My cup with blessings overflows, even in the darkest of storms.

I debated with myself for a long time as to whether or not I should write this, but I think that too often, we humans hide away within ourselves instead of seeking solace in the friendship and love of others. My hope is that writing out the story of my trials can help me to heal, and maybe help someone who is in the midst of the same sort of trial that I have endured to find peace and understanding. It has been difficult, but through Christ, I have been able to accept that all things will work for my good.

Andrew and I have been yearning for another child for quite a while. It has always been our desire to have a big family, and I dream of the day when we (hopefully) will be surrounded by children. Psalm 127: 3-5: "Behold, children are a heritage of the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!" Because of this desire, I had been practically obsessing each month over whether or not I was pregnant. Andrew kept reminding me, month after month, not to worry, and that it was beyond our control. I knew, in my heart, that it was all in God's timing, but I have always been a worrier. I knew that I needed to place my full trust in the Lord's sovereignty, but it was just so difficult to do. Month after month of waiting began to wear away at me, and I found myself weary and frustrated until every negative pregnancy test caused me to break down into tears.  But then...our prayers were answered.

May 6 was a Monday. I woke up early that morning and decided I might as well use up the last pregnancy test I had in the drawer. I wasn't expecting anything; I had tested a few days before and gotten a negative. Half-asleep and feeling quite pessimistic, I took the test and bustled around while I waited for it to develop. As soon as I put my contact lenses in, I checked it, and then...I couldn't believe my eyes. Two little pink lines. Those two little lines I had been waiting for were now there, right in front of me, and I was in shock. It took a few moments to register, and then I was filled with a rush of joy so overwhelming that I had to sit and let it sink in. I felt like I had never been happier than I was in that moment, and I ran over to the bed and woke Andrew with tears in my eyes. After the initial grogginess had worn off of his face, I could see the same joy overcome him that I was feeling, and for a few minutes we sat together, overwhelmed with emotion and joy. We told several people our good news that day; who could blame us? We had waited for so long that we were bursting to share our excitement. The one fear that plagued my mind throughout that day was "what if I lose this baby?" I had prayed, and waited, and cried so much already for this baby that I had only known for a few hours and the thought of losing it was unbearable. I put the thoughts out of my head and celebrated the miracle that was growing within me.

I awoke the next morning with a sudden surge of joy, and it took me a minute to remember why. I hopped up out of bed with a vigor I hadn't felt in a while, and began to bustle around doing my morning routine. I was using the bathroom, and then all of a sudden I realized...I was bleeding. My heart stopped; I felt like I couldn't breathe. For a few seconds I was paralyzed, and then numbness took over me. After so much waiting and praying, and then after so much joy, I couldn't bear to have this blessing ripped away so soon. For a while I just sat in sort of a daze, and then I went over to the bed and held on to Andrew as tightly as I could. By that point I was crying, and my shudders woke him up. It took a while for me to manage any intelligible words, but eventually he understood, and we both just laid there together, mourning the loss of someone we had never even met but already missed so dearly. It didn't seem fair. I was so confused, and so devastated, and all I wanted to do was forget that any of it had happened. Andrew was so gentle and loving, and such a guiding light to me; he reminded me that it was all in God's will and that all things would work out for good (Romans 8:28). We went to our midwife that same day, and she drew my blood to check my HCG (the pregnancy hormone, basically) levels. We needed to confirm that they were dropping, which would confirm that it was indeed a miscarriage. We went through the rest of the day with heavy hearts.

It took two days for the results of the blood test to come back. Donna (our midwife) called me around midday on Thursday and told me to come back and we would draw more blood. My HCG level was 18, which is really really low. We all assumed that there was no way it could be rising at such a low number, so we went away believing that I had lost the baby. We drew more blood anyway, just to be sure, but those results wouldn't be back for a few days. Andrew and I decided that we needed to go away and spend some time together as a family as we overcame this trial together, so we packed up Anna and Rena (who was such a blessing to have along!) and hit the road for Williamsburg later that week.

We were en route to Williamsburg when Donna called us with the results from my second blood test. She told me to put her on speaker phone so that she could speak to Andrew and I at the same time, and then she launched into what was the first upward swing on the emotional roller coaster of which we were now passengers. My HCG level had actually risen to 73, which wasn't what any of us were expecting. Donna herself didn't quite know what to make of it; she was just as confused as we were. She had never seen a positive, healthy pregnancy with an HCG level as low as 18, and she told us there were three distinct possibilities: 1) It could be a loss, despite the hormone levels; 2) It could be a healthy pregnancy, and we had just managed to detect it at an unusually early time when the HCG hadn't had a chance to rise yet; or 3) It could be an ectopic pregnancy. It was like we had been hit by a tsunami. We were suddenly re-invigorated by this new glimmer of hope. Donna reminded us that anything was possible, but not to get our hopes up for anything yet.  We would wait two weeks so that my HCG could rise or fizzle out, depending on what it was doing, and then we would do more blood tests to determine what was happening. She told me what the symptoms of ectopic pregnancy were, and to go straight to the ER if I experienced anything like them. After she hung up, a sort of stunned silence hung in the air for a while before we could talk about it. We had gone from total joy, to devastating heartbreak, and then to utter confusion. We wanted answers, and clarity, but we knew there was nothing we could do but wait.

Even though I knew that worrying would bring me nothing but more heartache, I thought night and day about what was happening within me. No matter how many distractions I surrounded myself with, I couldn't focus my attention anywhere else. I prayed for peace and patience, and Andrew reminded me practically every hour that no good would come from worrying, but still I couldn't help but dwell on it. Our vacation lasted three days, and it was absolutely wonderful to be together without having to worry about work, or housekeeping, or anything but enjoying each other and spending time alone with God. When we returned home, however, my anxiety set in. I spent the next two weeks driving myself crazy worrying. I had always feared that I would face an ectopic pregnancy; I don't believe in abortion for any reason, and I was overwhelmed with the prospect of having to make a life or death decision. I prayed relentlessly that God would send me anything but that, but I understood that if He placed me in such a situation, it was for His own glory, and I would do the very best I could to live out His will. 

In my Bible study, we had recently memorized Psalm 23, basically right at the time when all this began. I could not have given a better example of God's sovereignty than that: in those seven short verses, I found comforts for every worry and fear that crossed my mind.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever."

I distinctly remember one night when I was eating supper, I was battling with myself over what would happen if I did have an ectopic pregnancy. I was quietly sobbing into my spaghetti, and when Andrew asked me what was wrong I said: "I never thought I would actually be walking through the valley of the shadow of death." It was sobering for me to voice my fears, and I think it was sobering for him to hear me say it, but then he reminded me of the next verse: "I will fear no evil, for you are with me." Through all of the fears, worries, and anxieties I faced those trying two weeks, He was with me, and there is no greater comfort than that.

We somehow made it through two long weeks of waiting and wondering. Throughout those two weeks, we were optimistic; I was ravenously hungry, and rather moody (yes, I admit it!), so we took those as positive signs and prayed for a miracle. After what seemed like a lifetime, it was finally time to draw more blood and see what my HCG was doing. Another agonizing two days passed, and then one morning my phone lit up bearing the most beautiful words I thought I had ever read. My HCG had risen to over 3000. It fell within the normal range for a 4-5 week pregnancy, so we decided to forego another blood test and go straight for an ultrasound, which we thought for sure would give us a clear, concise answer.

Ultrasound day came. I was sick with worry all through that morning, and my fears were not aided by the fact that I began bleeding again that day. Needless to say, I was practically hyperventilating by the time we were escorted back to the ultrasound room. The tech got me all set up, and the lights dimmed while Andrew I sat sat with bated breath. I don't know what I was expecting, really; it was way, way too early to see the flutter of a heartbeat that my heart yearned for. If we did see anything, it would be just a small black blob on the screen, and the tech doing the procedure couldn't tell us anything anyway. She was awfully quiet as she took measurements and captured screenshots for the radiologist. When it was over, I was nearly bursting with anxiety, and she promised that she would have the radiologist come and speak to us before we left. We waited for about half an hour more, and then a man walked up to us, and I was sure he was going to come bearing news of a miracle, telling us that he had found a teeny tiny little person, growing exactly perfectly and where it was supposed to be. All of my craziest speculations couldn't have prepared me for what he said: there was nothing there. He saw no sign of anything, anywhere. No pregnancy, ectopic or healthy. Of all the possibilities that had been swirling around in my head, that was definitely not one of them. We had expected to have a definite answer, but instead we were even more confused. Donna was just as baffled as we were; she drew more of my blood and said that we would have to wait and see...again.

After another agonizing weekend, the blood results came back to show that my HCG was up yet again. By now, I was so worn. We were all tired of things that didn't make sense, and of being in limbo with no clue as to what was actually going on. Donna suggested that we see a perinatologist in Cary, and he would almost certainly be able to give us a definitive answer. He doesn't take any clients before 6 weeks, and by our calculations, 6 weeks for me would have been June 18 (incidentally, the day after my birthday). So we made our appointment and hunkered down to wait once more.

The bleeding that had begin that day that we had our first ultrasound did not let up; in fact, it increased as time went on. By the time a week rolled around and it was getting progressively worse, I had the dreadful feeling that something was definitely not right, and had more blood drawn. We all thought that this was it, and that my levels would be down, and that this was a miscarriage. When the results came back, my HCG was higher than the last test had been, so we assumed it had was still rising. No one thought to test again to make sure the HCG was trending up rather than down.

After about a week, my bleeding had stopped and it was June 18. Andrew and I didn't talk much on the way to Cary that morning. I think we were both reflecting on everything that happened so far, and thinking about the outcome we so desperately yearned for, and about the worst case scenarios we were dreading. After everything we had been through, after so many trials and tears, I still held on to hope that we could have a happy ending, and that there was a healthy baby growing exactly where it was supposed to be. We arrived and got ready to receive an answer. As the doctor performed the ultrasound, he gave us commentary and told us what we were looking at, but he never mentioned a baby, or a fetus, or anything that sounded remotely like a pregnancy. By the time he was done, he had only confirmed what we had all already deduced: there was nothing there. He told us that most likely the bleeding I had experienced had been a loss, and that we should check my HCG one last time, just to be sure. He went to call Donna and we left with heavy hearts. We arrived at her office a few hours later and found her just as glum as we were. Before she drew blood, I thought that maybe I should take a urine test, to possibly save us the trouble and time. If it was a negative, we would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had lost the baby. Instead of having to wait two days for more bloodwork, we had to wait two minutes, and sure enough, there it was...one negative pregnancy test. And just like that...it was all over.

So many emotions flooded through me at that moment that I didn't even know what half of them were. I won't lie and say that I wasn't relieved that the suspense and waiting was over; I had come to terms, long ago, that this would probably be the outcome of our ordeal. I had already mourned the loss of this little child, and then celebrated, and then mourned yet again. I felt like I had no tears left to cry. By the end of it all, I was just so numb that I could barely speak, or think. On the way home that afternoon I did shed a few tears, but I also thanked God for His sovereignty and His plan. In the dark times I had walked through, my biggest comfort had been knowing that it was beyond my control, and that the God of creation knew what was happening, and that He cared about me. 

I know that I will always grieve a little for the baby that was lost before we ever got the chance to meet. He or she is as much a part of our family as Anna, and I am so thankful that we had those few moments of sheer joy and celebration. I have learned many lessons from this, but mainly I was shown how to truly and fully trust in the sovereignty of God. It occurred to me that if I had trusted in the first place rather than obsessing and testing every single day, we never have had to endure this trial, but I'm glad we did. I feel so much stronger as a mother, a wife, a woman, and a believer now that I come through this valley. I am thankful every day for the blessings that I have been given, and I look to the future with thankfulness for the blessings I haven't even seen yet.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever."

Praise the Lord.