234 results for tag: Share Your Story
“God is faithful; He will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear. But when you are tested, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” 1 Corinthians 10:13
I found out I was pregnant on my husband, Justin's, birthday. To tell you I was excited would be an understatement. I was over the moon, off the walls excited! Being a mom is something I’ve wanted since I was a little girl with baby dolls. It is also something both Justin and I had talked about well before marriage and have been putting off because of school and life transitions. We were thrilled! About eight weeks later, we lost our baby.
The events ...
My husband and I were married for nine years before we decided it was time for us to start a family. We had a lot of difficulty getting pregnant. I was diagnosed with endometriosis, which can cause infertility and pain. The only treatment was surgery. Just a couple of months after I had the surgery, we found out we were expecting a baby. We were so thrilled that the surgery had worked and that we were now going to be a family of three. We also found a new church home during this time; everything was going great.
At about 10 weeks pregnant, I found out that the baby had no heartbeat. I was so distraught over the loss of our baby, I did not ...
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”-2 Corinthians 4:16-18
I have repeated these verses many times. Most of the time, when I am trying to fall asleep and sleep won’t find me—when my mind is wondering and remembering. I have fallen asleep repeating these verses, saying it over and over ...
It was the last week of May. I left after work and decided to go to the hospital because I was concerned that I was having contractions. When I arrived, everything with the baby looked healthy. His heartbeat provided a steady rhythm on the monitor as the nurses tried to get the contractions to stop. My amniotic fluid was high, and I had been going in for weekly ultrasounds, but the doctor had told me that while high amounts of amniotic fluid could result in preterm contractions, it didn’t always lead to preterm labor. My contractions did eventually stop around 6:00 that night, and I was sent home. But at midnight, they started up again.
We ...
2019 was our family's hardest year. But, looking back, I can see God’s hand at work and His love through it all. We are missionaries in Zambia, Africa, where we serve young people at a mission school. In March, after I came home from helping at a family fun day at the school, I lay down to rest and suddenly was hit with a strange, uncomfortable pain in my right side. I was 12 weeks pregnant and had not had a scan, so I thought something must be wrong with the pregnancy.
We took off in the pouring rain toward a town called Kitwe. The 50 minute drive seemed a lot longer than normal. The pain was constant, and there was little relief. I felt ...
We named her Halle. We picked it out as our future little girl name shortly after her daddy and I were married in 2012 and long before she was ever conceived. It came with ease and enthusiasm for both of us. We struggled through selecting the names of our first two sons, Weston in 2014 and Caleb in 2016. When we found out we were expecting for a third time in 2018, we assumed we would be struggling to pick out another boy name. If by some crazy chance God had given us a girl, it would be a no-brainer.
We went in to the hospital for our halfway-point ultrasound in April to check on the baby’s development and discover the gender. “I think I know, ...
At 20 weeks pregnant, we went to our anatomy scan. We were excited to find out if our baby would be a girl or a boy. We had no idea during our scan that we were about to find out more than just the gender. We were casually told, “It looks like a little girl.” I was so happy!
However, this joy was short lived as the sonographer braced herself to tell us that our baby’s heart did not look like it should, which suggested she had a heart condition. I burst into tears and cried most of that day. But I held on to hope that our baby would be okay.
We knew at that stage that her name was Evangeline, which means “messenger of good news or the ...
On November 21, 2017, I was 23 weeks pregnant, and we were at my OB's office to have a repeat ultrasound done. At our 19 week ultrasound, Garrett was flipped with his spine up, so the ultrasound tech couldn't visualize his heart to confirm everything had formed correctly. Everything else had looked good, and there had been no complications up to this point, so we were not at all prepared for what we were about to find out.
As I laid on the table, the tech scanned over my belly with no words and no emotions. As he finished, he handed me a towel to clean off the gel, still without words. Finally, as we were about to walk out of the room, he handed me ...
On March 4, 2018, our beautiful daughter, Scarlett Kay Raymond, entered this world as a healthy, full term baby. My husband, Seth, and I were so excited to meet our sweet girl, take her home, and start our lives as a family of three. We had spent the last nine months dreaming up all of the adventures we had ahead of us. We couldn’t wait to take her on a walk in the stroller with our dog, Pepper. We pictured many story times and movie nights. We thought about the hard conversations we would have with her as she grew up and the trips we could take with her, and imagined her wedding day. We had planned so much. But God’s plan was different than ...
Before our fifth pregnancy, my husband and I always had the motto, “However many kids the Lord wants us to have.” But when we got pregnant with our fifth child, my husband told me that he believed this would be our last child. I agreed, and the Lord gave me peace in my heart that it was the right decision for our family.
My pregnancy was great, like all of my previous pregnancies had been, and as the time grew closer to our daughter’s arrival, we prepared for her as best we could. As I went to bed, two days shy of being forty weeks, my husband put his hand on my belly because the baby was moving as she usual did. He moved his hand down near her ...
