If you’re reading this right now, chances are you know exactly what it feels like to stand at a fork in the road. Maybe a doctor has recommended IUI. Maybe IVF has been presented as your “best option.” And somewhere underneath all the medical language and the charts and the statistics, there’s a quiet question you keep bringing back to God: Is this the path You’re leading me down?

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The Book of Ruth

When we think of Ruth, fertility rarely comes to mind. But if you read her story closely, something quietly significant surfaces: she was married for 10 years and never had a child. In a culture where bearing children was everything — where a son carried the family name and a daughter was a gift — Ruth lived through a decade of that longing going unmet.

We don’t know exactly what she was wrestling with emotionally or spiritually in those years. But I think we can imagine, can’t we? Because that’s the very longing so many of us carry right now.

Then came her fork in the road. Her husband died. Naomi was returning home. And Ruth had to choose: stay in the familiar, or follow the God she had come to love into the unknown. She chose the unknown. She chose faithfulness. She chose God even when it was hard and scary and nothing was guaranteed.

And what came next? God rewrote her story in a way she never could have imagined. She married Boaz, the guardian redeemer. She became a mother. And her grandson? King David. Her name is forever written in the lineage of Jesus Christ himself.

God knew that whole story before Ruth lived a single day of it. He knew every childless year. He knew every tear. And He knew exactly what He had planned for her on the other side.

He knows yours too.

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Before You Book That Appointment: A Gentle Pause

I want to gently ask you something. If IUI or IVF is being recommended and you have not yet walked through the path of understanding your cycle, identifying root hormonal causes, and working toward natural restoration… I’m asking you to pause before you say yes.

Women’s healthcare is roughly 20 years behind in research and training. The things that could actually give you the answers you’ve been praying for — cycle tracking, hormone health, restorative care — are simply not what most doctors are trained to offer. That’s not their fault. But it means the responsibility falls to us to ask different questions and seek different answers.

If you’ve already walked that road and you’re still in the waiting, I see you. And I want to remind you that a sabbath from trying is not giving up. A sabbath is a sacred act of trusting that God is working even when we are still.

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Praying Through the Decision

When I talk to women who are prayerfully considering IUI or IVF, I always ask: are you feeling peace, or are you feeling pressure? Those are two very different internal compasses.

Peace is a calm, settled stillness even in the midst of uncertainty. Pressure is that anxious urgency: I’m running out of time. What if I miss my window? What if I’m not trusting God enough?

If it’s pressure driving you, I encourage you to take a breath. Take a month. Take a sabbath. Sit with the Lord, with your husband, and with the question. Ask God to make your next step abundantly clear.

And if IVF is on the table, take time to really think through and pray through what it means. The embryo conversation is a weighty one, and it deserves your full heart and full prayer, not just a medical checklist.

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God Knows Your Whole Story

Just as He knew Ruth’s, He knows yours. He’s known it from the moment you were conceived in your mother’s womb. He’s known the hard days and the long years and the questions that felt like they had no answers. And He knows what’s ahead for you even when you can’t see it.

Twenty years from now, I believe you’re going to look back and say: that’s what He had in mind. And I pray you’ll be glad you stayed close to Him in this season, even when it was hard. Especially when it was hard.

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