We had gone on, after Janie. We had picked ourselves up, with God's help, and started living again.
My husband wanted to try, right after Janie died, for another baby.
I did not. My heart could not bear it. My heart could not risk forgetting her. So, against my husband's will, we used birth control because I just could not bring myself to contemplate having another baby. Looking back, I wonder how many children we might have today if I had aligned my will with the Lord's and let Him take charge of my fertility and my womb. Hindsight is always 20/20!
We did conceive again, and Sofia was born to us in 2006, our Life Baby. She restored a bit of my hope.
But my heart was still broken.
Nevertheless, I felt the Lord calling me to trust Him completely, and so, I endeavored to do just that. So, after Sofia was born, we tried again to get pregnant.
And we did, in 2007. But in July, I began to bleed, and I began to miscarry early on in my pregnancy. Who was that little one? I would never know, for the Lord had called their name too early for me to know them, but my heart knew them, and would always.
That was very hard thing for me, because we had experienced infertility at this point in our lives. It had not been easy or quick for us to conceive, and to have it end that way was very, very difficult.
We decided to try again shortly after that, and indeed, the little pink tester stick registered two lines one day. Boy, was I terrified. And happy! And......we would go on, at 12 weeks, just after we heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time, to miscarry this little one too, only this miscarriage would take longer and ask more of my body, in fact almost killing me in the process from loss of blood. Our second miscarriage completed itself, at a great toll on my body, on Valentine's Day 2008.
Our doctor asked us to abstain from trying to conceive so that we could begin a ceaseless round of visiting specialist after specialist, in effort to try to see what was wrong with my body that I could not conceive, and when I did, I could no longer sustain a pregnancy.
Fast forward one more year, and against doctor's orders, and much to our shock, we were pregnant again, and, with doctor's vigilance, Lucie was born healthy in January of 2009!! We were so deeply grateful that God had granted us this precious baby girl!
I had learned a bit of how to trust the Lord by this time, and so, when Lucie was three months old we began to try for another baby, because by this time we knew we wanted to have a big family and, my husband had always wanted to have a large family, so, we tried. And tried. And a year later, we were pregnant.
And we lost that pregnancy too, early on, right after finding out. We miscarried on Easter Sunday 2010.
Lord, how much more could my heart take??
Apparently, much more.
Our next pregnancy was a total surprise......we weren't trying. We found out in the summer of 2011 we were pregnant again! Fast forward to my 18 week ultrasound.....what? There were twins in there! They shared a placenta and had their own sacs, separated by a paper-thin membrane. Total joy! Elation! My feet probably soared three feet above the ground for a good two weeks after we found out we were going to be Twin Parents! And two identical girls?? Thank You, Lord!
You can go the the "Our Twins" tab on the top of my blog page to see how that story ended up.
We haven't done anything to prevent pregnancy during nursing since our oldest daughter Hannah was born. So we were surprised when Pennie was 14 months old that I wasn't pregnant yet. I had been taking pregnancy tests every month just to be sure.....and had gotten countless negatives. Now was the time for me to wrap my mind around the fact that maybe Pennie was meant to be our last baby. Boy, was that hard to come to grips with! But I wanted to be in the very center of God's will for me, and if it meant that 8 children were the limit for us, then I wanted to be fine with that.
So it was a total surprise when I took a pregnancy test in early August of 2012, just because I was not feeling well. Much to my surprise, it came up positive. I went to the doctor at 9.5 weeks and got to see our baby's heart busily beating like tiny butterfly wings, and everything looked fabulous. I was so excited and I felt like I could let out some of the breath I had been holding, in case anything was wrong.
I came back to the doctor for my regular 12 week check up and ultrasound and the technician's face, as soon as he put the wand on my tummy, said everything.
Our baby had died.
Fast forward to November 2012: It took my body over three months to get ready to miscarry. I had a very, very painful and traumatic second trimester miscarriage again.
I couldn't walk this path without the Lord holding me fast. I couldn't smile again or laugh again or have joy again without Him. He is everything to me and I am so glad He only gives what He knows we need.
