Matt and I are so excited to be expecting this year with a baby due in December!
We have been overwhelmed with so much joy already from family and friends. In fact, we did a little gender reveal a few weeks ago and found out we are having a GIRL! I think the reaction from everyone was priceless. Matt comes from a family of all boys so we both assumed we would have a boy. We were shocked to see the dogs come out of the house with little pink balloons on. The day after we found out, I pretty much cried on and off all day at the thought of the Lord gifting us with a little girl. And I can’t even wait to see Matt become a hashtag girl dad.
Now if there’s anything I’ve learned in my adult years, it’s to never have a plan because things HARDLY ever go according to that plan. Crossing my fingers that I hold onto this in parenthood. But when Matt and I started talking about having a baby, we just never realized what would be in our future and how God would take us on this little journey.
We found out we were pregnant in April. I just had “a feeling” that I was and took a cheap Dollar Tree pregnancy test first (negative) but I just KNEW it was wrong so I took a more expensive test instead and got a positive! I immediately called Matt in disbelief and excitement. He started the conversation talking about something work related but honestly I can’t remember what it was even about. I eventually said “Matt, I’m not even paying attention to what you’re saying right now because I just took a pregnancy test.” He asked if I was pregnant and I told him, “well it says if there are two pink lines, I’m pregnant.. and there are two pink lines.” The truth is I had made that same phone call to Matt before in December 2018. We found out we were pregnant last December and the reaction was pretty much the same. I was completely shocked because we had only been trying one month. I immediately started googling the accuracy of pregnancy tests and even took another one the next morning, just to make sure.
Since we found out about our first baby around Christmas, we shared the news with a lot of family and friends. One day I will have to share those reaction videos because they were THE BEST. We had planned out the nursery, talked about baby names – the whole thing. In fact, we throw a New Years Eve party every year and I even tricked all of my friends by drinking water from a spiked seltzer can all night. Three weeks later exactly from the day we found out, I miscarried that sweet little baby that would have been due in August.
It’s crazy how unprepared we felt as we went through that. I still remember sitting there on the day I miscarried asking the ultrasound tech, “shouldn’t there be a baby? shouldn’t we hear the heartbeat?” By the time I had gone to the doctor, my body had already pretty much (for lack of a better word) rejected the baby. I can remember even after seeing that ultrasound with no baby, sitting in disbelief in the room with Matt as my doctor told us what had happened.
In the next few months, Matt and I grieved the loss of our baby. I could write for days on that entire process and every emotion we felt. It was the hardest season we went through as a married couple but I am SO glad I went through it with Matt. He is the greatest partner and I’m not sure what I would have done without him. In the end, we were also SO glad we had told family and friends as well because we got to see those friends rally around us during that time and pray for us to heal. Something that would have been so incredibly difficult to handle in secret.
It was so easy to ask the question “why us?” As in why do we have to go through this but others don’t? But when Matt and I decided to get married, we would always say “Marriage is what you make it so marriage is adventure.” We came to realize that this was just a part of our adventure. This is what we signed up for together – the good, the bad and the ugly. Eventually, we found peace in knowing that, while we could have given that baby a really great life and we would have loved them so much, that baby is now in the arms of Jesus. They never had to know discomfort, pain or struggle. They have an even better life now than we could have ever given them on earth.
We prayed specifically and intentionally for 2 things in this season. First, we prayed for my healing (for my body to naturally do what it needed to do to pass the baby so I wouldn’t require surgery) and secondly, we prayed for us to get pregnant again soon (hoping that we would get to hold our baby by the end of the year). We asked for these things with a Matthew 7:7 mindset but knowing ultimately that God was the one in control. It was humbling (but also I will admit, a little frustrating at times) knowing that this wasn’t up to us. It’s easy to write about it now but then I just had to hold onto the fact that God’s plan is best even when I can’t see it. Please know there were still days I was so angry but when I would calm down, I had to eventually come back to this.
The greatest example of this in my life is Matt. I thought I knew what was best for my life. At 22, my life plan looked so different but the Lord stepped in and I’m so glad now that He did. I look back and see that every little heartache was for a purpose and eventually I would see God’s plan, even if it took years.
So in terms of healing, I didn’t require surgery. In fact, my body did all that it needed to do and I didn’t even require intervention with medication at all. If you don’t know anything about a miscarriage, don’t worry. We had no idea either at the time. I almost CRIED when my doctor told me that my body had completed the miscarriage. At least that process was over and we could move on to other types of healing.
In terms of getting pregnant quickly, fast-forward a couple months and we were so thrilled to find out we were pregnant in April with a due date in December. We would get to hold our baby by the end of the year! The Lord had answered our prayer. In fact, the due date for this baby is the day after we found out about our first one. Exceedingly more than we could have ever imagined.
Whenever I met Matt, the timing of us meeting was almost bizarre. I met him at exactly the right time and it just felt like God had intervened at every step of the way in that process. It reminded me so much of Ephesians 3:20, so much so that I had it engraved in his wedding band when we got married.
”Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”
This journey, while it hasn’t been easy, has reminded me so much of this verse. And this baby girl, while she doesn’t know it yet, is/was prayed for by so many family and friends that I just hope she one day will come to realize what a gift she really is. We are filled with so much excitement for our baby girl on the way and so glad that the Lord is taking us on this crazy journey.
