54 results for author: Ashlee Schmidt
2016 began with great joy as my husband and I celebrated our first pregnancy—one that quickly ended in miscarriage on January 14, around 7-8 weeks. I had never felt devastation, disappointment, and pain like I experienced over that next several weeks as I grieved a child I had never known.
A few months later, we were again expecting. At 12 weeks, we learned that we were having a son and that he likely had Down Syndrome. We were overwhelmed by fear of the unknown and sadness for what we thought would be a difficult life for our son. As we waited for additional scans to confirm whether or not he did have DS, we felt that we were living in a sort of ...
In the Stillness
There’s a worship song that I use to sing quite often back in my high school youth group days. You might be familiar with it. The opening lyrics say,
“In the secret, in the quiet place
In the stillness You are there.
In the secret, in the quiet hour I wait,
Only for You, ‘cause I want to know you more…”
I had always thought of those lyrics as a portrait of the author rising early in the morning before the hustle and bustle of the day, cracking open her bible and waiting for the Lord to blow down fresh fire with His word. The Lord, God of all heaven and all earth, intimately making Himself present and known to ...
Our lives were forever changed when our twin girls, Anna and Ella, were born the morning of July 19, 2015 at 27 weeks. Anna was born at 3:31 am and weighed 1 lb. 15.9 ounces and Ella was born at 3:32 am and weighed 1 lb. 15.8 ounces. They were both immediately taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and we were told to expect them to remain in the hospital for at least 13 weeks (until their due date).
We knew we had a long road ahead of us but we were hopeful they would both come home with us. I am a pediatric nurse practitioner so I made it my full-time job to know every detail of their care. After they were born, Anna seemed to ...
I believe our mess is our message and often, and as a result of experiencing difficult things, we can be a light to those around us who walk the same path. Our first loss was over 8 years ago. I copied many of my original words to share our story.
A few days after a routine (30-week) ultrasound, we were called into the doctor's office for another ultrasound. We went in and our doctor showed us some physical abnormalities that Addie had. We were really nervous and not sure how optimistic to be. He sent us to a specialist. The specialist pointed out a few more things that made us really nervous. He took some amniotic fluid and sent it off to be ...
I went to the doctor because I had been feeling sick for a couple of days, and my husband Jerimy urged me to go. To my shock and amazement, I was pregnant. I cried big, happy tears at the thought of a third child.
Seven years prior, after over a year of infertility, we had our son, Caiden. We never tried after that for another biological baby. Our daughter, Kylie, was adopted because we knew how difficult it was for us to get pregnant and there were so many children waiting for a family.
I told my husband that afternoon. I remember him saying, “How did this happen?" We were both in a such state of happy confusion.
&nbs...
We want to share with you links to posts, videos, and resources from around the web to uplift, help, and encourage you in your walk with the Lord as you grieve.
{Interview with Courtney Reissig, via Of Larks}// Over the next few weeks, Courtney will be walking Hope Mommies through a blog series on learning how to help those who are grieving (following along with the series here so that you can share these posts with your friends and family members). Learn more about Courtney and her story in this interview.
{"Maddox," via A Tree Planted by Jennifer Weir} // "He loves us. Life is hard. There is pain. But, oh, how He loves us. Our pain ...
Two Octobers ago we were living in Colorado when I had my first positive pregnancy test. My husband Ryan and I had been praying for a child. While we were both so excited, I could not shake the feeling that something might not have been right. Ryan had to leave for military training for the early months of my pregnancy, and that didn’t help. I struggled with antepartum depression and had only just come out of the woods when Ryan was finally able to come back, just in time for us to learn that our first baby was a little girl! We named her Eden Olivia. A few weeks later at Eden’s anatomy scan, the technician had to step away to get the doctor ...
All of the pumpkin spice lattes in the world couldn't warm me that first November. It wasn't just the air that was cold, it was my heart. When my son went Home just two months earlier it was as if a part of me had died with him. And there I was, surrounded by family and what seemed like hundreds of platters of food, and fear instilled in me as we gathered around the table.
Before dinner, it was customary to say grace followed by each member of the family saying one thing they were thankful for. But this year—this year, I was struggling under the weight of my grief to find any reason to be thankful. I knew logically that there was plenty to be ...
The story of our sweet baby Blair all began on April 2, 2011 when my husband Clint and I found out we were pregnant with our first child! We had been married for almost 5 years at this point and prayed about when to start our family and felt the Lord’s confirmation as we saw the two lines on the pregnancy test. We were so excited about the thought of having a child to call our own. As a Pre-K teacher, I have always loved kids and my students always became like my own children after teaching them for a year. Yet, I couldn’t wait to take care of my own after 4 years of teaching a classroom full of others. I decided that this was going to be my last ...
When I lost my first son, Wyatt on June 18, 2013, I was completely heartbroken. I was young and it was my first pregnancy. I shouldn’t be leaving the hospital without a baby, but I was. I remember thinking “Does this really happen? Am I the only one going through this? Why me? What did I do wrong?” A few weeks after Wyatt was born I felt myself start really wondering how many other moms also had to go through this pain. I then got a Hope Box from a good friend of mine and started looking into Hope Mommies more. That was the first time I had ever heard of Hope Mommies and I was blown away the more I read about it! I found out that they had a ...
