Beauty from Ashes (Part 2)

I wish I could say that this positive pregnancy test calmed all my fears, but no, they just morphed into a new, hormonally-charged worry. This time I felt much more pregnant than I had with the two we lost but we decided to do some hormone testing to be sure everything was looking okay. When my progesterone levels were headed in the wrong direction, we decided to supplement. I filled my progesterone prescription and began the supplements, preparing myself for about four weeks of this, since I could stop once my placenta had formed around 14 weeks. I was ten weeks along and my crazy hormonal anxiety was a daily struggle so we decided to have an ultrasound for some peace of mind. We celebrated as we heard a good strong heart beat but wondered why baby was much smaller than a normal ten week old baby in utero. Baby was only about eight weeks and four days old, based on measurements, but doing well. Long story short, we moved my due date a couple weeks later and praised the Lord that I had already started supplementing my progesterone when baby needed it most! While these were all good signs, I am ever the skeptic. I wavered back and forth between trusting God with whatever outcome He had planned for our family, and worrying that I couldn’t handle losing another baby. Every morning I would wake praying for the baby and every night I’d fall asleep praying for the baby. I tried to remind myself that the Lord alone sustains life and He wants me to pray for the desires of my heart. It was for this reason that we shared the news with a few people so they too could join us in praying. I prayed more consistently for one thing than I ever have: God, please preserve the life of this little one!

Three weeks passed and I needed to refill my progesterone prescription since the due date adjustment had thrown it off. I had slowly stopped regularly reminding myself about God’s trustworthiness and became increasingly fearful that I didn’t need this prescription refilled because baby was already gone. Sure, I had absolutely NO basis for the fear, but hormones! Not coincidentally, the week before my prescription was going to run out was the week that my husband was sermonizing (preparing to preach) for Sunday. During one particularly difficult day, I texted him asking for prayer and he responded that the passage he was studying said the phrase “fear not” three times. Lots of tears. How could I fear not when I had no guarantee of the outcome?? Oh, right, that’s kind of the whole point… Could I rest in perfect peace because I trust the God who wrote this story long before I was born? Did I believe He would be with me if we lost another baby? Did I believe He is still good if we had to say another premature goodbye? I called to schedule another ultrasound for the following Tuesday. When my husband preached that week, I had to fight hard to keep my shoulders still as I wept… IN CHURCH (gasp!)!! But I couldn’t hold it in. I knew God was telling ME not to fear. I could trust Him and His plans for me and this baby and I could make it to Tuesday before we got to actually see how baby was doing. This time the tears flowed when we heard that swishing, fast heart beat and watched our little peanut wiggle all over. We needed the refill! Baby was still alive and kicking and I was still an emotional mess of a hormonal pregnant mama.

After this ultrasound we decided it was time to tell the girls, which meant I needed to be ready for EVERYONE to know. But it would explain to our very observant Emma why mama’s belly seemed to be getting bigger (because let’s be real, baby #3 at nearly 12 weeks is hard to hide). These pictures are the girls’ reactions to the news (photo cred: Stephanie P).

All along I’d been convincing myself not to get my hopes up that we would have another biological child, but it was becoming harder and harder. I was starting to get excited. I was starting to think this might really happen. Talk about emotional roller coaster. My husband has dealt with so much of my up and down, back and forth, trust and fear, faithfully praying for me and our little one. He’s a keeper. In the weeks following this ultrasound, more people were made aware of our coming addition and were SO very excited. Honestly, I had a hard time dealing with the excitement of other people because all I could think every time someone beamed another “congratulations” at me was that it would be one more person who would have to deal with another loss, if that happened. Obviously this is connected to when we lost Josiah. Our whole church mourned and wept with us and came alongside us so well, but one of the biggest lessons I had to learn through that was to be willing to be the recipient of help and prayer and love. NOT my natural tendency. I’m a strong, smart, capable woman and I’VE GOT THIS. Psh. This time around I’ve been so hesitant to be excited that I think I’ve missed out on so much of the joy. I’m thankful that others have been excited from the day they found out, even if I was still fighting to believe it could really happen.

Once I made it to fourteen weeks and five days (the age Josiah was when he stopped growing), it felt like I was watching every second of the day tick by. My next midwife appointment wasn’t until I was sixteen weeks so I just had to wait and pray and hope and trust (like women have been doing for centuries!) that it would go well. I still had the image in my mind of the midwife searching for Josiah’s heartbeat on the Doppler when I was eighteen weeks along with him. She never found it and that was the start of me realizing that all the weird little things about his pregnancy were indicators that it wasn’t going well. This time the midwife searched briefly, found that heartbeat, and let me listen. To her, it was routine. To me, it was a miracle. This baby made it past Josiah’s age. This baby might actually live. I might start feeling this baby moving soon!

After this appointment, we could set up an ultrasound to find out the gender of our little one. Again, bad memories and difficult images were etched in my mind as we planned and went for this ultrasound. I’d been telling myself for months that I was probably having another girl because I probably can’t have boys. I’d even started telling my husband and others that I thought we were having another girl. I’d begun looking at baby girl names because we’ve had a whole list of boy names forever, but girl names always seemed hard for us to agree on. Imagine my shock when baby happily cooperated with the ultrasound technician and revealed a VERY different ultrasound than we’d previously seen! Before the tech revealed the gender both my husband and I looking at the ultrasound thought to ourselves “Wait a minute….. is that….. a…..?” BOY!!!!! Holy moly. That’s definitely a boy! We’re having another son!

I still can’t describe how I felt in that moment. Shocked? Amazed? Excited? All the emotions all at once? Alice and Emma both said they wanted a baby sister. They’d had Little Dude as their baby brother for 8 months now and were apparently ready for a change. Uh, sorry girls? We decided to buy some boy onesies for our July baby BOY and let the girls unwrap them to reveal his gender. I sort of expected Emma to say “NO!” and start wailing, but they were ridiculously sweet. They are SO excited to have a baby brother and just want him to hurry up and get here.

July is still four months away, so I don’t even know the end of this story yet! I feel like every day the Lord is challenging and convicting me and teaching me to relax and trust Him. The emotional roller coaster seems to be evening out (ish) and I’m feeling our little man wiggling around inside me every day. Sleep is getting harder as my body adjusts to this big belly, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. All these things mean my boy is growing. We will meet him soon and it will be hard, but so so worth it.

One of my fears has been that I would put a son in the place of God. After praying that God would give us a son, being afraid to even want a son and then finding out we were going to have a son, another Isaiah sermon brought Isaiah 43:6 to my attention: “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.” In context, this verse is God speaking to the people of Israel, but the Sunday that we read it in church it hit me: God loves ME. He really, truly loves ME and has gone to great lengths to show me that He loves ME. I’ve been a Christian since I was sixteen and I’ve “known” this a long time, but over the years came to believe more in a God who wanted to judge me for my sins (which are many). As a sinner who deserves nothing, God sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross for my sins and then conquered Satan, sin and death by rising from the grave three days later. I’ve told myself for years that I don’t deserve any good thing in my life, but I think I missed a very essential aspect of God’s character in the meantime. The God I serve loves me enough to bring me through losing two babies, hear my heart’s desire when I was afraid to utter it to Him, and grant me that desire at the moment I least expected it. He spent YEARS patiently orchestrating events to teach me that He loves me and wants to give good gifts to me, as His child. In the weeks following this sermon, the Lord has continued reminding me that He loves me and that He has given me what I need for today to trust Him and love those around me. I still don’t know what the future holds, but I do know Who holds the future and I know He is faithful and good and trustworthy and He hears and knows and loves me. What more have I to fear? He has been my salvation and I cannot wait for the day when I see Jesus face to face in heaven. Oh what a day that will be!