72 results for tag: Stillbirth
When we started trying to have a baby, I told Daniel and myself not to get our hopes up. It usually takes a few months to get pregnant and often longer than that. That first month of trying I took a pregnancy test without telling Daniel. Before the results were in, I sat on the couch and asked Daniel to check the test in three minutes. He was caught off guard. I told him I didn’t think I was pregnant, but I wanted to take the test just in case. After three minutes, he cautiously walked to the bathroom. He was silent. I called out, “Well what does it say?!” He showed me the test with wide eyes. It was positive! We hugged and teared up! It was a ...
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,”
Matthew 6:28
“What does it say?” my husband asked anxiously. “It’s…it’s…I think…it might be…positive?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. After three years of praying and trying and trying and praying, we were parents. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. I felt that God had shown me the Christmas before that I would become pregnant at the same time as my friend found out the gender of her child, and that’s exactly what happened.
We danced. We sang. We prayed. We cried and shouted for joy! We were parents. I was a mom, and the man I love most ...
In the fall of 2017, our family decided that we wanted to have another child. We began praying together that God would answer the desire of our hearts, specifically for a son. Our prayers were answered almost immediately, and I became pregnant. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but I now know that I miscarried shortly after in December. It wasn’t until I learned that we were again expecting the following March, and I was flooded with the same symptoms, that I became cognizant of my miscarriage just months before. While staring at the positive lines, the tinge of sorrow for our previous loss was mixed with the joyous thought of this new life ...
“I’m sorry.”
The two words no expectant mother wants to hear with an ultrasound wand on her stomach. Disbelief washed over me as I saw my perfect, beautiful, motionless baby on the screen. How could this be? Less than 36 hours ago, I saw him kicking and punching at my doctor’s office. How could something so monumental happen in such a short amount of time? I collapsed into a sobbing heap as the nurses wrapped me up in their arms. Strangers were holding me as I cradled my still belly after hearing the worst news I have ever received.
After the nurses helped me call my husband and my parents, I was taken to a delivery room in the hospital. I ...
We had always wanted a big family, Before we were even married, we knew we wanted at least four or five kids. So, even though it came as a bit of a surprise, when we found out I was pregnant with number six, I was so excited. All of my previous pregnancies and deliveries had gone wonderfully, but I’m an ultrasound technologist myself, and had seen tragedy strike in my patients. I wondered if this would ever happen to me.
When the first abnormality was detected at 10 weeks, I knew how serious it could be. One week later, the specialist looked me in the eye and told me he was suspicious that our precious baby had a chromosome abnormality that was ...
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, ...
The date was July 7, 2015. A typical July day in Texas—sunny and hot. I was about four months pregnant with our firstborn daughter. We had just found out that she was a girl, and had named her Annie Ruth after my great-grandmother.
I was sitting on the couch about to have my quiet time when I received a phone call from my doctor. I was told over the phone that some of the sonograms taken at the Sneak-a-Peak place did not look quite right. She tried to encourage me that the machine may not have taken good quality photos, or perhaps the issue was operator error. These were perfectly logical explanations, but my husband and I both felt uneasy ...
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 as 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 ...
Several weeks before my husband, David, left for Air Force Basic training, we found out I was pregnant with our first child. We’ve always held the belief that every life should be celebrated, so we would not hide our child’s life, no matter how brief. We weren’t “expecting” a baby. We had one. What we didn’t fully grasp were the chances of losing that baby. You hear the statistic that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss, but those odds are for other people, not for me and my baby. I’m glad of that naivety at times, because it allowed for pure celebration, undefiled by odds and statistics.
We announced the news to our ...
"Sometimes the thing you never would choose for your life, chooses you for a reason. And the thing that you’d never pick, picks you to become brave. And sometimes, you get what you need by walking through what you never wanted, and the thing you never wanted, may turn out to be the thing you need most."
Ann Voskamp
I read this quote often, and each time, I believe more and more that Garrett was this for me, for us, and for our family. I had always believed that God made beauty from ashes, but I never actually experienced this undeniable truth until Garrett. His story is one of grace, healing, hope, and God's unrelenting pursuit of our hearts.
On ...
