And the suffering doesn't end there...

I wish I could say that after we got married life was so perfect and everything went our way and we had lots of babies and lived happily ever after! 

But I cant.... Our first year of marriage, I stand corrected, our first 2 and 1/2 years of marriage has been a true test of faith. Here we are two people with broken pasts, healed and restored to new through our faith in Christ and our love for one another. What a perfect way to start a family. 
Ryan does not have children. He is 31 now, I am 38. We have been trying to have a child since the very day we married. My first thought when praying over this very thing was that finally....finally I would be able to have that one thing, that very simple little thing that brought my life so much shame and turmoil because I didn't have it. A whole family. A mommy, a daddy and children who know both mommy and daddy are there, together. 

Please don't get me wrong, I had a stepfather who I adored. Our life was a mess and very broken, but I adored my stepfather nonetheless. He was the closest thing to love from a man I knew for years. And my children, they had me, we were a family. My children and I were a family but we were not whole. It wasn't how God intended it to be. I thank God every day for His grace and His mercy in the lives of my boys and the life I have with my boys. But we were not whole and my boys were definitely effected by it. 

Again, my entire life of unworthiness stemmed from the broken family I came from. But I would never take away what someone else has with a step family in their own life. I can only speak for where I was and where God has restored me. And for me, its this. 

This is the dream come true in my life. The family and the white picked fence. I cant let that dream go because I dared dream to have a husband who loves the Lord more than he loves me, and look what the Lord did with that dream. 

The first 9 months of trying to get pregnant was ok, we started to wonder if something was wrong about 6 months into trying but surely God wouldn't just stop at marriage. Surely children would follow. Right? We brushed off any doubt and continued having fun trying!

Well we finally got our positive pregnancy test in January of 2013. December 2012 we prayed more than normal for this baby. We spoke her into life, we spoke life into our hope of a child. We claimed her as our own and told God we knew it was already a completed work in our life, and we were ready to accept it as such. 

The positive test brought such renewed faith. Our pray had worked, God had saw our faith and answered by giving our baby life! 

The first few weeks before our doctors appointment, I knew something wasn't right. I was not feeling any symptoms, I wasn't tired, aside from the occasional headache, nothing really felt pregnant about me. 

The morning of my first doctor appointment, last February,  I called a close friend and told her my fears. I told her the baby had not survived. She said to me "When are you going to accept what God is giving you and start living like you believe it?" I was speechless. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was allowing that fear to creep right back into my mind. Lord I am so sorry for giving into my fears. I cannot understand sometimes how to accept your beautiful gifts and I most often resort to fear. 
The doctor appointment came with such anticipation from my husband. He had never done this before, didn't know what to expect or what was normal and what wasn't. As soon as we spoke to the nurse I explained my fears and shared with her previous miscarriages early on in my life. Two miscarriages to be exact. Two miscarriages that ended the same way. No symptoms and no physical miscarriage. Just an ultrasound with no heartbeat. 

This time was no different, sadly. The hardest part for me was not losing the baby, I knew that God would take her immediately. The hardest part was watching my husbands face. It killed me like nothing I have ever felt before. I wanted it to not be so. I wanted it all to be a dream. We were almost 9 weeks but the baby only measured 6 weeks and had no heartbeat. 

The doctor told us to go home and wait it out. Not to go anywhere because I could miscarry at any moment and if I didn't, to come back in a week to schedule a DNC. 

We left there in complete shock and disbelief. I couldn't talk through my tears and Ryan had so many questions.
How could this happen to my perfect new life. How could I meet the man of my dreams and not be able to give him a child? Where did I go wrong? Why God? What did we do wrong ? Is something strange happening to us? 

We went home only to pray on our knees begging God to please give our baby a heartbeat. Lord you raised Lazarus from the dead, you made the blind see, you cured the lepers, you healed the sick, please do this for us God. 

Our prayer was genuine. Our cries were real and we believed. We believed that God would do this for the baby that we though He blessed us with.
We prayed for one whole week. We had others praying not for another pregnancy but for this one, for this baby, that the doctors were wrong and when we go back, there will be a heartbeat and the testimony of Gods power will flood the doctors office! Overflow into the lives of every person there just by this one testimony of our baby who we thought had no heartbeat but God gave it life! Lord we know this is your plan! This was your plan all along! To not really let her die, just revive her little heart! 

We went back a week late with the boldness and assurance of a Lion! This is Gods plan!! 
But it wasn't Gods plan. Our baby still had no heartbeat and we were told there is no baby. We lost it.

Sheer devastation. Confusion. It all started all over again. The why's? The doubting...it was numbing. My heart hurt for my husband. It broke for him. And I knew I was to blame. 

I thought about what my friend said about accepting what God has done and wondered, did I speak life into this child and turn right around just to take it away 9 weeks later? Is that possible that my lack of faith led me to lose this baby. Maybe if I had accepted this precious gift and spoke life instead of fear, we wouldn't be in this position. 
Well thank you Jesus that that is just not your character and I just seem to have really bad theology. If I could remotely add anything to this merciful life that God has given me, I would surely screw it all up again anyway, hence my need for a Savior. 

A perfect Savior to rise above my doubts and my fears. One that takes me out of the equation and replaces it with His Spirit. Its true that God does not give us a spirit of fear, his Word says so. (2Tim 1:7) But it does lead me to believe that there actually is a spirit of fear and that when we feel it, we need to know it is not of God. God has given us a Spirit of power, love and a sound mind. (Amen for the sound mind part!)

I don't know why this happened to us. I don't even know if this might have just been Gods mercy on us all over again. Losing a pregnancy is devastating, but losing a child you have touched, and loved and held in your arms, even if only once, that gives loss a whole new meaning. 

Our loss hurts because we are so prepared to give a child a real Christian upbringing with love and forgiveness and lots of Jesus!! We don't understand  why God would want to hold back this blessing from us.

 Today, its December and I still don't have an answer for why this happened. But I know that we still love our God and our faith only deepens in these fiery trials. After all, isn't that why He allows them to happen, to make us partners with Christ in His sufferings? So that we will have the wonderful joy of seeing His Glory when this plan is revealed to the world!

 I can't wait.