I feel like there's something I have to talk about. The goal of my blog has always been to be honest. There's something that I've wanted to talk about for a long time now, but haven't and I finally feel like I'm ready to. I owe it to you to be transparent, to be real.
Despite all of this happy news in my life-- finding out we were pregnant, the ultrasound pics, hearing the heartbeat-- there has been a lot going on "behind the scenes." If you were a fly on my wall, you would know that I've been holding my breath for the last 2 months since I found out I was pregnant. Exactly two, long months.
There's so much stress in this whole process... first was the decision to "start trying." Secondly, was the waiting, the "not pregnant" tests. And then, there was the positive test. And then, there were weeks and weeks of waiting to get through the first trimester.
There was fear of miscarriage. Fear that I wasn't doing everything that I was supposed to do to grow a healthy baby. Fear that I was exercising too much or exercising too little. Fear about every. little. thing.
Despite all of this happy news in my life-- finding out we were pregnant, the ultrasound pics, hearing the heartbeat-- there has been a lot going on "behind the scenes." If you were a fly on my wall, you would know that I've been holding my breath for the last 2 months since I found out I was pregnant. Exactly two, long months.
There's so much stress in this whole process... first was the decision to "start trying." Secondly, was the waiting, the "not pregnant" tests. And then, there was the positive test. And then, there were weeks and weeks of waiting to get through the first trimester.
There was fear of miscarriage. Fear that I wasn't doing everything that I was supposed to do to grow a healthy baby. Fear that I was exercising too much or exercising too little. Fear about every. little. thing.
Through vomiting sessions and 24/7 constant nausea spells, my mind was always wracked with worry. I didn't announce my pregnancy until I was 10 weeks, so only close friends and family knew what I was going through with 24/7 morning sickness. I had days where I just wanted to scream, "I'm sick of being sick and I'm tired of being scared."
Over the weeks, I could feel my belly growing larger. I could feel my body changing. But for weeks, I was afraid to "get too excited" for fear that something was going wrong in me that I didn't know about. I've never been pregnant before. I'd never had a miscarriage.
I would be lying if I said that other people's experiences and stories haven't impacted me. I've had friends have miscarriages in their second trimesters, have missed miscarriages, miscarriages, and very complicated, life-threatening pregnancies. I was scared to have it happen to me, too.
Backing up a bit... I wasn't able to get on Joshua's insurance until January 1st, and by the time we had our first appointment, I was already 10 weeks pregnant. Our appointment was the general "pee in a cup" appointment-- pretty normal.
At our appointment this Tuesday, I was anticipating another general appointment at the rate things were going. I'd been getting frustrated with how long the 4 weeks felt in-between, and how it seemed like other people got sonograms earlier than me. And then our doctor said, "We're going to do a sono today..." and Joshua and I squeezed one another's hand in excitement and waited with anticipation while they rolled in the sonogram machine.
There was a baby. There was a heartbeat. Everything was okay. Up until that moment, even after I felt the butterfly movements, I was too scared to get too excited. And then in that moment, when I saw that baby was actually there-- living, breathing and thriving-- I felt like I could finally breathe. I could finally stop holding my breath.
And even now, there are still more things to "worry about." But that's where I have to put my trust in our big God. Our God who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever imagine.
Although we have had, up to this point, 14 weeks of a healthy pregnancy, I don't want it to seem that everything has been peachy.
I've received several emails from readers asking me about our journey in getting pregnant or congratulating us and so many of them have made me smile and get teary eyed. In sharing my fear here, I don't mean to sound unthankful. I know that there are many, many people that struggle with infertility issues. I know that they would give their right arm to be sick and carry a baby.
I will say that getting pregnant was 100% God's perfect timing and really had nothing to do with us. I had been off the Pill since August of 2009. We decided to intentionally start trying in the late summer of this year and got pregnant relatively quickly after we decided to give it a whirl (ha!).
BUT... if you read that correctly, I did not get pregnant for over 2 years. It was something that I didn't over-analyze because we had several factors involved. In those 2 years, I had a very high stress job that affected my body in more ways that I even realized. We lived with my in-laws for over a year (really sexy, ha!). And Joshua was also out-of-state for 6 months for work training (and having him gone definitely is a factor, hehe).
I honestly believe that it was not our time for a baby and even though I stressed out about it for months and months and months, God knew what He was doing. Making a baby has nothing to do with us, it has everything to do with Him. And I wanted to be honest here and share this about us.
Another thing I wanted to say is that each of us goes through our own, individual trials. If you've read our story, you know that God put us through an immense trial from 2008-2010. That was the story that God wrote for us. That was our personal struggle. We are stronger because of it and we wouldn't have changed a thing about what we went through. It has made us appreciate things so much more (like this little blessing)!
I've struggled with feeling guilty for having a healthy pregnancy so far. It's been so hard to tell friends that we are expecting when I know that they've been trying for years. It's been so hard to watch some of my friendships change because they have lost and suddenly can not relate to me and or it's too hard for them to be around me. It's okay. There's so much I've learned since I've gotten pregnant. It's hard to be "on the other side," too. I care about people so much that a part of me wanted to experience the pain of loss, too, so that I wouldn't be hated for a healthy pregnancy.
Today, I'm letting go of what others think about me and am just praising God for this life growing inside of me. I'm choosing to trust in Him that all is going okay with my pregnancy. I'm thanking God for true friendships that have shared in our trials, joys, and sorrows. I'm giving over control to God to do whatever He wills.
With this baby, and in my life, I will continue to say, "Every blessing, You pour out, I'll turn back to praise... blessed be Your name." We are so blessed, so excited, and good grief, I didn't know I could be this happy!
Thanks for listening. Because I love you, I wanted you to get a little inside peek into my soul today :) Be blessed! xo
