We were married in 1996 after an 18 month courtship. God was starting to show me how when I'm content with where God has me, He will bless me with the desires of my heart. Meeting Warren and courting Warren was one way of showing me this. When I was content with where God had me in my singleness, God sent Warren.
After we married, we waited until I finished my master's degree to start the journey of adding children to our family. I taught full-time -- and then some -- I am a type A perfectionist who spent too many hours in her classroom and planning. Warren & I came to the conclusion that perhaps I should resign from my teaching job before we added children to our family. I resigned from my wonderful 6th grade teaching job in 1998, feeling strongly it was the Lord's will for us.
In August 1998, we got a positive - we were pregnant! We went on our dream vacation to Ireland, where I had extreme "morning" sickness - round the clock. Upon our return, I went to my doctor appointment, only to find that there was no heartbeat. In fact, it ended up that I had a partial molar pregnancy. The doctor explained that some women develop cancer from the moles traveling in the bloodstream, so we had to wait at least one year to try to conceive again. I was caught up in grief in our loss. I was grieved in the waiting a year or more. I was worried about cancer. How can this happen? How could this be God's plan?
That year of waiting was a VERY hard year. But GOD had a plan - a wonderful plan. You see, before the year of waiting, my summer was full of reading every book I could get hold of about pregnancy - and what God wanted me to do was to be learning about Him and how He desired my life to be. I was a Christian - I had professed belief - I even had a daily walk with Him. Yet, I hadn't learned the JOY in daily walking closely with Him and learning from His Word - the Bible - for YEARNING to take in His Word in my life. That year of waiting was water to my parched soul. I learned to be content as a child of God and to desire to study His Word so that I could know Him more closely.
We waited. I couldn't wait until we got the OK to start again. And God blessed us then with a pregnancy - in fact, we rang in the new century knowing there was a little life growing inside of me. And God blessed us with His will for us - our son, Will - on September 2, 2000. We praise God for our son Will.
In September 2001, we got another positive test. We were elated! Then a month later, we experienced a miscarriage. This was another difficult time. So thankful to have Will, yet also grieving that baby. God graciously granted us another pregnancy and in November we got a positive test. During that pregnancy, I looked for a devotional book for pregnancy that was specific to a woman who was nervous about her pregnancy due to loss in the past, but only found devotionals which seemed more whimsical than I needed. This little seed was planted to write a devotional which focussed on God and His Word - to give me encouragement and hope in the midst of an anxious pregnancy.
We were blessed to deliver Klara on August 12, 2002. What a joy to have a son and now a daughter. We felt so blessed.
Two years later, we brought home Adam on August 20, 2004. We celebrated God's abundant goodness to our family!
We felt content in our family size and opted for a vasectomy the next year. The week of the vasectomy, we got a positive pregnancy test. We were excited that God was surprising us with a number four and looked forward to being a family of six. The next month, we lost that little one to a miscarriage - we were heartbroken. We looked to the Lord and in His goodness, we knew He would use that loss in some way. I helped with a ministry for women going through infant loss, and I felt a renewed passion for those women. I knew God would somehow bring good out of this unexpected excitement, then unexpected loss.
Three months later - we got another positive pregnancy test - the vasectomy had healed. We were totally excited. God MUST SURELY want us to have four children. I was SO EXCITED! Yet, a month later, again, it ended in miscarriage. Why Lord? Why did You have to allow this AGAIN? WHY? It was a VERY difficult time. I learned to look to the Lord - to who HE is - to get my focus off of me - off of our family - and put it on God - to look at His attributes - His love - His plan - His will. It was and can still be difficult, but focusing on HIM and not on myself is the best way to heal and to find joy and hope in each day.
One of the gifts of our last two losses, is a sense that I HAVE to write - I've developed a deep desire to put words down in writing. I think this is totally from the Lord for this season of my life since I've never felt this deep desire to write, nor have I ever felt that I've been very good at writing (especially as I remember my college freshman English class where I labored over and over papers which my professor critiqued over and over again). I firmly feel this calling is from the Lord. I have felt strongly that I am to work on writing a devotional for pregnant women who have anxiety - especially those women who have suffered infertility, miscarriage, and stillbirth. I feel that writing in this blog will give me accountability and an audience so that I can be more motivated and disciplined to write. I pray there will be some of you ladies out there that I can encourage by sharing God's Word and God's character.
Thank you for taking time to read our story. I pray that my writing will reflect the Lord and His Word.
Here are words from the Bible which were very helpful to me in my healing from loss and in finding hope towards our future with children at home:
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
Jeremiah 29:11-13
A side note because I'm sure some of you may be curious about this - we are not currently pregnant nor are we seeking to be pregnant. Due to having four losses, already having three healthy children, and getting older, we opted for the second vasectomy - knowing God could surprise us one day or perhaps He would call us to adopt. For now, we feel content and blessed in our family of three children.
Jeremiah 29:11-13
A side note because I'm sure some of you may be curious about this - we are not currently pregnant nor are we seeking to be pregnant. Due to having four losses, already having three healthy children, and getting older, we opted for the second vasectomy - knowing God could surprise us one day or perhaps He would call us to adopt. For now, we feel content and blessed in our family of three children.
