Hope deferred

This is a story I wish I didn't have to post. Stevie is one of my best friends from way-back-when, and has been a huge support to me through the last several years. I wish she didn't have a story to share -- but I'm thankful and feel honored to be able to share it.

Thank you, Stevie. 

<3 Rachel

 My name is Stevie Ballinger.  Rachel and I have been friends since Jr. High.  I am the owner of a small jewelry business called Mama B’s Sweet Peas, and I make a line of mothers’ jewelry that resembles peas in a pod.  I offer smaller beads that I call “Angel Peas” to represent miscarriages, stillbirths, etc., and I speak almost every week with at least one woman who has a child who has gone before her.  My heart breaks every time I hear a new loss story.  I never thought I’d be telling one of my own…

 

Seven weeks ago I peed on a stick.  I hadn’t missed a period yet, though I knew it could have been a possibility.  Quite honestly, though, I wasn’t expecting anything, and I didn’t get it.  Not pregnant.  Okay.  NBD.  We weren’t trying (or preventing), and I have a baby less than a year old who is still nursing.  I can work with that.

Six weeks ago, I repeated the process.  It was still really early to test, as I’d still not missed a period, but it said PREGNANT!  What?!  Yes!!!  So exciting!  Baby B. #3!!!  

I could hardly wait to tell everyone!!  I called Husband pretty much right away.  I said “We’ve really got to get Big Sister potty trained...”   He sounded slightly preoccupied when he replied “yeah, I know”.  Then I said “…because come March, I don’t want to have three in cloth diapers.”  He didn’t get it right away, and told me later that he thought I was speaking hypothetically.  I said “Did you hear what I just said?!” and after a pause, he said “Are you?”, to which I replied, “YES!!!!”  Needless to say, the news was met with great joy.  

Then, two weeks later, I began to bleed.  I was alarmed and sad, worried and afraid.  Lying in bed that night beside Husband, (after thinking all day about losing this precious gem inside of me) he recalled that I’d had a period when I was pregnant with Baby Brother.  That instantly changed my mood!  Yes!  I had had a period with my second pregnancy.  Everything had turned out just fine.  I was sure it was going to be the same with Baby B.

It was just like a regular period, and even started on the day I would have started a period anyway.  A few days later, when I was done bleeding, just to be certain, I peed on the third stick. 

Not pregnant.  

*Sharp intake of breath*  What!?  I didn’t know what to feel or think.  This isn’t the way it was supposed to go!  No!!  Me?  Mama to an Angel baby?  I took the test in to Husband and showed him.  He didn’t really know what to think, either.  He was scanning my face for a sign of what was going through my mind, but I didn’t know what to tell him.

We long for a full quiver (Psalm 127:4-5) and have had no issues thus far.  Up ‘til that point, I’d been pregnant twice and had given birth to two full-term, healthy babies.  For some reason, I guess I felt I was beyond the reach of miscarriage.  Why, I don’t know…  

I had two really rough days in which I was weepy and very depressed.  I was just so shocked!  Then, I saw how my mood was affecting my family, and asked the Lord to help me out of the pit I was in.  He was gracious and merciful and lifted my spirit.  Longing to be pregnant again, I told Husband that I was ready to try for a baby, and he was definitely okay with it.  (I don’t chart or anything, in case you are curious.  All three of my pregnancies have been unplanned.  We’ve done the “don’t try, don’t prevent” method since we’ve been married.)

I’ve been back to normal since then…that is, up until tonight.  I spotted a little bit earlier.  I told Husband.  I went back to the bathroom later to pee again and was spotting more.  I began to feel the tell-tale ache in my lower back shortly thereafter and knew it was AF.  I’ve been overcome with the blues ever since, and knew it was time to write the guest blog I’d asked Rachel if I could write when I’d first miscarried.

I needed some encouragement, so I picked up the Word of God.  On Sunday, at church, the pastor had mentioned Psalm 128, and I’d marked it with the ribbon in my Bible so I could remember to read it later.  I opened to that spot, and on the right column of the page was Psalm 130.  I felt as I began to read that the Lord knew I was going to need that passage just then!  I’ll give you the main chuck of what spoke so deeply to the hurting places in me:  “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications…  I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.  My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.”

God is so gracious and so merciful!!  He knows our pain, he knows what we are enduring!!  How kind to give me those verses!  I know that I will not meet Baby B. until the day I see Heaven, but I am okay with that.  There may have been something wrong with her and it is for the best.  I don’t know.  

I don’t know when I will meet my next child.  I am hoping that it is sooner rather than later, but I have given the timing up to my God.  I may not be completely over it, but I am mostly at peace.  It’s a one-day-at-a-time kind of thing, and that’s okay.  

“Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”  Proverbs 13:12, KJV