A month after I came home I started feeling....not right. I was a little nauseated and just didn't feel normal. I kept telling my husband I was pregnant so a day before my period should have started I took a pregnancy test and low and behold, it was positive. I took another one a few days later...positive and a third one a few days after that....positive. We had got pregnant our first time trying again. I can't really tell you the mix of emotions I felt. Honestly I was so excited and in my heart I thought, "God you have rewarded me for trusting you and coming home like you wanted me to. You have redeemed the loss of our first baby together by giving us another one." Looking back I see just how arrogant that assumption was. Who am I to even think I know what God is doing and what his plans are for me? I don't know that God was testing me to see what my reaction would be but if he was, I failed miserably.
Along with being excited I was terrified. What if the baby didn't grow? What if we lost another baby? How was I going to deal with the loss of another baby if we did lose it? I was a mix of emotions. Every time I would get sick I praised God. I know so many women who complain about being sick all the time and yes it is hard but I felt like if I was getting sick then that meant the baby was growing. If there was a day I wasn't sick, a state of panic would set in. Maybe the baby wasn't growing...it was a roller coaster of a ride for me.
We only told 2 sets of friends we were pregnant. We told them because we knew they were prayer warriors and would go before God's throne constantly seeking prayer. We knew we needed prayer and lots of it.
The night before my doctor's appointment I started cramping some. I attributed it to the fact that my tummy had not felt right for days but I knew this was different. It felt like the cramps I had when I lost the last baby but I shoved those worries aside and just rested in God's hands.
I went to see my doctor at 8 weeks and 1 day. Jeremy told me that I was not to have an ultrasound that day under any circumstances cause he wanted to see our baby too. My doctor was shocked to see me back again so soon. I could hear him out in the hall saying, "You are kidding me." He walked in and I told him how scared I was. Once he found out how far along I was he scheduled an ultrasound right on the spot. I protested because of my sweet Jeremy wanting to be there but he said we could do another one for him.
As I waited in the hall to be called back to do the ultrasound, fear gripped me and would not let me go. I was still cramping a little at this point. I texted a friend about it and asked her to pray for me. She offered to come sit with me since she was right around the corner but I told her not to worry about it. I think on some level, I knew that this was not going to end well but I had to hold out hope til the end.
The ultrasound tech rushed through paperwork cause she knew how nervous I was. She performed the other ultrasound on the baby we lost so she understood my fears. When she started checking me she said, "There's that sweet baby." I looked up and saw our baby on the screen. Big tears filled my eyes cause there he or she was. God had allowed this baby to start forming. But in the next instant as I looked at the screen I knew that the baby had already died. I just knew it. The lady kept trying to hear the heartbeat and she didn't even have to tell me there was none. I looked at her and said, "There's no heartbeat is there?" And with a painful expression she said, "No, I'm so sorry."
I can't even describe how I felt in that moment of time. I texted my friend who offered to sit with me and told her there was no heartbeat. I sat there...alone...and broken hearted. I tried to hold it together and not cry too much because I was alone. Within five minutes, my sweet friend walked into the room and I lost it. I told her I didn't know if this was worth all this pain and heartache and at that moment I didn't think it was. The doctor and office manager walked in and gave me hugs. I told the doctor maybe God just didn't want us to have a baby. Everyone reassured me the best they could that these things happen all the time. Yes I knew that they did. I had a friend who lost numerous babies before God revealed his perfect timing and blessed them with their sweet miracle. I just never thought it would happen to me again.
I drove myself home. I was devastated. I couldn't believe that after all I had been through that I was plunged right back down into the valley. I felt so lost so I did the only thing I knew how to do. I prayed.
I remember so clearly that I went to my bedroom and got down on my knees and started pouring out my hurts to God. I told him, "God I don't understand this. I don't understand why you would let me get pregnant again so fast after losing our other baby only to take this one away from us too. But I choose today to praise you. I choose to love you and thank you for the blessings I do have."
It's so easy to praise God when everything is going good in our lives. It's much harder to praise him when you feel like you have plummeted off the mountain back into the valley but I had a choice that day to make. I could be bitter towards God, I could blame him, I could be angry or I could choose to praise the one who holds me in his hands. I chose to praise him. I knew the only way I was ever going to get through this again was to praise him. I was so thankful for the blessings he gave me. And I knew that there was a reason for this. I had already accepted the fact that this was all part of his plan. How could I be bitter towards the one who loved me and wanted good things for me? How could I be bitter towards the one who made a promise to me that he wanted to do so much more with my life? How could I be bitter towards the one who took my place on Calvary?
Let me make this clear. Having a previous miscarriage and knowing what to expect didn't make this one any easier. This miscarriage hurt even worse than the first one. I was devastated. Just because I accepted that this was God's plan for my life and just because he filled me with his love and peace doesn't mean it still didn't hurt. Losing one baby was hard enough but losing a second one so soon after the first one was harder. My heart had not fully healed from the first miscarriage. And now I was faced with the loss of a second sweet baby...another baby I would never hold here on earth. I knew this baby was with his brother or sister in Heaven and that was somewhat comforting at that time. However, my heart ached to have both of them still with me.
So I found myself back in the valley....heart broken...but hopeful.
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