The reason I haven't written much lately is because Matt and I found out on Christmas morning that we were pregnant. How can I possibly talk about anything other than this? But at the same time, we knew we were not going to advertise the news until later. Well, we went to the doctor last Monday (one week ago) for our 9/10 week appointment and discovered that the baby was no longer developing. It was not a viable pregnancy. The doctor was great to assure us that nothing we did caused this. She said not even if I had had a glass of wine, or skipped my pre-natal vitamins, or if got in a fight with a friend. None of those were the casey anyway, but her point was well taken.
It was a pretty rough week, especially since Wednesday was my birthday, but Matt and I are really okay. We are not discouraged, we have no reason to believe that we will not have a large family one day, and we ARE encouraged that we at least know that we can get pregnant, even if this was not the time for us to begin our family. We spent 48 hours sad and grieving, which I believe is so necessary, but we really feel like we're ready to move on from it. We trust God with our whole lives and have no reason to believe he's not in control, even in the middle of this. We know that this is just going to be part of our story one day.
I am writing this, partly because I think that women should talk about it more often. Yes, it's private, but it's painful, and when you're in the middle of it you feel like you're the only one that's ever had to go through it. It feels like the biggest tragedy. People don't speak about it until you're in the middle of it, and even then, I think people are hesitant to say, "oh, this happened to me, too." A. because they don't want to put the attention on themselves, and B. because they don't want to downplay what you're going through. But what I was going through was so sad in my mind, and the unknown was so scary, that I needed it to be downplayed. I needed to hear the stories of people who were years past it with perfectly lovely families to boast about.
It has been nothing less than our faith in God that has enabled us to move past this with a good perspective. We have felt the prayers of our friends and the presence of our loving savior. We know that we're in good hands no matter what sadness we face in this world. The lyrics of two praise songs have been stuck in my head and have encouraged me this past week:
Blessed be Your Name
Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. And when the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your glorious name." You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, "Lord, blessed be your name."
Jesus, I am Resting, Resting
Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art. I am finding out the greatness of thy loving heart. Thou hast bid me gaze upon thee, and thy beauty fills my soul, for by thy transforming power thou hast made me whole.
Simply trusting thee Lord Jesus, I behold thee as thou art, and thy love, so pure, so changeless, satisfies my heart. Satisfies my deepest longings; meets, supplies my every need. Compasseth me round with blessings; thine is love indeed.
Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art. I am finding out the greatness of thy loving heart.
I'm hoping to find time this week to flood the blog with recipes (and maybe a few stories) from the last month that I've been wanting to get on here. We'll see. If it's too much work to go backwards, then hopefully I can at least keep up moving forward.
Thank you for being open. When I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, I thought I was the only one in the whole world with it and that I was going to be a bad mom. Turns out, I knew lots of moms who dealt with it, but we hadn't talked about it before. Being open about this will be an encouragement for someone else, and hopefully you can find women you can be an encouragement to you.
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