From Shock to Peace ....Honest Pregnancy Reflections

It was a hot fall Sunday afternoon in South Georgia.  Laughter and screeches came through the walls as five littles and my husband played football in the front yard.  I was eating homemade raw cookie dough as I baked cookies for an RUF (Reformed University Fellowship) college leadership meeting later that night.  My cycle was late, but it could be explained.  For one, I recently held our 4 year old through two scary nights as she battled a nasty case of croup.  I sleep little to none.  Secondly, we had means in place to prevent a pregnancy. I chocked my late cycle to extreme fatigue and a fluke.  To put the issue completely at rest, I took a test.  Positive.  It read positive. 

Pregnancy for any woman requires submission and I am certainly no different.  In each pregnancy I have had to relinquish control and plans to God's divine providence submitting my body time and time again to all kinds of stresses and changes such as utter exhaustion, reduced capacities, morning sickness, complications, weight gain, stretch marks galore, new eating habits, back aches, and the pain of labor all for the wonderful gift of a child.  I have also had to submit to the potential of miscarriage or disability as I cannot will a healthy full term child.  In essence, pregnancy and birth pose great risks to carefully drawn out plans of life especially for a planner such as myself.   

The day we found out we were expecting our first child, we were elated and our joy was evident to all.  A confirmed pregnancy at this point in my life equated solely to pure excitement and hope.  For one, I was totally naive in believing that because I was healthy I was entitled to a healthy pregnancy.  Dreams shattered as we lost that first child and my hope was replaced with fear and anxiety regarding pregnancy and delivery. 

As pregnancy after pregnancy occurred for me, my PTSD from prior pregnancies only mounted. Each subsequent pregnancy brought some form of struggle from epidural injury requiring physical therapy to walk properly again to polyhydramanous and very sick child in the womb to bed rest after preterm labor to the itchiest rash covering my whole body called PUPPS to a severe uterine infection to painful thrombose hemorrhoids landing me on bedrest after delivery.  In each of these pregnancies, I struggled to see potential and actual complications through the lenses of the gospel.  Yet, I was reminded time and time again through watching other mothers' stories as well as my own stories unfold of His grace and goodness in the most horrific and/or challenging pregnancies and childbirths.  God is present in every moment, the hard and the beautiful.  "What if trials of this life, the rain, the storms, the hardest nights, are Your mercies in disguise?" (Laura Story) 

Many times on this journey I tried to put God's sovereignty and providence over fertility in a box knowing good and well that He can work with means, against means, or without means to accomplish His purposes.  As I wrestled internally with many things, it became evident that I must do a lot of self reflection diving into the past traumas and fears surrounding pregnancy and delivery so that I could see truth and experience healing.  My healing did not come as I expected it to in a black/ white sort of way.  My healing came in all shades of grey.  I struggled the entire pregnancy just as I had in others with fear and anxiety yet I began to see past traumas through  different lenses and experience peace despite many unknowns.  As I looked back, I realized that God was actually with me in each of those hard places.  I began to see good that had come out of struggles and the new paths the struggles had led me down.  I saw that grace is given for each moment, not a moment earlier and not a moment too late.  Worry only robbed me of the present moment.  I relished in the goodness of God in the gift of my sweet children and the new one to come.  As this wrestling journey continued, I thought about a concept we talk about a lot in our home: God does not disperse His blessings equally, not in money, intelligence, energy, health, skill sets, and not in babies yet He is sovereign over it all and we must trust that He knows best in His dispersing of these things.   

Little man Turner was born 3 weeks ago.  Grace upon grace was truly in the season awaiting his birth and finally in that room where we met our son.