Last season on
Bringing Up Bates,
Michael (Bates) Keilen and Brandon Keilen opened up about their struggles with infertility. Just yesterday, Michael shared that her inability to conceive has taken a toll. The Keilens will celebrate their two-year anniversary in August.
Michael has been smitten with Brandon from day one, telling him when he proposed that she had wanted to marry him from the moment they first met. The couple is very happy together as young marrieds, and they are beyond grateful to God for bringing them together, but Michael admits that she still has a deep desire to be a mother.
The oldest daughter of Gil and Kelly Bates, Michael has possessed a love for children from a young age.
“Everyone in the family has always predicted and said Michael is going to be the one that has a really, super large family," Kelly tells viewers during the recent "Doggy Dilemmas" episode. "She loves children. She rejoices when another person is pregnant as much as we do, but at the same time…there’s got to be that feeling of, ‘I wish I could be pregnant and join them.’”
After marrying Brandon in August 2015 and graduating from Roane State Community College the following spring, Michael began to wonder why she hadn't yet gotten pregnant. She had tests done, and the doctors told her not to give the subject any more thought until she had been married a year.
Following the Keilens' one-year anniversary, they visited a specialist, who ran further tests but was still unable to find a solution.
"Night after night, I cried myself to sleep and felt like all my dreams and desires were shattered," Michael
writes on her website. "Each night, Brandon held me close and let me cry until I had no more tears. He prayed with me and assured me that God had a plan and knew what He was doing. Yet, I had become so focused on the one thing I didn’t have that I was doubting God and His goodness."
On one particular night, when Michael's heartache was very great, Brandon shared words of encouragement that spoke to the deepest parts of her heart.
"Brandon encouraged me to be honest with God and ask for His grace to trust again,"
Michael writes. "As I began asking God to help me see Him again and to give me grace to trust, He started changing my heart. As I searched for verses and meditated on who God is, my perspective changed. Not only has God shown me His hand of provision on the medical side of this walk (finding doctors, searching for answers, providing finances), He also has allowed me to see how this time has knit our hearts together as a couple. Even greater still, God has allowed me to see a glimpse of Him. The fellowship I’ve had with my Heavenly Father is unlike anything I dreamed possible. He truly has become my everything, and I’m learning that no matter what situation or circumstance life throws at me, Jesus Christ is the only one that can fully satisfy."
Michael admits that she still struggles and that her tears flow often, but in the midst of the pain, she has a peace that surpasses all understanding, knowing that God can be trusted no matter what.
Photo courtesy brandonandmichaela.com
