I wanted to get this story down in writing before I fogot because it's such a testament at just how impeccable and perfect God's timing truly is, everytime... even when it doesn't feel like it.
So here's the time-line:
February 2009: We've been married all of one month and my period is two days late. My breasts are tender, I'm exhausted. Mark suggests I take a pregnancy test, "better to know that sit around and worry." I don't know if I agree. Not knowing means there's still a chance I'm just late and not pregnant. He buys me one. I take it. It's positive. I cry for four hours. I'm so not ready for this. I don't even know how to be a wife yet, let alone a mom. He's shocked too, but handling the news much better than me, he's always been more faithful, more trusting of God than I have. I don't say anything, do anything, but stare at the walls of our bedroom in Colorado Springs and cry, cry, cry. We watch an episode of the office. Somehow it's not as funny this time.
I wake up in the morning, go to the bathroom and loose the baby. I am relieved. I feel guilty for feeling relieved. But so, so relieved. We are very careful from then on.
August 6-7, 2010: My two best friends and I from college had a girl's weekend in San Luis Obispo, our college town where Jill still lives with her husband and their ten month old. It was the first time since we'd all been together since my wedding a year and a half ago. They started to ask when Mark and I were going to start trying to have babies and I admitted that I was no where near ready. Not just not ready, but I feared that I never would be. I thought that I would be "farther along by now, more ready" but those maternal instincts were still not there and knowing that Mark wanted kids pretty soon here was making me worried if I'd ever be ready. They assured me I would be. I hoped they were right.
August 10, 2010: We receive a call from Safe Families, an incredible organization we know of through Mariners Church that we had applied to be a part of that helps provide a "safe family" to care for a child as a single parent experiences any kind of crisis in their life. It could be that they have to go to jail, get surgery, are suddenly homeless, etc. and there is no one to care for their child so they call or are referred to Safe Families. Check it out: http://www.safe-families.org/ We get the story on little Makayla, a six month old baby girl who's mom has to serve 5 days in jail and has no one else in her life to take her baby while she does so.
August 13-17, 2010: We have Makayla, absolutely fall in love with her in .02 seconds and have THE HARDEST time when we have to give her back on Tuesday. Seriously, I thought it would be no problem giving a child back, the point of the program [after all] is to reunite the children with their parents, we were [after all] doing it to serve selflessly, I had just told my friends the weekend prior [after all] that I was so far from being ready for babies that it worried me. I had skimmed through that part of the program's training [after all], thinking it wasn't an issue.
But really, can you blame me?
August 18, 2010: It's my 30th birthday. I get a voicemail from a friend saying she "had a dream I was pregnant, I'm not am I? By the way, Happy Birthday." I receieve a text from a different friend, one I haven't heard from in months, she too had a dream I was pregnant, and of course, happy birthday.
I cry through my entire birthday dinner, the one at a trendy and packed new lounge might I add. We're heartbroken that "our baby" has been taken away (we had slipped into calling each other "mommy" and "daddy." I even got a text one of the days when Mark had to work and I stayed home with her that asked how "his girls" were.) We feel like something, everything, was missing all of a sudden.
We start talking about having kids and this time the conversation went very differently. We were both ready. More than ready. Before that the plan was to wait until after he was done with residency. It made sense: he'd have a much better schedule, we'd have more money, I would have been in my job for years and would have some flexibility. Now two more years of waiting before I even got pregnant, let alone gave birth, seemed like eternity.
August 21-22, 2010: I mention to Mark that I should be ovulating next week according to the app I have on my phone (yep, there's an app for that). We go to Rite Aid and buy an kit so we can start paying closer attention to this whole cycle thing that I've had since I was a teen, but never much cared about mastering until now. We stop using anything to prevent pregnancy for the first time since our honeymoon (when we thought we were safe, ha!)
August 24, 2010: The kit says I'll be ovulating within the next 24-36 hrs. I come into bed and tell Mark that 1) I'll be ovulating soon so if we're really serious about trying this is go time 2) I don't think we should be trying. Fear, logic, selfishness, whatever you want to call it had kicked. Fall is my busiest time at work and I didn't feel I could afford to be tired and sick and all of what I'd been reading the first trimester brought. He agreed and was fine with waiting. We went back to using protection.
Sept. 6, 2010: I woke up with a feeling after dreaming about babies. We had my boss' wedding to go to the next day and wanted to be able to drink without worrying about it so I took the test to put my mind at ease, more than sure it would be negative. This is what I saw:
The same moment I saw the "pregnant" appear on the digital test I heard my husband coming up the stairs and swung the bathroom door open. I just kept saying, "I'm pregnant," "I'm pregnant," "I'm pregnant" over and over again. He said I looked like a bobble head saying it repeatedly. I was definitely in shock. So was he. We hugged, kissed, said "Oh my gosh" many, many times. And then he said, "Well, I'm going to go back to doing laundry now, because that's what I was doing before I got this news." What a guy.
I love that my change of mind came too late. I love that God said, "Nope, you are ready. You don't think you are, but you are." I love that he allowed us to be a hint of ready before he brought us this pregnancy. I love that this fall hasn't been that bad at work and that I've felt pretty dang good throughout the first trimester. I love that He knows me better than I know myself. I love that His perfect timing never ceases to amaze me.
So here's the time-line:
February 2009: We've been married all of one month and my period is two days late. My breasts are tender, I'm exhausted. Mark suggests I take a pregnancy test, "better to know that sit around and worry." I don't know if I agree. Not knowing means there's still a chance I'm just late and not pregnant. He buys me one. I take it. It's positive. I cry for four hours. I'm so not ready for this. I don't even know how to be a wife yet, let alone a mom. He's shocked too, but handling the news much better than me, he's always been more faithful, more trusting of God than I have. I don't say anything, do anything, but stare at the walls of our bedroom in Colorado Springs and cry, cry, cry. We watch an episode of the office. Somehow it's not as funny this time.
I wake up in the morning, go to the bathroom and loose the baby. I am relieved. I feel guilty for feeling relieved. But so, so relieved. We are very careful from then on.
August 6-7, 2010: My two best friends and I from college had a girl's weekend in San Luis Obispo, our college town where Jill still lives with her husband and their ten month old. It was the first time since we'd all been together since my wedding a year and a half ago. They started to ask when Mark and I were going to start trying to have babies and I admitted that I was no where near ready. Not just not ready, but I feared that I never would be. I thought that I would be "farther along by now, more ready" but those maternal instincts were still not there and knowing that Mark wanted kids pretty soon here was making me worried if I'd ever be ready. They assured me I would be. I hoped they were right.
August 10, 2010: We receive a call from Safe Families, an incredible organization we know of through Mariners Church that we had applied to be a part of that helps provide a "safe family" to care for a child as a single parent experiences any kind of crisis in their life. It could be that they have to go to jail, get surgery, are suddenly homeless, etc. and there is no one to care for their child so they call or are referred to Safe Families. Check it out: http://www.safe-families.org/ We get the story on little Makayla, a six month old baby girl who's mom has to serve 5 days in jail and has no one else in her life to take her baby while she does so.
August 13-17, 2010: We have Makayla, absolutely fall in love with her in .02 seconds and have THE HARDEST time when we have to give her back on Tuesday. Seriously, I thought it would be no problem giving a child back, the point of the program [after all] is to reunite the children with their parents, we were [after all] doing it to serve selflessly, I had just told my friends the weekend prior [after all] that I was so far from being ready for babies that it worried me. I had skimmed through that part of the program's training [after all], thinking it wasn't an issue.
But really, can you blame me?
August 18, 2010: It's my 30th birthday. I get a voicemail from a friend saying she "had a dream I was pregnant, I'm not am I? By the way, Happy Birthday." I receieve a text from a different friend, one I haven't heard from in months, she too had a dream I was pregnant, and of course, happy birthday.
I cry through my entire birthday dinner, the one at a trendy and packed new lounge might I add. We're heartbroken that "our baby" has been taken away (we had slipped into calling each other "mommy" and "daddy." I even got a text one of the days when Mark had to work and I stayed home with her that asked how "his girls" were.) We feel like something, everything, was missing all of a sudden.
We start talking about having kids and this time the conversation went very differently. We were both ready. More than ready. Before that the plan was to wait until after he was done with residency. It made sense: he'd have a much better schedule, we'd have more money, I would have been in my job for years and would have some flexibility. Now two more years of waiting before I even got pregnant, let alone gave birth, seemed like eternity.
August 21-22, 2010: I mention to Mark that I should be ovulating next week according to the app I have on my phone (yep, there's an app for that). We go to Rite Aid and buy an kit so we can start paying closer attention to this whole cycle thing that I've had since I was a teen, but never much cared about mastering until now. We stop using anything to prevent pregnancy for the first time since our honeymoon (when we thought we were safe, ha!)
August 24, 2010: The kit says I'll be ovulating within the next 24-36 hrs. I come into bed and tell Mark that 1) I'll be ovulating soon so if we're really serious about trying this is go time 2) I don't think we should be trying. Fear, logic, selfishness, whatever you want to call it had kicked. Fall is my busiest time at work and I didn't feel I could afford to be tired and sick and all of what I'd been reading the first trimester brought. He agreed and was fine with waiting. We went back to using protection.
Sept. 6, 2010: I woke up with a feeling after dreaming about babies. We had my boss' wedding to go to the next day and wanted to be able to drink without worrying about it so I took the test to put my mind at ease, more than sure it would be negative. This is what I saw:
The same moment I saw the "pregnant" appear on the digital test I heard my husband coming up the stairs and swung the bathroom door open. I just kept saying, "I'm pregnant," "I'm pregnant," "I'm pregnant" over and over again. He said I looked like a bobble head saying it repeatedly. I was definitely in shock. So was he. We hugged, kissed, said "Oh my gosh" many, many times. And then he said, "Well, I'm going to go back to doing laundry now, because that's what I was doing before I got this news." What a guy.
I love that my change of mind came too late. I love that God said, "Nope, you are ready. You don't think you are, but you are." I love that he allowed us to be a hint of ready before he brought us this pregnancy. I love that this fall hasn't been that bad at work and that I've felt pretty dang good throughout the first trimester. I love that He knows me better than I know myself. I love that His perfect timing never ceases to amaze me.
Kelly, this is so awesome...what a joy it was to read your story!! We had #1 unplanned and completely broke and jobless and we survived...it really is all in HIS timing! Good Luck with everything!!
ReplyDeleteSara Dunn (Ingram)