We were pregnant…

We were pregnant…

Yes… You read that right… Were… Past tense… We lost our third baby…

The past month and a half has been a rollercoaster of emotions… From the joy of getting the phone call, to the sinking feeling you get when your surrogate bleeds, to the relief you feel when you see the sweet sight of your little rainbow’s heartbeat, but to only be crushed just one week later when you are told “there is no heartbeat today”…

Our hearts have been broken over and over and over again… The road to becoming parents is nothing like we had ever pictured and I just simply want to be a mom… I want to have a family with the man I love so deeply… And you would think that because we have been broken and because our journey has been difficult that our faith has dwindled, but it is actually the opposite. We are hurting and we don’t understand, but I also have never felt closer to God… And I want to show how God is working in our hearts and in our lives…

Our surrogate is not just our surrogate. She is our friend. Our family. We have known her and her husband for over a decade. It is a core group of friends who grew up together, celebrated weddings together and now raise kids together. A true village. And I believe in my heart that God has set us on this path, together, with them…

After transfer, it took nine days to find out if we were pregnant. Nine agonizing days. When the day came, our family and our surrogate had spent the morning together, waiting on pins and needles for that phone call. My heart was pounding when I answered the phone and we finally heard the word we had been waiting for – “congratulations!”… I instantly felt lighter, the anxiety left my body in that moment and my heart was so happy… I couldn’t help but cry… I felt like this was it, everything was finally starting to fall into place and we were going to have such a beautiful story to tell…

Until one week later when we were rushing to her home as she was bleeding… I got up from the dinner table without saying a word and the car ride was so silent… I was angry… Angry at the world… This baby was so important to us, this wasn’t supposed to happen, this was not how our story was supposed to go… And I struggled to get my emotions and my heart in check… I’m human and I had to battle my way back to what I knew in my heart… I knew who God was, He is in control and He is the author of our story, not me.

We would spend the next few days doing lab draws and waiting on phone calls… A torturous cycle of ups and downs… The next week went fine until one day when we happened to be right by the clinic and the bleeding started yet again… Their phones had been down for a few days, and I believe that God placed us there in that moment… We were able to get in and see the nurse and were reassured that this is sometimes normal in the first trimester. We had to wait until our first ultrasound that following Monday… There was nothing we could do but wait… Another torturous waiting period… And although it was scary, we felt reassured… Maybe it was the dozens of butterflies that would surround our surrogate or cross our path… Yes, butterflies… Everywhere… On the patio, in the car, walking inside the store… When times would look or feel discouraging, we would see a butterfly… We felt comforted, we felt the presence of our children, the presence of God and felt reassured that we were on the right path…

And when the day finally came, our first ultrasound, we walked in feeling confident… There had been no more spotting or bleeding and we were ready to finally see our little rainbow… And there that sweet little miracle was, his / her heart beating strong… Tears in the room, tears of happiness. And when another week had passed by smoothly, we walked into that doctor’s office with no sense of worry… But when the ultrasound began, I could tell something was wrong… My heart sank… It broke as she said “there’s no heartbeat today”… But how? How could this be? We just saw the baby’s heartbeat one week ago, everything was fine… What happened??… We were left in that room and were silent… I buried my face in my hands and wept… I don’t know how long we were actually in that room before we were moved into another to speak with the doctor… Honestly, I can’t remember everything he said… I just remember him looking at us and saying “do you have any questions?” as tears streamed down my face…

I was broken and I was defeated. I saw the pain on my husband’s face and now my friend. I felt that it was one thing for me to suffer, but it was another when I saw the people around me, the people I love deeply, suffering because of me. How could I do that to them? They didn’t have to bear this burden with me. I was bringing them into this world of pain when it wasn’t necessary. And I felt responsible. I questioned… Was this even meant for me? Am I just not meant to be a mother? I was hurting. And I was tired. And I didn’t know how much more I could take…

We had shut down. Shut people out. I text my family about what happened, but told them that I didn’t want to talk. I ignored phone calls. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. But that was when certain people stepped in… They refused to let us go through this alone and helped us carry the weight of this grief… They called, text, or came to our home, they prayed (with us in our home, alone in theirs, in the break room or at the salon), they sent verses, songs of worship or a small book, they asked us to dinner or have literally slept at my home so I wouldn’t be alone while my husband worked all night… They have helped us grow in our faith and reminded that they are doing this with us, not for us… And that… That is LOVE…

And as I said before, we are human… We fall short sometimes and had to work through our emotions. We had to really listen to what God what trying to tell us… And we each had a different message. It’s a faith tester… He wants to know if you really believe that He will fulfill the desires He has placed in your heart. That He will fulfill His promises. Even when it doesn’t look like it. Do you believe that He will make a way? Make the impossible, possible. He wants you to know that faith is not about the results. You don’t believe just because it has gone your way. You are part of a much larger story. You are just so close to the details that it can be difficult to get perspective. And I had to learn that apart from my desire to become a mother… I had to be firm in my relationship with God Himself.

Do I still believe that we are on the right path? Yes. Is it hard? Yes.

I still believe that it will happen… in His time…

Don’t let the enemy trick you. If you are going through a storm, know that it won’t last. God is using you… He is using YOU… He has given it to you because you are the only one who can tell that story. It is not to destroy you, it is to show you who He is. And as Levi Lusko said… “I dare you to look at the hardships you’re facing and believe that through them, there are people you are meant to reach.”

 

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For Brooklyn, for Miles, and for the sweet little baby we never got to meet… We love you… And we will keep fighting…