My Baby Bump Idol
This was a note that I wrote about our struggles with getting pregnant and our second miscarriage. I wrote this in December 2010...
Many of you walked through the painful trial of our first miscarriage that Jarryd and I experienced this time last year. It was a beautiful tragedy… tragic in the loss of our first unborn child… but the beauty was in God’s unfailing and sustaining grace. His hand was upon us and we know that He was glorified through our pain and our constant praise of His beautiful name despite our suffering.
Jarryd and I began seeking God’s face at the end of last year on His timing for pregnancy again. In our prayer and devotion time, God was overwhelmingly clear… Now was the time to start again! After we had given my body time to heal we began the process of trying once more. I thought this would be the easy part but after several months of trying with no luck I was beginning to get discouraged. I began to have plaguing thoughts: “Was something wrong with me? Will I ever be able to have children?” Month after month we would get our hopes up only to be let down with a negative sign on a pregnancy test. Looking back now I realize that I completely stopped trusting in God and made becoming a mom ultimate. God was no longer enough for me and Satan began to have a field day with my weak faith.
After the miscarriage it was as if the world exploded with pregnancy all over the place! I couldn’t escape the baby bumps that began to invade my world everywhere I turned. Every TV show all of the sudden had one of their major characters get pregnant, several of my friends announced they were expecting, even my favorite evening news anchor announced her joyful news of pregnancy. There were so many days that I would actually say out loud to myself “SERIOUSLY?” as another pregnancy related thing would enter my life. It was consuming my thoughts and robbing me of my joy.
Only to add to this torment…
For the second spring in a row a beautiful bird laid her eggs outside our door. It was always so exciting to watch the process of the baby birds hatching and then learning to fly. This spring something different happened… one of the eggs didn’t hatch. One by one all the baby birds learned to fly and left their nest. Eventually all that was left was the one lone egg that was unable to produce life. Every time I would leave, that egg would haunt me as a constant reminder of our loss… It still sits outside our door today. I was beginning to think I was losing it… it was one thing to get upset about pregnancy related things… but an egg? Something had to change!
Somewhere along the way I had missed the point all together and found myself worshiping a baby bump idol that was putting a diaper bag sized wedge in between God and I.
After nearly 9 months of trying and no positive sign on any tests I finally came face to face with my sin. Getting pregnant had taken away my first Love…. The Author of every pregnancy on this planet! I finally got to the place where I surrendered everything to God and relinquished all control. “God you are enough for me… even if I never have a child… I have you… and that is MORE than enough!” The freedom that I experienced after this point was incredible! God was in control… not me… what a genius idea… why didn’t I think of this sooner?
I know you have already guessed what happens next… the following month we got pregnant again! This August we found out that we would be expecting a beautiful baby due the end of April 2011. This news should have made us elated; however, I found myself being extremely guarded with my joy and excitement. It was almost as if I didn’t really believe it was real… and IF it was real… I didn’t believe it would last. I found myself being paranoid of losing this pregnancy too. I was overly cautious with everything that I ate, making sure that I was taking my prenatal vitamins regularly, etc. Jarryd and I decided to keep this pregnancy in the vault until we were out of the first trimester and we were more confident that we would carry to full term.
I’ll never forget the first doctor appointment in September… We were both terrified. I was trembling as they were doing the sonogram, reliving the last sonogram experience in which we found out that our baby had no heartbeat. I realized that I wasn’t breathing when we heard the most beautiful sound in the world… our child’s heartbeat… and I finally gasped for my first breath of air in what had to be a minute. Tears filled our eyes and for the first time in this pregnancy I allowed myself to accept it! I finally began to bond, plan, and dream of what my child would be like. While most expecting moms dread the nauseating morning sickness (which actually is an all day event), I was overwhelmed with joy with every run to the bathroom and with every food aversion… this only confirmed that things were progressing and that everything was fine. I reveled in the fact that I could no longer button my pants and that I was finally getting that baby bump that had once been my idol.
In October, around our 11th week that joy turned into fear as the nausea and sickness came to an abrupt halt. All of the sudden I felt normal again… and this terrified me! Jarryd was sold from day one that this pregnancy would be normal and tried affirming in me that I had nothing to worry about. Family and friends who knew we were pregnant told me I was just being paranoid and that everything was fine.
But I knew that everything was not fine…
I started to have sharp cramping which only confirmed my fears… we called the doctor immediately and got into see her. When we arrived the doctor and nurse were so calm and tried to put my mind at ease as best they could. However, I was not going to hear a word they said until I heard the heartbeat. They put the device on my stomach and prodded around with no sound… just static. After 10 minutes of pure torture… after both the nurse and doctor failed to hear a heartbeat they decided to do a sonogram but told me still to not worry. They stepped out to get the machine and I tried to avoid eye contact with Jarryd so that I wouldn’t lose it. It didn’t work… as soon as our eyes met and we saw the pain and fear within them we both began to cry. My wonderful husband wrapped his arms around me and amidst the sobbing he said a prayer to God asking Him to comfort us in the news that we knew we were about to hear.
We never thought we would ever experience a miscarriage, and never in a million years did we ever think that we would experience two. The sonogram confirmed what I had known all along… our unborn child was no longer living. If possible this news was even harder and more painful this time. In addition, because we were so far along we were told that I would have to have a D&C procedure because passing the baby naturally would be too dangerous on my body. We scheduled the surgery for the following day and left the doctor’s office overwhelmed with pain.
The thought of surgery terrified me but the thought of someone taking my child away from me terrified me even more. The rest of the day was a blur… numbness, anger, pain, fear, sadness were just some of the emotions we were experiencing. Calling our parents, and for the second time in a year having to tell them that they won’t be grandparents just yet, was so hard. Jarryd and I are blessed with such amazing parents… all of them offered to drop everything to come to Fort Worth to take care of us.
The morning of the surgery I was sick to my stomach. I stared at the clock and begged it to stop moving so fast, but the next thing I know I am crying and saying goodbye to Jarryd and my mom as they take me back to the pre-op room. Now all alone I was filled with even more fear and sadness… I couldn’t stop crying. I began to pray… “Father comfort me during this time, strengthen me, hold me through this, please give me a peace about this, comfort me God.” Almost immediately after I began praying I was interrupted by my anesthesiologist who was coming over to introduce herself to me and answer any of my questions. I didn’t have any words for her… I just nodded my head yes or no to her questions. She was looking at my chart and then all of the sudden she looked surprised and looked up at me.
“Is your husband Jarryd Foreman?”
I was very confused to say the least… and as I nodded my head yes I watched as her eyes welled up with tears. She went on to tell me that her and her family had just joined our church in Aledo and that they had just gone through the new members class where they were able to hear my husband speak. No one in our church even knew that we were pregnant and she was so broken that she was meeting me for the first time under these circumstances. She held my hand and said how much she loved Jarryd and I… she also shared her own personal experience with miscarriage and it brought so much comfort to me.
I couldn’t believe it… I was overcome with tears of joy for the first time in two days. I was laying there praying for God to comfort me and at that very moment I meet a sister in Christ who was a part of my church family. What are the odds that of all the anesthesiologists in Fort Worth I would have her? A member of my church 20 minutes west of Fort Worth… who was able to comfort me in a way that only God can! Those aren’t odds… that’s the awesome God I serve… at work!!
From that moment on all of my fear was gone! I had the peace and comfort that I had been asking for! God was so gracious and merciful to me… words can’t describe how much more I fell in love with Him.
The procedure was over before I knew it… recovery was painful and slow but the emotional healing and recovery had begun. Jarryd and I got to see God’s hand at work in the midst of our suffering. We were drawn closer to Him and to each other through this trial and though it was hard we are grateful for it. We thank God that He counted us worthy to experience such pain that only made our relationship with Him sweeter. And that is worth more than anything to us!
Nothing could have ever prepared us for two miscarriages in the course of a year… but one thing is for sure… God was there… He never left us. Through this process I have been able to hear from dozens upon dozens of people who have come forward to share their personal experience with miscarriage. It has blown us away how common this is. Thank you to all of you who have cried with us, prayed for us, fed us, sent us flowers, cards, messages on facebook and email, etc. God has really shown us how loved we really are by our friends and family and what an incredible church body we are a part of. We didn’t have the $2,000 to pay for all the medical expenses of the procedure and a church member paid the bill without hesitation and without listening to our persistent cry not to. ;) I could go on and on of all the beauty and good that has come out of our pain. This has become a part of our testimony that we will use to point people toward Jesus.
As of right now we have a peace about not trying for a while and I have no fear that God will bless us with a child someday! I am fully trusting Him and His timing for when and how that will happen this time. I am grateful for more time to get to know and love my amazing husband! I am excited about what God has in store for us in 2011.
Jarryd and I still have our ups and downs when it comes to grieving the loss of our two unborn children. For instance, God has laid it on my heart for a while now to write this post but I have been avoiding it like the plague. Then this morning as I went to my favorite Starbucks (Hulen and Bellaire is the BEST!!) I was greeted by the manager who had just announced that he and his wife are expecting their first child. I am so excited and happy for them! However, when talking about the news with him I started to get kind of emotional and got so frazzled that I walked away from the conversation without even paying for my coffee. I am a Starbucks thief! They are going to hang my picture up on their bulletin board: “Wanted: Girl who is a conversational wizard and will conveniently walk away without paying!” I later called the store to apologize for stealing and asked if I could pay for two next time. They laughed at me and told me not to worry about it! Paul if you are reading this…Thanks! Baristas are always the first to know that you’re pregnant because you switch to decaf and that is a huge red flag! The baristas at that Starbucks have been so good to Jarryd and I… they even got us a gift card and a sweet get well card after all this happened! Seriously… go give them business!
Needless to say I got home and decided to finally write this!
I say all this to ask for your continued prayer and to thank you all for your love and support! If you have written me the last time and I never wrote you back I am so sorry… I’m horrible at correspondence but your words have meant the world to Jarryd and I. Also please please don’t be afraid to talk to us about all this! We are doing so much better and are very comfortable talking about what has happened! Also we got some answers this time as to what might be the problem… the doctors think that I may have a progesterone issue and that the next time we get pregnant they will just monitor my blood more closely! Again thank you all for everything! We love you all so much!
In His Beautiful Name,
Jessica
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