Stories of Faith

When it came to wanting children, the Hofers decided to wait five years until they would start trying.

“Then we woke up one day and realized how important it was for us to have kids. It is so important to have a legacy to pass on to your children, not with things, but passing our relationship with God to them.”

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“We both went into the marriage not sure if we wanted to have kids,” Charles said.

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The couple first got pregnant in 2019 and suffered a miscarriage several weeks into the first trimester. They got pregnant again in 2020 and 13 weeks in, suffered their second miscarriage. The third miscarriage came in 2021.

“It didn’t take us long to get pregnant the first time, so it never crossed our minds that we wouldn’t have a baby,” Sarah said. “I had always had this feeling on my heart that I was going to have multiples, so we went into this process thinking that was going to happen. Of course, we would have been okay with one, but we never prepared ourselves for none.”
The second time was the most difficult for Sarah.

“To make it 13 weeks and to not have an answer as to why,” Sarah said. “You can see where God’s plan is going, but the other part is like, why? Why does it have to be like this? We knew we were headed towards a fertility doctor. Charles got to a point where he said, we aren’t doing this anymore.”

Sarah was conflicted during that time in dealing with her pain, both mentally and physically.

“It was a weird feeling,” Sarah said. “For me to be angry at God meant I was not okay with His plan. I just had to choke it down and swallow it. I was hurt, but I would just pick myself back up and say okay, let’s do this again.”

At one point, Charles and Sarah developed a back-up plan. They were going to sell everything they owned, buy a camper and travel the world if they didn’t have any children in five years. This plan served as a distraction for the couple as they were going through the process.

The Hofers found out they were pregnant with the twins early in 2022 after Sarah was dealing with some strong pregnancy symptoms. Typically, you don’t have an ultrasound until the seventh week, but due to Sarah’s symptoms, they went in a week early and as soon as the screen was pulled up, the doctor said, “you have twins”.

“I just had to tell myself that whatever God had planned was better than anything I could have imagined,” Sarah said. “I had already seen it in so many things in our life. I knew He had His plan.”

During the pregnancy, the doctor wanted to see Sarah every two weeks because she was deemed a high-risk pregnancy. That is exactly what Sarah needed.

“I would be fine until the day before the appointment and then I would start freaking out,” Sarah said. “My blood pressure would go up and when I would get there all I wanted to know was if they were still alive. That is how it was until my pregnancy app told me the babies would be viable if they were born today, which was the 27th week.”

It was a difficult time for Charles, as he watched his wife go through such struggle, but he always kept faith in the Lord.

“I didn’t like seeing her go through that,” Charles said. “Prayer was huge for me. There were hard times. It was hard to see that process and not have any fruit from it. Sarah was reassuring me for a while. She kept saying this is going to happen.”

Charles’ parents moved down to Tulsa from South Dakota to help, which was much needed and a major blessing.

On top of having both sets of grandparents in the same city and ready and willing to help in any way they could, Charles’ company had recently doubled their paternity leave from six to 12 weeks and then they gave Charles another two weeks since he had twins.

“He allowed us to see that and it calmed us. It was like He was giving us little nuggets to help us get through it. One thing that sticks out to me once Daniel and Kaylee were born is, you truly don’t get the perspective of how God sees His children until you have a child and that is huge to me.”

Sarah said the first eight months have been a blur.

“They are amazing. I still look at them and think, God made you through me. The days are definitely long, but the years are short. There have been moments when I have just broken down. Everyone is hungry, everyone is crying, everyone is pooping and tired, but then you realize it will pass. We couldn’t have done it without so much help.”

Sarah said the best thing people could do for her when she was going through all the hard times was to just be available.

“Knowing that there are other people out there who have gone through it,” Sarah said. “So many people were there for me, and understood what I was going through. They would offer advice, but the biggest thing they would say was ask me, how can I pray for you? What do you need? Knowing that if I needed to ask or wanted to talk about it was such a blessing from the Lord during tough times.”

Prayer was the key to getting through some of the most challenging times.
“There were times where it was hard to pray,” Sarah said. “But there were times that is all we could do along the way. I think through prayer is where God gives you some answers and some of the little nuggets along the way to help you get through it. We are told to pray, but you have to listen. If we are constantly talking, we don’t ever have the chance to hear Him.”

Charles added that family has been a big help along the way.

“For us to have a lot of family around and available, that was great for us,” Charles said. “I know that is not always possible for everyone, but that was huge for us. From the first baby until the twins, the commonality was prayer, family and church support. It’s important to not isolate yourself.”

Sarah said it is vital to talk about it, not just with God, but other people as well.

“It allows you to heal. The more I was able to talk about it, the more I allowed myself to heal.”

In their living room, they have newborn photos of Daniel and Kaylee with the same verse on both frames …

“For this child I have prayed, and the Lord has granted me the desires of my heart.” – 1 Samuel 1:27