moreover, Angie fully recovered with no additional side effects other than extreme exhaustion. Though we had not planned the pregnancy, I too almost lost my "Rachel" for the child I'd so longed for.

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