14 years waiting for the promise

There I was, lying on the hospital bed. Wim sat at my feet, and my best friend was seated to my left. It was 2:00 p.m., and the doctor told me I could start pushing. Almost effortlessly, after fifty minutes, she arrived our little girl. The moment she was placed on my chest, I knew: her name is Mannah. It meant “God provides.” At least, that’s what it meant in the dream I had back in 2012. Although I often dream about things that happened during the day, this dream was different. I knew this might very well have been a dream from God, so I wrote it down.

Jesus as our foundation

Two years earlier, Wim and I had stood on a pier in Elburg to begin the day together with God. The day our wedding day on which we would give our yes to each other and to God. That intimate moment, and the ceremony later that day, were deeply important to us. Jesus is the foundation of our marriage. We didn’t want to walk into marriage without Him.

The registrar phrased it a bit differently, but we knew for certain that many challenges and uncertainties would come our way in married life. In all of that, we wanted to keep finding our security in Him. At that moment, we had no idea that fourteen (uncertain) years would pass before our longing for a child and His promises about it would be fulfilled.

The first years went by without a single positive pregnancy test. Every New Year’s Eve, we spoke out our hope and expectation again: that our family would grow. We knew this desire was close to God’s heart. “Be fruitful and multiply,” God says in His Word. Yet despite that conviction, there were tears. There were questions. And it always felt bittersweet when friends or acquaintances announced their pregnancies.

In 2016 we finally decided to take the step to the GP and the hospital. Tests followed. The conclusion was confronting. There were indeed abnormalities, giving us only a 0.4% chance of conceiving naturally…

We knew God wanted to bless us with a child. But how that remained the question for many years. How?

Mustard seeds of faith

At one point, the hospital’s conclusion echoed again in Wim’s mind: 0.4% chance… He stared upward, and the ceiling turned completely black. “Is this You, Lord?” he asked from his heart. He received a vision. The blackness was not only a color it was empty and dark, exactly how he felt at that moment. As he continued staring at the lifeless ceiling, he suddenly heard the laughter of two babies. The ceiling became like an X‑ray screen, and he saw the children crawling on it. He saw two little hands, two little feet and on the other side another pair of each. A boy and a girl.

Once again, we were encouraged. God remains faithful to His promise, and it is up to us to hold on to it. Even if we have only tiny mustard seeds of faith, we are responsible to guard that seed well. To remove the weeds that can choke the Word. To keep turning our attention to what God is speaking to us!

Wim searched the Bible countless times for passages about (in)fertility and God’s miracles in this area. For me, the piano became the place where I sought God again and again where I expressed my heart to Him and listened for His words. We also gathered people around us who were willing to pray with us and believe for a miracle.

Obstacles on the road

Several years later, new (literal) bumps appeared on the road: fibroids in my uterus and upper abdomen. Many hospital visits followed. Each time, we sat in the fertility clinic waiting room with a knot in our stomachs. The heaviness there was often tangible for us. We wanted to stay in a place of hope and faith as much as possible. The waiting room formed a stark contrast to that.

That doesn’t mean we were against medical intervention. We told the gynecologist (who was also a fertility specialist) that he was free to challenge us in every conversation. While we continued to expect a miracle from God, we didn’t want to become blind to the route He might use. Every hospital appointment became a new checkpoint: “Lord, what do You want us to do?” We would only follow the advice for IVF/ICSI if we both truly sensed God’s peace about it. Peace was our compass for every step we took.

Because the fibroids in my upper abdomen were becoming a painful obstacle, a major abdominal surgery followed. The doctor we had spoken with so often performed the surgery himself. Our agreement with him was clear: we want to keep the uterus! So he would not cut into it. Although we continued praying that the fibroids in my uterus would miraculously disappear in the years that followed, they are unfortunately still there. But we had overcome another hurdle on our journey.

New encouragements

Just before the surgery (in January 2023), we received another encouragement from God. Wim was listening to sermons on an online platform when he received a prophetic word from someone in America. She didn’t know us or our story, but she shared an image with us.

She saw Wim with a child on his lap. “I see you holding a daughter in your arms. In the natural. And it is something that will happen in the future,” she said (with a few more words). Such a word can feel vulnerable both to speak and to receive but for us it was a huge encouragement. It was fresh water on the (mustard) seed we were trying to keep alive.

A long period of recovery followed, during which the fertile soil lay fallow for a while. Until the end of 2024, when Wim spent several days praying and fasting again also for the child. He was convinced: it will happen this year. When my period came again in December, it hit hard. We rented a small cottage to spend a weekend alone and process it. Another Christmas and New Year’s passed without being able to toast to the long‑awaited miracle.

A new year

When my next period didn’t come, our expectations honestly didn’t rise much. Being “late” doesn’t necessarily mean anything at least, not in our experience. So we postponed taking a pregnancy test for a few more days, until that Wednesday morning, January 15, 2025. While Wim was still in bed, I stared in quiet amazement at the lines appearing on the test. Pregnant!! Calmly, I asked Wim to come. We took another test together and were completely overwhelmed and deeply grateful. Our little miracle had begun to grow in 2024 after all!

The extra test a few days later, and the ultrasounds that followed, confirmed it again and again: God is faithful, and we would soon meet our little daughter. Because yes the gender ultrasound showed what we had already received in a dream, a vision, and a prophetic word: we were expecting a girl!

And now, as we have sung and prayed so often on this journey, we give thanks:
“God of Abraham, You have proven through the ages: Your promises stand firm. Through all the years, what You said is what You did; You never left us alone. Great is Your faithfulness to me, O Lord!” (Opwekking 874)