I Watched the Culmination of a Miracle

By Rabbi Levi Gansburg, Director of Chabad on Bayview in Toronto, Ontario

Jamie and Haley, a young couple in my community, came to my study on January 12, 2020 with the hopes that my wife Rivky and I can offer them support and guidance. They opened up to us about their painful journey of trying to become parents. After numerous years of pursuing fertility treatments, their doctor has now guided them to pursue surrogacy as their best option to starting a family.

Listening to their journey was heartbreaking. But I knew -as the Rebbe taught- that the pursuit of the scientific journey must be coupled with a spiritual one as well.

As a follow-up to our meeting, I sent them an email. “You guys are strong and courageous in your quest to bring a child into this world!” I wrote. “I’m sure we will see happy results shortly . . . as we spoke, I really feel that a spiritual push will hopefully contribute to turning around the situation! It is not in place of all the technical and scientific steps, it should be a combined effort. G-d wants us to bring spirituality into everyday living and bringing a child to this world is indeed a fusion of body and soul. . .”

With an upcoming last-shot IVF round, we agreed on a five-step approach to radically shift the tide of this journey:

1. We would check the mezuzahs in their home.
2. Hayley would begin to kindle Shabbat candles every Friday.
3. Haley would visit the mikvah.
4. They would donate toward Jewish education which “in-turn sets the tone for the beginning of tuition for this young child you WILL have and raise in the traditions of Jewish thought and practice.”
5. They would write a letter to the Ohel, the resting place of the Rebbe “in the hopes that his giant soul which cared -and I believe continues to care- for the wellbeing of every Jew, will beseech on-high for a miraculous turnaround in merit of all the good deeds and mitzvahs you are undertaking for good results in your quest for a child.”

Over the coming weeks, we actualize the plan. Interestingly, we checked the mezuzahs, and indeed, one them (presumably the one from the room they dedicated to be their future child’s room) was unfit. We replaced it in addition to adding a few more missing mezuzahs.

Fast-forward four months, it was the third of Tammuz, the yartzeit of the Rebbe, and I was sitting in my study completing a letter to be sent to his resting place in New York, when my phone rang.

It was Jamie and Haley. They had good news. Haley was now over three months pregnant. What transpired since I saw them last was stunning.

After attending the Mikvah and going through their final round of IVF, Haley received the devastating news that the treatment failed yet again.
Devastated as they were, they moved forward with their plan to conceive a child through a surrogate who they have been in contact with over the past few months. They filled out all the necessary documents and sent it to her in hopes of finalizing the deal.

They were in utter shock when they received a call from this woman informing them that she cannot move forward with the surrogacy. With the entire world shutting down due to the outbreak of COVID-19, she was simply too worried to move forward with it at this point in time. They were devastated.

The next morning, feeling despondent and unwell, Haley jokingly said to Jamie “Do you think I’m feeling this way because I’m pregnant?”

Well, after taking a pregnancy test, low and behold, she was indeed pregnant.

It turns out that Haley became pregnant naturally in the very cycle she went to the mikvah after undertaking all the spiritual steps. While the IVF and surrogacy process failed, the spiritual process of creating a vessel for their miracle did not.

One year later, on January 13, 2021, Jamie and Haley gave birth to their beautiful healthy son, Yosef Mordechai, and this morning was his Bris.