Lord please let there be something wrong with me

I am so weird. Listen if you ask my husband or girls that I have been able to disciple over the years, they would be the first to tell you how weird I am. I can come across as a goof ball and that I love to joke around… but I am seriously down-right weird.

I think I have been like this since I was younger. Everyone has those memories stored away in the back of our brains from childhood and no joke, I look back at mine and every single one of them is weird. My mom likes to tell me that I was just creative and had a good imagination. But she is my mom and half my genes are hers, so im pretty sure she just says that to make her feel better about herself. My sister use to sing into our computer microphone and record herself singing. (you know when that was the “new” thing on computers) I would listen to them, make fun of her and laugh at her inability to know the actual words to songs. Little did I know, I would find out later in life (basically when I got married and someone felt comfortable telling me how the word I just said doesn’t exist) that I was SO WRONG about so many things and not just song lyrics.

That in itself isn’t too weird, but I realized that each word that I thought was said one way, I had a weird reason for it. For example, tonight I said “we were on the cuff of that generation.” After a blank stare for my husband and sister and laughter, they informed me that the word I was looking for was “cusp.” Naturally I defend myself and say “but the cuff is at the end of the shirt…” more blank stares. I am not stupid I promise. (Ha.) It just seems logical to me (now and as a kid) so I naturally assume that is what the word is.

My sister and I both went most our lives thinking it was “pam-flip” not “pamphlet”. I mean DUH they FLIP open! See logically in my head… my misunderstood words make sense. But the weird part is that I legit thought through each of those words. Who has a reason for why they call something, something. This weirdo. Most people hear a word are told or shown what it is and they just accept it. Apparently that was not enough for this logical weirdo.

There is no point to logic as soon as your heart is involved. That is why we as women listen to girlfriends talk on and on about ex boyfriends and possibilities of getting back together, and know how stupid of a decision it is. We are thinking logically then. But as soon as WE are in the position ourselves, logic is thrown out the window. (Note: my husband would say here that anything girls do is logical.) Sure I went through the ups and downs of illogical guy thinking during college, but the most illogical thing I have ever thought happened a few weeks ago.

Josh and I decided to go forth withthe blood work. I had it done yesterday and we are waiting the results. We just want to give us a piece of mind that there is nothing wrong and that the miscarriages were as doctors put it (and I hate it) “just a string of bad luck”. Well that is logically how I was thinking a few weeks ago. THEN I waited to hear back from doctors as to where they wanted me to go etc, and my illogical heart started beating faster the longer I waited. I realized I WANT there to be something wrong with me. Seriously. You read that correctly.

 The more I thought about things I realized and prayed that there was a reason. I need something concrete to hold on to when EVERYTHING seems to just make no sense. I needed to have a thyroid issue or blood clotting issue or worst case something that means that we can’t have kids EVER. That’s right I said it. For those of you that have had a miscarriage, you understand. You know that the hardest thing is the not knowing. It isn’t like you get an explanation every time or typically until you have 3 miscarriages in a row. (Don’t get me start on how stupid that is by the way.) Wouldn’t you just rather know if ok “hey this was the problem, this is what you do” or “hey dude, stop trying it isn’t going to happen.” EVEN if it was the latter, you could move on properly and make decisions to adopt, etc. My fear. (that’s right I said fear, I am not perfect. Fear creeps in every once in awhile) is that all my blood work will come back normal and we will get a “go ahead guys, have at it”. (ha.) I know the reality of the 50/50 chance of carrying to term. But I also know the pain and anxious heart that comes with the 50/50 chance.

 I want there to be something wrong. Send me home with a pill or shot to solve the issue. Call it a day.I don’t want to be given the go ahead, assuming there is nothing wrong and step into a pregnancy just assuming everything is normal, like we have done 3 times before and find ourselves in this position again.

For those of you who have had a miscarriage, I know you understand what I am saying. For those of you who haven’t, you are probably thinking something like “just be patient, it will happen” or maybe “if you are stressed out it is going to make things so much harder” or “maybe this is just Gods way of saying that you need to stop trying”. There is NOTHING wrong with thinking those things. They are all correct things to be thinking. But it is like losing a parent or some other life altering experience; they don’t really HELP the situation. They don’t change things.

 For us, we have been trying for 18 months. We get pregnant VERY easily; I just continually keep miscarrying in the first trimester. So the patient thing and the whole it will happen thing, hurts. We are being patient… and we don’t know if it will happen.

The stressed out thing, 100% true. I am seriously not an easily stressed out person. But when you are over the moon about finally holding a child of your own, physically watching your body expel that hope and dream is going to cause some stress. Especially if you decide to take the 50/50 chance that it could happen all over again.

 Everything we have gone through may be God’s way of saying that we need to stop trying and we very well may stop all together. I just pray that God makes it simple. Either here is your shot/pill or something is going to prevent it from happening. The testing is something we threw around for awhile. While it is still covered, we think it is smart to get the testing done. Even if we do not do anything about the results for awhile, I think it will be good to know. It terrifies me.

 But I do really want to know. While my heart wants there to be something wrong so that we can say there is a “fix”, my logical head knows we want things to come back clear. My head wants to hear the “bad luck” speech again. We are still waiting, as patiently as we possibly can. Our dreams aren’t crushed if I can’t carry our own child, we can be parents other ways. Right now we are like “parents” to 50 high school/Jr.High kids. It has affirmed our love and desire to be parents ourselves. Adoption, testing, having our own, there is always something to pray about.

But we are faithful that above it else, God’s plan is better than anyone could imagine. Way better than my heart could ever illogically dream up. I had foreign exchange student that I coached my first year at Monclova told me yesterday, “I AM SURE that God has something really really big for you guys because I know you both, something that is out of your minds and I can't wait to see it” I mean, can I get an AMEN?

The Big Scary Pit Bull

My husband and I have become “those people”.  (and he hates it)

When you are first married you are totally content waiting to have children. People always tell you that you to enjoy your first couple of years (or more) just being married. So naturally, we got a dog. Ha.

I already had my 5 year old jack Russell and after we bought our first house a year into marriage, we got a 5 month old American bull dog- pit bull mix. I am confident that you just thought in your head, “wow a pit bull, that’s a little risky” or something along those lines. We weren’t totally sure what we were getting ourselves into when we rescued her from the humane society.  Once we brought her home, because of what other people said to us, I became nervous and wanted to take her back.

 Me. The girl who has grown up with animals my entire life, the girl that took her dog to the emergency vet and because of my knowledge was asked if I wanted a job and the girl that can’t walk past ANY DOG without petting it. People told josh and I how aggressive she could get and told us that she would eat our cat. Seriously, just wake up one day and decide to eat our cat. (I laughed out loud as I wrote that)

Our beautiful Tobin (named after a Christian woman who plays for the US Women’s soccer team) is now a year and 8 months old. Her best friend is my jack Russell Milo and our cat Bailey. She spends her evenings standing in the middle of the room as the cat walks around her rubbing her body on Tobin. She, at 60 pounds, follows our 20 pound Jack Russell around all day long until they sleep in the same bed at night. She is also currently laying UNDER a blanket at my feet as I type this.

I look back to a little over a year ago, when I was telling josh we needed to take her back to the humane society because she “could get aggressive” and laugh at myself. I was, what my sister and I refer to as “dog racist”. Seriously that’s a thing!

It is so easy to make a judgment on something, someone, or their situation when you don’t have all of the facts.

In the last month I decided to take a break from writing. In the last blog I wrote I was actively experiencing my 3^rd miscarriage. We had 1 month left before school and soccer were in full swing, so I took a little hiatus. I appreciate the encouragement to continue writing. I love that I have helped some of you process things as you (and me!) are going through some though things in life.

In the last month, I have had countless conversations with people that I didn’t even know were reading my blog! Some have been such a huge blessing and some have been very thought provoking. I have had friends write thanking me for the encouragement to be open about what they had experienced. I also had a woman write me asking “when is enough, enough”.

Wow. I still am not even sure how to answer that question.  But it really did make me start to think about our current situation and the decisions that we have to make. When is enough, enough? I mean I can see where the question comes from. Why would a woman continually put her body and mind through SO MUCH? At what point do you throw in the towel and take control over the situation? I have looked at other women who are 5 or 6 miscarriages in and thought “ok dude, its time to figure something else out”.

But what do I know? Good friends of ours had 5 miscarriages and now have 2 beautiful children, who josh and I love dearly. If I asked them, they would go through all of them again to have the goofy, wonderful kids they have now.  I guess it wasn’t enough for them.

We also have friends that couldn’t have their own kids and started to foster. They had 3 kids (brothers and sister) in their home for a while and got placed back with dad. After crying and crying while the kids left, the Lord worked it out where the dad openly knew he couldn’t care for them and they eventually adopted all 3 children. I guess it wasn’t enough for them either.

Then here we are. We have had 3 miscarriages. I have 3 children who I never got to hold before they went home to be with the Lord. That is a hard sentence to type and even harder to say out loud. Josh and I have such a desire to be parents and we don’t really care how that happens. So our next thought was adoption. We weren’t at the point to “throw in the towel” or to claim “enough is enough” yet.

We started to research adoption options, talked to a lot of people who have been through the process and came to one conclusion. We have to wait.

If you know Josh and me, we aren’t patient people, at all. (I mean we got engaged after 6 months of dating… seriously. Ha. )  So this nearly 2 years of desiring to be parents, is near torture. One of the hardest adult decisions that we have had to make is waiting. Our current situation does not allow us to save the 10-15k needed to adopt. But we have made the decision, by staying where we are, where we are confident the Lord wants us to be.

When you have all the facts about something, someone or their situation it is easier to see life from their shoes.

The feeling we get from people when we walk our totally innocent dog around the neighborhood is similar to the way I feel when I open up to talk to people about where we are in our lives -walking without a stroller.

You look. You think you know what’s best. You think the answer to the problem is simple.

If we didn’t want the judgment of having a scary pit bull, we should just get rid of her, right? If we want to be parents, we should throw as much money as we have at fertility specialist or adoption, right? If we want to be in control of our lives, we need to make hard decisions and make it happen.  I have been told that 3 or 4 times in the last month.

While our 60 pound American bulldog –pit bull mix is scared of the dark (seriously. That’s a real statement) we are scared of not having children. But I choose to believe the Lord will work it out blessing us because we are staying where we know He wants us to be. While I understand not everyone will understand it, the same way that I am sure the thought of having a big scary pit bull mix in our house may not make sense to you, it is hard to understand anyone’s decisions with big life changes.

I am a woman at 25 (almost 26!) who is active, healthy and athletic… who has also had 3 miscarriages in 18 months. Nothing totally makes sense in life anyways.

So we are choosing to put on our big kid “patience” pants and see where God takes us.

 

 

(by the way this is how our really aggressive pit bull sleeps....)

Society stinks.

Junior high and high school kids are a bunch of nuts. (seriously sit down and have a conversation with a few one day, I promise you will leave not really knowing what just happened) But I love every one of them.

Josh and I are super blessed with our jobs. He teaches at a Christian school and we both coach almost every sport at the school! While I find so many blessings that come from coaching, one of the biggest blessings comes from the parents and kids themselves. All 3 of our miscarriages have been while we have been at the school. Most parents and kids knew as we experienced every single one of them. I have had more support from moms walking me through what they went through and letting us know that they are praying for us, than almost anywhere else.

Not to mention, we have about 50 kids that we get to love on daily during the school year. It is hard to focus on what we do not have, when we have the blessings of excitement on their faces when we see them and encourage them in athletics. It is honestly one of my favorite things that we have done together, ever.

Sometimes what our society doesn’t realize is the pressure we place upon women to have children and be a mom. I mean think about it. If you are a single woman, how many times do you get asked when you are getting married? Or engaged when the wedding is? Or married…. When the babies are coming? We have almost been married 3 years, we get asked all the time when we are in one person’s words “going to take the jump over married life as free spirits into being married parents?”  Hmm. You just made that sound so simple. Praise the Lord if your jump was as easy as that last sentence sounded.  Josh and I are trying to build our own parachutes from scratch, while some are just making the jump.

Naturally if you don’t have children or can’t have them, you will feel like a failure in our society. The same way those of you feel once you have kids, that everyone has an opinion, we all on the other side of the jump feel the same. I can’t tell you how to parent your children because I haven’t been there. I don’t know. One year as a nanny doesn’t qualify me to tell you how make a decision to bottle feed or breastfeed your child. The same way you carrying a pregnancy to full term doesn’t qualify you to tell someone going through a miscarriage how they should feel.

One thing I have learned this miscarriage is that the shame and guilt I put on myself hurts more than any words from the “society”.  I turned to josh and several occasions during this last miscarriage apologizing to him that this time didn’t work either. I don’t know why I was apologizing. He certainly doesn’t blame me and I have never felt like he did. I just had this overwhelming feeling like I needed to apologize to someone. I watched as my husband went out (a lot) to get me food I was craving or helped around the house tons, all because that was his way to serve me during this time. I saw the disappointed look on his face when we were told there was no baby developing. I wanted more than anything else to take that pain and disappointment away from his heart. But I couldn’t.

But why do we do this? Why is there the need to apologize to your husband or family or other kids in your family?  Why do we carry the shame and guilt? For me, it was a little bit society and where we fit in it. I felt terrible that when we were asked again from random stranger when we want to have kids, we had to say some awkward excuse as to where we are at in life. A little were the plans that we made, that yet again, were thrown away. A little were the diapers and wipes I got for free (couponing! whoo!) that I just knew they were too early to buy. A little was the story. Seriously I wanted to come on here and give every woman looking for a light at the end of the tunnel hope. I wanted to be the I DID IT YOU CAN TOO woman.

I feel the pressure from society to get moving on the baby making. (ha.) But I refuse to let society win. I am going to allow God to work in my life, regardless if it is EXACTLY what I want. I am finally thankful that I am NOT in control. Let me encourage you through your journey and lets stand up to not allowing society to put pressure on us. No story is the same. Otherwise we would all be really boring. Blogs would be lame because we had all been through the same thing.

Society will mean nothing to you if you truly allow God to work in your life.  In the moments where my heart hurts and I want nothing more than to break down, I get a blessing. I laid in bed one night, knowing that I had to explain to a 15 year old girl, that we coach, that I was no longer pregnant, how in the world do I do that? She told me that she had taken it upon herself to pray every day for me until I am holding my baby (tears...) a few weeks before I miscarried. I decided to explain to her that I wasn’t giving up and that we were going to lean on God during such a hard time. She texted me back with something I will never forget.  She told me that she promised me to pray every day until I held my baby and that she didn’t just say through this pregnancy. She told me that she was determined to be a prayer warrior for Josh and I. Wow. What a blessing during such a hard time. She isn’t giving up, so I can’t either! Kids, sorry teens, can teach us so much!

What if all along she (and possibly you) have been praying for our child…. And that child is currently in someone else’s womb. Wow. Isn’t that an incredible thought? Forget society’s plan, I want to be a part of what God has planned if that is what we have all been praying for!

Our adoption road has started. We meet next Friday with a lawyer to discuss our options. (in fact it is the lawyer that helped mikki’s mom many years ago. If you have no idea what I am talking about read my previous post) In our new, but equally as rewarding, journey we will be posting a blog entirely dedicated to josh and I. It sounds weird I know. But we would like to place a blog out there that could be easy for you to share with others. It is our hope to get the word out that we are looking to adopt and pray that someone knows someone who knows someone! Ha! That way they have all of our information at their fingertips and it is easy for people to share the link with others.

Remember to love on others today, you don’t know what they may be going through. <3

Updates and Decisions

Remember when you were in high school and you refused to believe that you wouldn’t be best friends with those people for the rest of your life? Yea I was totally one of those people.  Not that I don’t still keep in contact with a few people (a good friend and her husband live just a few miles away from us!) but it was nothing like seeing each other every day for years. High school relationships are special to each of us. Even if you hated high school, you still have friends that you love and miss seeing every day.

For me though it was in my first few years of college that I made one of my best and lasting friendships. My best friend Mikki and I had a few years of seeing each other multiple times a week (if not every day) and were there for each other through break ups, ministry ups and downs and a lot of laughter. If you looked at us we have little in common. She is this gorgeous 6’0 (err… 5’11 ½) light brown, straight hair woman who high jumped for the University of Toledo with one of the biggest hearts you have ever seen.  I am 5’4 dark brown, curly hair and couldn’t jump over something 4’0. (Seriously I tried I coach track)

Our sophomore year of college, I was hanging out at her house with her parents like I did often and the topic of adoption came up. How have I totally missed in the last six months that, yep, Mikki is adopted. Huh. I don’t know why I didn’t put it together when she is super tall and her parents aren’t at all. Then at the young age of 19 it hit me. This is what adoption should look like.  They love her so much (seriously you should see the Mikki shrine in this house of pictures and sports trophies) and you would NEVER be able to tell by the way her parents and grandparents love her that she was adopted.

We are now 25 (lies, she just turned 26 a few days ago!) and my heart is so very open to adoption because I have seen it done right. If you asked her mom (and someone I call mom too) she could never imagine not being Mikki’s mom. 

Just to catch you all up, these last few days I have experienced my 3^rd miscarriage.  We went to 3 different ultrasounds, all of which showed that a gestational sac and yolk sac developed but a fetal pole/baby never did. It was a really tough pill to swallow since for the last 6 weeks I have had more pregnancy symptoms than I did with the first 2 pregnancies combined. So we are now looking at miscarriages at 10, 11 and 8 weeks along.

When each of these have happened especially the last 2, we have thrown around ideas of what are our next steps. Do we get tested? Do we start possibly looking at adoption?  Or foster care? For those of you who have had successful pregnancies each time or maybe have had one miscarriage and then went on to have children, it is hard to explain the place I am in right now.

Having 2 miscarriages leaves you in the place where everyone says it was probably just “bad luck twice” (which is a term I hate by the way) and you have hope that the 3^rd time it will work out. THEN you have 3 miscarriages and our world has turned a little. We now have a 50% chance of each pregnancy being successful (compared to most at 70-80%) and there is a good chance that there is something physical wrong with one or both of us.  Ow. It hurts and is a lot to take in.

Before I jump into what I feel like is defending our decisions, I want to put some perspective in your eyes and maybe allow you to see a little of what a friend or family member who has had a miscarriage goes through. When you miscarry, it is literally your body expelling everything from the pregnancy, similar to birth. There is no other real way to explain it. Your body, while yes it isn’t pushing a full term child out, is going through contractions and pain similar to going through labor. I am not saying it’s the same because I haven’t experienced labor, but several women I know who have experienced both have said they were either the same or the miscarriage was worse.

*the next few paragraphs are descriptive, so if you don’t want to read please don’t*

I mean think about it. A week ago I had to take medicine to help my miscarriage start, because for some reason my body thinks it’s a good time to hold onto pregnancies when there is no baby or the precious baby stopped growing. Within 2 hours I was bleeding and within 4 I had period like cramps. Then by hour 6 I had to take the medicine again. Once I took it the real pain started. I had to sit on our toilet pushing, like you would during labor (like my body was actually telling me to do it) for close to 6 hours. Finally once I felt strong enough to get up, I feel asleep on our couch sitting up because that was the only comfortable position. My doctor gave me this prescription and no pain meds, so I took Tylenol. Let’s be honest, I could have taken tic tacs and it would have had the same effect as the Tylenol did to mask these pains.

For me, I knew it was something that I had to do to prevent infection for my body so I pushed through with the cramps for over 12 hours total. (And I am still having them on and off today) But I had to do it knowing that I wasn’t going to be holding my baby in the end. I have now gone through this exact thing twice and one D&C, where I was waking up knowing I was no longer pregnant. I am not telling you this to make you feel bad for me. I want you to have the knowledge and understanding about the pain mentally and physically a woman goes through during a miscarriage.

In the last 18 months, we have gone through this 3 times. That is a lot on anyone mentally, physically and spiritually. So naturally, when we get to this place of deciding our future, please understand to our option to adopt. Several people have said “don’t give up” or “keep trying on your own”. It isn’t that we are throwing that option out completely, but adoption is an actual option for us and was way before we ever had our first miscarriage.

Josh put it this way, “it isn’t giving up considering adoption, it’s like foul shots in basketball. If I miss 10 consecutive foul shots, I am not going to give up but I am going to change my approach to them”

(I am also supposed to tell you that he has never missed 10 consecutive foul shots in his life.  Ha)

We have been through a lot but we aren’t giving up. I am not sure why we think something like adoption is “us giving up”.  Sure I don’t want to go through a miscarriage and the pain ever again.  However, I want to have that super cute baby bump at some point in my life. But what I really want is to be a mom. How rewarding of an experience even if the child is not our biological child. I don’t care. It is not giving up. Mikki’s mom doesn’t care that she didn’t give birth to Mikki. She is still her mom.  She sat up with her at night while she was sick; she was at every volleyball, basketball and track meet. She cried as she watched her daughter walk down the aisle to get married. She cried as she moved away and like any mom she can’t wait to be a grandma. THAT is a mom.

I have witnessed adoption done correctly. Josh and I are currently looking at our options adoption wise. Yes it is super expensive, but so is all of the testing we would have to have done.  Just please understand that miscarriages are such a tough thing to go through, that no women who wants to be a mom WANTS to experience it. But when you decide to take another route to being a parent because one thing may not be working, there is no need to judge.  We need to throw out of our mind, similar to miscarriages, that adoption makes you less of a parent. Raising a child is a blessing however you get there.

I have my best friend because her parents didn’t give up.

Here are the facts

I know I have had so many supportive people sending messages and texts about my ultrasound on Friday, so I wanted to write a short(er) blog letting you know how things went!

As nervous as I was on Friday, I just had this tiny feeling of all of this freaking out is going to be over in just a few minutes because everything is going to be ok. Boy was I wrong.

We got there and had to wait for quite a bit and to be honest when you make someone drink all of that water before hand, what a terrible idea to make them wait. I was dying. When we got called a young girl came and got us, and I was super surprised she was going to do my ultrasound. I mean listen I look like I am in high school still, but if I look in high school she looked in Junior High. I have no problem with younger people doing things like this, as long as they are qualified. I politely, as I could, informed her that my bladder was full and needed to go to the bathroom. She smiled and said that she would go get the actual ultrasound tech because she would be much faster. I had no idea she wasn’t the ultrasound tech!

Once the ultrasound tech came in, she measured whatever she needed too, but informed me that my bladder was quite full (yeah no kidding) and that they would have to measure everything else internally. FINALLY I got to go to the bathroom. When I got back the actual ultrasound tech said “this is so and so, she is a student at Owens and is going to be performing your ultrasound today.” I now realize after others have told me that I can request not to have a student, but I had no idea. Plus the way she worded it didn’t really give us an option.

I informed them that I was pretty nervous since we didn’t see the baby the last time. So she had the student look and after about 30 seconds said “well we see the gestational sac and yolk sac but no fetal … wait maybe that is the fetal pole… no never mind we see no fetal pole.” They then proceeded for over 30 minutes to pull and tug to find my ovaries etc. Looking for the baby lasted 30 seconds.

I have had several of the internal ultrasounds because of the last 2 miscarriages, so I am aware of how they are suppose to feel and how long they are suppose to last. I was in actual physical pain, enough to cause tears, during this ultrasound that lasted about 15 minutes too long. I have never been in physical pain during one of these before. Ever. I had enough pulling and tugging that when I got home, I was actually physically torn and it burned to pee. (TMI I know but it explains how crazy this ultrasound was)

When we got out to the car, I obviously started crying and Josh just said “we are not judging ANYTHING off of that ultrasound.” I realized in that moment that the ultrasound was not typical, even my husband who has been to every ultrasound, knew that what we just went through was weird.

So here are the facts:

I should have been about 7weeks 3days, based on when we are pretty sure I ovulated.

The Gestational sac was measuring like I was 6weeks 5days. (Assuming it was measured correctly, so not far behind at all)

I have had no bleeding or cramping. (Some spotting in the last few days, but they aren’t sure if that is from the painful ultrasound, and has stopped.)

My OB wants me to have another ultrasound anyways, because she didn’t feel like the pictures were clear enough.

Hopefully we will have another ultrasound on Friday and that will give us a better idea of what is going on.

All of my pregnancy symptoms (which are 3x as much as the last 2 pregnancies combined) are all still very present.

Thank you again to all of the supportive people who have contacted us. I am sorry if I wasn’t able to get back to you. We had some family things this weekend but also were taking some time to process.

We realize not seeing a fetal pole at 7w 3d, means there is probably a problem. But with all of the circumstances we are praying even for that small chance of a miracle. My God is big; we believe that it can happen.

Either way, we praise him regardless of the outcome. :)

(if you have any questions that I didn’t answer, please do not hesitate to ask!)

Say a prayer for me... please?

 I love Christmas.

(thats right I purposely made that green and red...) 

Seriously I love everything about it. What’s not to love? I can’t wait for the lights, putting my Christmas tree up 2 weeks before Thanksgiving, (ha. Josh hates this…) watching my cats play in boxes while I put things out, Christmas music, and Christmas food. Plus I love watching the Santa Claus with my family on Christmas Eve with hot chocolate, spending time with family, shopping for the perfect gift, and more importantly that it is the holiday we celebrate Jesus’ birth, ALL OF IT!  

When I was little I use to pray on Christmas Eve that God would bring me all of the things I asked for. (I know, what a brat) But I couldn’t wait to go downstairs and see all of the Christmas presents! Even if they weren’t mine, I was excited! One year, I said my usual Christmas “prayer” for all the gifts I wanted and the next morning I ran downstairs, opened presents and oh my goodness they were ALL there! I sat there with everything I wanted and I remember thinking to myself, “I must have really meant that prayer this year more than the other years, because it came true!”

Yes, I was young. But I think sometimes we think that still as adults. I have a prayer life. I pray to God on a daily basis, multiple times a day. Sometimes when things that I prayed for happen, I remember that is exactly why I pray! But when they don’t happen, I tend to think maybe I needed to pray harder or pray for often about this. (Yes, I realize we could go on for years about the theology about prayer, but I’m not doing that here, I am just describing basic human feelings) When I experienced our first miscarriage I thought to myself that maybe I needed to pray more or ask more people to be in prayer.

I am in several groups online that have women who have experienced miscarriages looking for a place to get support and PRAYER. It is incredible. I know several people that did not believe in the power of prayer until they experienced a miscarriage. Seriously. They found themselves saying prayers for other women who thought they were having symptoms of a miscarriage, just because they didn’t want someone else to experience the pain they went through. One woman told me that she actually got down on her knees for the first time in her life, praying for a woman she had never meet and her unborn child. How incredible.

It truly speaks for the real human life, not just a fetus, which is growing inside of you. You want people to pray your BABY to be healthy and grow. You want people to pray that this pregnancy will go well or that you will be able to get pregnant this month. You want people to pray that your heart will heal after you experienced the miscarriage. You need the support and when push comes to shove, prayer is what you want.

When you have a miscarriage or lose someone close to you even, you realize that a life has been loss. Someone that meant something to someone is no longer there. You realize that everything is out of your control and you look for someone to fix it. I see over and over again women experiencing what I did, who have never been through such a loss and realize they can’t do anything about the outcome, asking that people pray for them.

One of my favorite things about the groups that I am apart of is being able to tell women in need, that I am sincerely praying for them. I would have never known about that woman’s journey, be excited to see how her ultrasound went, or be able to know how to pray for her if it wasn’t for these groups. However, yesterday I had a bit of an epiphany. We look to those groups because they are woman experiencing the same things and they know how we feel. Not that there is anything bad about this. But a lot of people head there because they have no one to talk to in real life, not internet life. (ha.) I have been super fortunate that as soon as I posted about what josh and I were going through after our 2^nd miscarriage, I had that support. I had people to talk to that I knew were going through the same things. But I only had that because I spoke up and (surprise surprise) asked for prayer.

Today this came to my heart because I had a friend last night text me just to ask how I was doing, to ask about my ultrasound tomorrow and tell me that she is praying for me. Just the small thought she had to do that meant the world to me. She remembered that I had a ultrasound tomorrow and that I was (am) super nervous after not seeing the heartbeat yet at the last ultrasound. So I decided to write this blog asking for something.

I am asking you, if you have a relationship with Jesus, to find someone that you know that has experienced a miscarriage or are having a hard time getting pregnant and pray for them today. Not just say that you are going to, but really do it. Then send them a message, text them or call them and tell them that you said a prayer for them today. I am not asking that this person be me, even though I do welcome any prayers for my anxiety about this ultrasound tomorrow, but find someone. It will mean the world to them. I promise you.

Who are you praying for today? 

Saying Congratulations and meaning it!

Jealousy.

It starts earlier than we can actually remember. I am sure all parents could tell their kids countless stories about crying over toys when you were two or pulling toys away from other kids because you wanted it, even if you don’t recall any of it. 

My first actual moment of jealous was when my best friend got a toy for Christmas that I wanted and didn’t get. (Ignore everything else that I got that I wanted…) But I actually remember it. I was probably about six and I hated going to her house for a few weeks because that toy… wasn’t mine.

Then you are a teen and some chick that always has the most in style clothes walks the halls. You secretly want all of the clothes and shoes she has. It is irritating when you hear her complain about her clothes or treat them like they are garbage OR act like she doesn’t really like the clothes she has.

I have this extreme desire to travel. I have dreams of traveling all across Europe. My Great Grandpa came over from England and we never really knew much about him. So my mom and I did research on ancestry.com to find out the town he was from and we found relatives! England is on my must visit places, along with Italy, France and Germany. (WWII history buff) I want to travel… everywhere.

 Josh and I went on a cruise for our honeymoon. We LOVED traveling to 3 different locations. Our plan was to take a cruise this summer together as our “last trip before we have a baby”. We had the money saved up and were just looking for the prices to come down enough to book. Right in the middle of price watching, we found out our 1 year old American Bulldog/Pit mix needed knee surgery. Now I am not one for spending stupid amounts of money on a dog, but we did have the money set aside AND she is only one. Plus, you shouldn’t have a pet if you aren’t going to take care of it the way it needs to be. She was literally hobbling along on 3 legs. :( So our little getaway was cancelled. No more than 2 weeks later, a friend and her husband made an impromptu decision to take a 12 day cruise… in Europe and I got to scan through all their wonderful pictures on Facebook. It actually hurt my heart. Not because I was mad at them for taking it, but because I didn’t get to take it too.

(this is Tobin and her knee is now healing wonderfully!)

There are so many moments in life to look at what someone else has and to be mad, hurt and angry that you don’t have the same thing. For every woman reading this these moments tend to creep up on us as other women are getting engaged, married or having kids. It never seems to end. If you are engaged, you are irritated with pictures of people getting married. If you married, the countless pictures of people’s kids can easily get under your skin. Or if you’re single, all of those things could make you want to delete friends off Facebook.

It’s a common feeling that everyone deals with at some point. But for me, the hardest I have ever dealt with was having a miscarriage and seeing someone post pictures of their newborn baby. It was a pain that I felt deep in my heart that I have never experienced before and pray that you never have to experience.  Mad that someone had a baby and posted pictures? No.  Mad that someone was a proud parent of a tiny little baby? No. I was mad that I didn’t have my own tiny baby to post pictures of proudly.

 I was mourning the loss of the baby that I never held or got to kiss its fat cheeks at the same time someone was celebrating the life of their new child. That’s a hard pill for anyone to swallow. (Speaking of pills, why do they make prenatal vitamins like horse pills…? I have such a hard time swallowing them!) It took me a few weeks to be able to look at pictures of newborn babies without feeling that pit in my stomach. I know for some women it is a lot longer than that or you are still going through this process.

Even if I don’t want to admit it, this is jealousy. There is really no way around it. I am frustrated that someone has something that I want. But this isn’t just a car, house or money. This is a living breathing child, someone that will call me mommy. THAT is what I want. I have had to dedicate a lot of time to prayer to ask God to take the jealously that sits in my heart away. It doesn’t matter what I am jealous over, allowing jealously to call my heart home is going to cause more harm than good. I say this as genuine as I can, this isn’t easy and is still something that I struggle with sometimes.

We have all been told that you don’t understand the value of something until it’s gone. My first pregnancy I had heartburn for the first 7 weeks. It was terrible. I have never had heartburn in my life until I was pregnant. (And it’s still that way; as soon as I’m pregnant I experience it again) I complained for those few weeks because I think Tums are the equivalent to chewing on chalk and I hated (hate) taking them. As soon as I knew the baby had stopped growing my symptoms started going away and I actually said a prayer that the heartburn would come back. I WANTED HEARTBURN!

If you have experienced a miscarriage, to go through a grieving process and have a hard time looking at other peoples newborns is ok. But allowing it to sink in and fester in your heart to a point of jealously (and I have seen some people to the point of rage) is not ok. It is not their fault they had a baby around the same time you had a miscarriage. If the roles were reversed… wouldn’t you be posting an obscene amount of photos of your new baby as well? I know I would! We need to grieve, but we need to allow others to fully enjoy the experience they were blessed with. The same experience we so badly want to go through. You never know, maybe they SILENTLY went through multiple miscarriages and are now having the baby they prayed for! I would never want to develop jealously and anger towards that person, how excited I would be for them!

If you haven’t experienced a miscarriage or are going through a pregnancy after you have experienced one (or 3!), remember that there are people who are hurting and praying for those pregnancy symptoms. Embrace them! You will probably only go through this experience a few times in life, we shouldn’t complain the whole way through it. There are women out there who would kill to be in the spot you are now. If you truly believe each child is a blessing, than each craving, moment of heartburn, moment where you can’t keep your eyes open from exhaustion, and moment where raw chicken makes you want to vomit  (ok that last one may just be me…) is also a blessing!

The fact is, we don’t know everyone’s past. I have two good friends who both experienced two back to back miscarriages. They got married to their husbands within a month of when josh and I did. We are all very much at the same part of life. When I was pregnant for the 2^nd time, they were both pregnant for the 3^rd time. I miscarried and they both went on to have BEAUTIFUL baby boys within a month of each other. I looked through pictures and more pictures of their precious babies. I realized that my heart was not sad. It was not angry or JEALOUS! I had hope in my heart. Hope that I was going to experience what my friends were my third time around. They both in the midst of their celebrations sent me messages asking how I was feeling and to let me know that they were praying for me. (Yes, I am crying as I type this…) My heart would hurt more if I was jealous of them. They have equally been through so much! Praise the Lord for those chubby baby boys! Aunt Cortney loves them so much!

I have found a peace in this area of my life. Sometimes the jealousy will try and creep up, and I attempt to smack it back down. But I can see someone celebrating the birth of their child and say “congratulations!” and mean it.

It isn’t easy. Sometimes I have to force it out. But healing after a miscarriage is a process.

Start taking some steps and go slow! And if you don’t understand this, support the people going through it. We aren’t trying to hurt you, we are just hurting.