234 results for tag: Share Your Story
We do not always get to choose the roles we must play in life, but we do get to choose how we will play the role we have been given. Our youngest daughter, Ellianna Grace, was born on March 2, 2011. It was a Wednesday; my husband Mark was at work and I was home with our 3-year-old daughter when the contractions started. I did all the usual things to try to make them stop—rested, hydrated, soaked in a warm bath—yet the rhythmic tensing of my belly continued and grew in strength. Our previous daughter had been born at 30 weeks, so being just 29 weeks and a few days I was feeling anxious, but I also did not want to overreact if it was just Braxton ...
My husband, JT, and I started trying to get pregnant in March of 2020. COVID-19 quarantine had just begun and we were both working from home. I was filled with excitement at this time, dreaming of the future while equally being completely unaware of what the following months would hold. I just thought it was all so simple—a positive test leads to a healthy baby. I had never before considered the possibility of losing a baby, although I knew how common that outcome was.
Fast forward to the first week of May. I unexpectedly began to bleed eight days before my expected period. I remember it clear as day—the very intense cramping. I was at a ...
The sounds of my IV drip flowing, the vital signs monitor randomly beeping off and on...and worship music. It was not what I would expect to hear while lying in an emergency room bed, but my husband was playing the worship music on his phone next to me, clutching my hand so tightly in an attempt to keep me calm. I closed my eyes and desperately wanted to go back to last month. How much had changed in such a short time frame. Last month I was not in excruciating pain. Last month I wasn't constantly worrying over whether my body would go through this process naturally. Last month I wasn't hurting over having lost our baby.
I thought back ...
My husband and I were married on a crisp, sunny autumn day in October of 2006. As I saw my beloved standing at the altar, I knew I was walking towards my forever future. After we declared our love and commitment to each other in front of our dearest family and friends, we grinned our way up the aisle to Dean Martin singing, “Good morning life! Good morning sun! How are your skies above? Gee, it's great to be alive and in love!” As we danced up the aisle to these words, my twenty-year-old heart soared with possibilities of a beautiful future filled with sunny days and happiness with my soul mate!
Fast forward a few years later to me ...
2019 was a hallmark year for our family. We began the year taking in the fact that God had given us twins. Yes, two babies at one time! This news came as a shock to our family. As we praised God for the double blessing, we wondered how we would manage caring for two toddlers and two infants, but we loved these babies from the start. God powerfully delivered us from our fears as we meditated on His promises, such as, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). As our families and church family came around us in amazing ...
“Lord, this is too dark of a valley. I do not want to walk this road again.” Tears ran down my cheeks as I sat by the water by myself. I had just left an emergency midwife appointment where I learned that my baby girl’s heart had stopped beating at 13 weeks. I should have been 16 weeks pregnant.
What stung the most was this was my fourth loss. Four babies in heaven. This time was different, or so I had thought. I had been so peaceful. I had dared to hope! With my 12-year-old daughter and 1-and-a-half-year-old new blessing baby boy at home, we had been getting ready for our tie breaker. Our previous miscarriages had been early, so we ...
It felt strange to call it grief. After all, how do you grieve someone you’ve never seen? How do you grieve what never could have been?
The due date would have been 12-12-12. How perfect, I thought, as I built dreams and plans. How perfect, I thought, as I sat pleased with the way I had designed my family. But, more than a plan, it was a life. I had started to think of names, to wonder if we would paint pink or blue. I had started to envision how this little one would fit into our family; I monogrammed a Big Sister t-shirt for my toddler.
And then.
And then.
And then.
My happy, perfect secret stole away ...
“Let’s move to a second ultrasound room.” With those words, my entire world changed. As I moved to the second room to confirm what my husband and I already knew, the tears began to stream down my face. The doctor confirmed that my first daughter, Addison Lowry, died at 39 weeks, 5 days, just two days before we were set to induce.
My response seemed to shock everyone. “I prayed that God’s will be done in my baby’s life, and this is His story for our life,” I said. It’s been half a year since I lost my daughter. Half a year since I come home to a completed nursery within no one in it. Half a year that the deafening quiet house ...
He was our little miracle. After years of trying and finally agreeing to start fertility treatments in the new year, we were beyond ecstatic to find out we got pregnant naturally in September. We were over the moon. Before we knew it, we were at every baby store in town, researching every baby product on the planet, and bought all the books we could get our hands on. I remember my husband’s face when we got our stroller; he kept pushing it around and around in our living room.
Fast forward to March 31, 2020. I woke up after a rather restless night, which wasn’t out of the ordinary because at this point I was 29 weeks, and told to be measuring ...
We were in shock, elated shock, to find out that I was pregnant in 2018. We had struggled to conceive both of our boys for over a year each with a miscarriage in between them. As much as our hearts wanted to keep growing our family, I just couldn’t handle the ongoing heartache of trying. So, we didn’t try, didn’t really prevent, and sort of assumed that pregnancy was off the table. Our reactions to the positive pregnancy test confirmed just how much we really did hope for another baby.
Even though I was 38, my doctors were fairly relaxed about additional testing. I was healthy with two healthy kids, so there was no pressure to be extra ...
