Tag: baby

Waiting on the Promise (Part 2)

Back in early October, the women’s ministry at my church hosted their annual Cherished Conference in Ruidoso, New Mexico. On Friday morning each year, different women are asked to teach breakout sessions about various topics. This year I was asked to teach one of the breakout sessions and the topic I was given was about God’s promises. This is a topic I’m very familiar with as it is something that I walked through for many years while I waited on God’s promise to me to be fulfilled.

I’d like to share my breakout session with you as a two-part blog. A few weeks ago I shared my personal testimony in Part 1. Today, I am sharing Part 2 of the session, which is offering encouragement and how to keep your faith strong during the waiting process.

Here is “Waiting on the Promise” Part 2…

God’s promises to us are different in so many ways yet are the same. There’s not a set time frame for one promise over another. The fulfilment of my promise took 17 years. Maybe yours take more; maybe it takes less. But when God gives you a promise, He will deliver it when He says it’s time.

Which brings me to the second part of the message: how to get through the waiting process. It’s not easy being patient and waiting on God to move. On our terms, He moves slower than a turtle stuck in molasses! But in God’s eyes, He’s not deliberately being slow because He sees everything! He sees the things that we cannot see. He could be saving us from greater heartache by delaying the promise until the timing is just perfect. We see the time as delayed, but He sees it as working all things together for our good. Our. Good.

I want to share with you some different ways to keep your faith strong during the waiting process.

  1. There is no time limit or expiration date on the promise God has given you. If He says He’ll do something or give something to you, He will.

Hebrews 11:11 (NLT), “It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old. She believed that God would keep his promise.”  And He did.

I don’t know if you kept up with the math during my testimony, but I was 46 years old when I had my son back in November. That’s quite a bit past normal child-bearing years these days. But just like God kept His promise to Sarah, He kept his promise to me! And whatever promise you wrote in the blank on the piece of paper I mentioned last week, know that He will deliver that promise to you, too! He knows the desires of your heart and will give them to you! (Psalms 20:4 & 37:4)

2. Find an outlet (something to do or something else to think about) when you feel your faith is being tested beyond what you think you can handle.

James 1:3 (NLT), “For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”

For me, my outlet was writing. That’s the main reason I have this blog; so I can use it to write about my circumstances, feelings at certain times and general thoughts on the waiting process.  For my husband, he found that serving God was a good outlet for him when times were difficult. Your outlet can be anything! Maybe you like to craft or exercise; maybe you like to cook or garden…maybe you just want to sit in God’s presence and listen to worship music. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit quietly in His presence.

Just remember that whatever you do to help pass your time, make sure it’s encouraging and positive!

3. Watch your words.

Proverbs 18:21 (MSG), “Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.”

Romans 4:17-18 (TPT), “That’s what the Scripture means when it says: ‘I have made you the father of many nations.’ He (Abraham) is our example and father, for in God’s presence he believed that God can raise the dead and call into being things that don’t even exist yet. Against all odds, when it looked hopeless, Abraham believed the promise and expected God to fulfill it…”

Speak only life to your dreams or what you’re waiting for. Don’t give in to negative speak or thoughts. I told you in my testimony when I didn’t do this very well. I let the negative thoughts take hold of me and they held me captive for quite a while. It’s okay to get angry and frustrated; we’re human and it’s going to happen. Just don’t live there! Be angry…for a time and then let it go! Find a friend that you trust to let you vent when you need to, but someone that can also encourage you and lift you up when you need it.

There was a time several years ago when I was very unhappy in my job. I worked for two men, one a VP and the other a COO. My VP boss was absolutely horrible! He would say the most hateful things to me and when he walked out, I would just cry at my desk. I couldn’t understand why God had me in such an awful place! I wanted to quit so bad! But I couldn’t because my husband had just lost his job, and this was our only source of income.

I was sharing my frustration with a friend, and she encouraged me to speak life into my job; to thank God for my job and to also thank Him for my next job. She even told me to speak that God would either move one or both of them or, move me. I have to say I didn’t truly believe that at first when I spoke it, but shortly after, the COO left the company! I couldn’t believe it! So, I really started speaking to it with purpose. Within the next six months, I had a call from a previous place I had interviewed with prior to taking the current job. It had been TWO YEARS since I interviewed with them, and they had an opening that needed to be filled quickly and they were curious if I was still interested. Y-E-S! Yes, I absolutely was still interested. I went in for another interview the next week, and two days after I was turning in my two-week resignation and started the new job. I just celebrated 10 years back in June.

Speak to your promise…God does hear you! And He does move!

4. Be content in your current circumstances.

Hebrews 10:35-36, “So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great rewards it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.”

It’s hard to be content in your circumstances when you desperately want them to change, when you want to start experiencing the next season of life. But when you embrace your current season, you give God room to move.

I had to embrace my pre-baby season and one of the ways was to host baby showers for friends. At times, it was nearly impossible to put on my happy face for my friends…they were living the life I desperately wanted.  But even in those hard times, God was there with me.

And the last way to keep your faith strong during the waiting process,

5. Pray.

Prayer is a very powerful tool and it’s always with you. You can pray anytime and anywhere! It’s always good to pray freely, but sometimes it’s easier to write out specific prayers, too.

I’ve used several different ways to write out prayers using scripture.

A. One way is to search the Bible for specific prayers that speak to you and/or your situation. I have a few scriptures that I love and would always pray during my waiting period:

Ephesians 3:20-21 NKJV, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Same scripture in the Passion Translation: Ephesians 3:20-21 (TPT), “Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you. Now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church in every generation through Jesus Christ—and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity. Amen!”

Another favorite of mine is Isaiah 40:31 (NLT), “But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.”

And the last one I’ll write out: Hebrews 11:1-3, 6 (TPT), “Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen. This testimony of faith is what previous generations were commended for. Faith empowers us to see that the universe was created and beautifully coordinated by the power of God’s words! He spoke and the invisible realm gave birth to all that is seen.

(v6) And without faith living within us it would be impossible to please God. For we come to God in faith knowing that he is real and that he rewards the faith of those who passionately seek him.”

B. Matthew 5 contains The Beatitudes and they make a great & easy way to start praying scripture.

Matthew 5:3-12 (NLT), “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth. God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied. God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.”

C. The book, Fervent, by Priscilla Shirer is a great option for specific prayer.

The subtext on the book cover even says, “A woman’s battle plan for serious, specific and strategic prayer.” Each chapter in the book talks about different areas and how to write out scripture prayers to pray for different things.

D. Friends.

I have a friend that is very good at writing scripture prayer. I had visited with her in late 2015 (after the dark period) and updated her on all that we had gone through and our current circumstances. She wrote out a prayer for me to pray for my babies. The prayer was loaded with scripture and self-declarations. And I remember I would stand in my living room and boldly recite that prayer almost every day! And then I took her prayer for me and I wrote a shorter, more specific pray to my unborn baby.

It doesn’t matter what your Promise is…God is always going to come through for you!!

As the song goes, God is the Waymaker. He is the Miracle Worker. He is the Promise Keeper. And He is the Light in the darkness.

There are days I feel every bit of 47! And as my husband noted about a month after our son was born, raising a baby is nothing like taking care of a dog!! Lol! (joke from Part 1)

It was never my plan to have a child this late in life, but it was my dream to have one. God chose the time.

He determined that my story would include a miracle baby at age 46.

He determined that my son would be born at this exact moment in time.

God plans everything to the finest detail. He is not wrong. He is not late.

Luke 1:37 says, “For the word of God will never fail.”

If He tells you He’ll do something, He will.

His timing is perfect. His plans are perfect. Your promise will be fulfilled at the exact time God has designed it to happen.

The fulfillment of your promise will be exceedingly abundantly BEYOND ALL you can ask or think because God will do exactly what He says he’ll do.

It will not return void and it will not expire.

Keep praying, speaking, and believing for the fulfillment of God’s promise to you.

Thank you for letting me share my breakout session with you about my personal journey of waiting on God’s promise to be fulfilled. I pray God spoke to you as you read Part 1 and Part 2. And I pray that if you are still waiting on the fulfilment of God’s promise to you, these words brought you hope and encouragement for your journey. If you would like a copy of the prayer my friend wrote for me, please message me or comment your email and I will gladly send it to you. If I can pray for you in any way, please let me know.

This Time Last Year

This past weekend had some ups and downs as a mom. Saturday was good because my baby was in a good mood, and we did a lot of playing. But then Sunday came, and he wasn’t having any of it. We think his molars are starting to break through so his little mouth has been really sore. We took Sunday as a teething day and just snuggled, which to me, is one of the best parts of motherhood…the snuggles!

As I was snuggling with him this weekend, I began to reminisce a bit about this time last year. This specific weekend last year, we were getting ready to go to the hospital for his delivery. Although I personally have no frame of reference, it wasn’t the easiest or quickest of deliveries!

On Saturday, one year ago, we were finishing the paint in his room. We had the furniture, although not put together yet. Lol! We were told not to worry about whether his nursery would be ready before his arrival because most babies don’t even sleep in their own room for the first year. And he hasn’t. At all. I remember we had picked a very light shade of gray; it’s so light it looks almost white. But we did it this way because all of his furniture is dark gray. We had actually finished painting the room the day before, but because the paint color was in different cans, it somehow showed up as two different colors on the walls. So, we took Saturday and repainted the whole room so in our eyes it would all match. We had been told by my doctor to check in at midnight, so we had all of Saturday to get ready. I hadn’t had any contractions or Braxton-Hicks; he was just patiently chilling in my cozy stomach, so it was a pleasant day. We packed our hospital bags, dropped our dog at our nephew’s house and headed to the hospital. It was exciting and scary all at the same time. I had gotten some cute “mom” socks to wear in the hospital so once we were settled in our room, I had my hubby take the picture for the social media update.

I was checked on every 3-4 hours once we were settled, so sleep was intermittent. Withholding the graphic speak, my doctor wanted to do some prep work on my body so the first day was mostly just waiting for things to occur. By10:15p on Sunday night, I was only dilated to a 1. Thanks to my social media post, most of my friends were anxiously awaiting my “welcome to the world baby boy” post, so they started texting when it never came. Early Monday morning things started to progress a little better. The doctor started the Pitocin, I got the epidural (I wasn’t about to let that window pass me by!!) and then the doctor broke my water about 6:15a that morning. After that, everything was on a roller coaster…I would progress more and then it would slow down, and I would progress more and then it would slow down. Finally, about 10:30p Monday night, I was 100% effaced and dilated to a 9-1/2. The doctor could feel his head but wanted him to drop a little more so I wouldn’t have to work so hard.

To pass the time, my husband and I started looking at famous people born on November 23 and 24. Not that we had any control over when he would actually arrive, it was fun to check and see who he would share his birthday with. Well, by the time they were ready for me to push, it was already November 24, so guess that would be his birthday. As a side note, I had had a sonogram the day before we reported to the hospital to check in and I had seen the size of his head. I told my husband I wasn’t looking forward to that part because his head had measured so big!

After pushing for 3-1/2 hours with hardly any progress, they determined his head wasn’t going to fit and it would be best to switch to a c-section. I was more than okay with that. I will say it’s amazing how quickly the doctors and nurses can have you ready for a c-section when time is of the essence! I had stopped pushing about 3:30 and baby boy was born at 4:01am. I was so excited he was finally here, but also so exhausted! I had been awake for more than 24 hours during that last day. And by the way, the crown of his head measured at 14” at birth!

So compared to this time last year, I would say the days were less eventful. Saturday was spent doing what most Americans do during the fall on the weekend…watch football. And hang Christmas lights! No last-minute preparations to do on the baby’s nursery this year. And to let you know, we almost have it fully decorated, even though he doesn’t sleep in there quite yet. Sunday was spent snuggling baby boy-almost toddler because of the next set of teeth trying to break their way through his gums. No laying around waiting for body parts to be ready for baby delivery. I’ll take the baby snuggles any day of the week! <heart>

The only preparations we’re doing now is getting everything ready for his first birthday! Although the labor and delivery were less than ideal, we wouldn’t trade the experience for anything if it still gives us YOU! We love you so much kiddo! And watching all your transformations over the past year, watching you grow into the cutest little human, watching you discover all the things and experiencing it with you, has been pure joy!

Happy Birthday Baby James!!

Waiting on the Promise (Part 1)

Back in early October, the women’s ministry at my church hosted their annual Cherished Conference in Ruidoso, New Mexico. On Friday morning each year, different women are asked to teach breakout sessions about various topics. This year I was asked to teach one of the breakout sessions and the topic I was given was about God’s promises. This is a topic I’m very familiar with as it is something that I walked through for many years while I waited on God’s promise to me to be fulfilled.

I’d like to share my breakout session with you as a two-part blog. Part 1 will be my personal journey and testimony of waiting on the fulfillment of God’s promise to me. And Part 2 will be some encouragement for those that are still waiting on your promise from God to be fulfilled.

Here is “Waiting on the Promise” Part 1…

God’s promises to us are different in so many ways yet are the same. There’s not a set time frame for one promise over another. Maybe you’re single and you’re waiting on God to bring you a husband; maybe you’re married and you’re waiting on God to bring you a baby. Maybe you’ve been saving awhile for God to bring you a new car or a new home. Maybe you’ve been working for a horrible boss or with co-workers you don’t like and you’re waiting on God to bring you a new job. Maybe you’re waiting on your treatment to finish for the “all clear” or waiting on a cure for something. Or maybe, you prayed Proverbs 22:6 over your children as they were growing up and now, you’re waiting for the promise of the prodigal child to turn to God and return home.

Whatever your promise is, God knows it. He hears you. He sees you. And as Romans 8:28 says it, “He’s working all things together for your good.”

I’d like you to find a piece of paper and at the top write this statement:

I am waiting on God’s promise of _____________ to be fulfilled.

Fill in the blank with the promise that you’re waiting on God to fulfill for you. As you read through my testimony and hopefully Part 2 of the blog, I hope you allow God to speak to you through this message and find comfort in knowing God has not forgotten about you or the promise you’re waiting on.

I want to start out by telling you a little bit about me and my story. This is something that I have walked through and have seen the fulfilment of God’s promise to me.

My promise was about having a baby and being a Mom.

Like many women, there’s always been a dream of growing up, getting married & having kids. My plan was to get married & have all my kids (3) by the time I turned 30. That way, I could live the rest of my days raising kids with my husband…the American Dream, right!?!

Well, as I’ve learned and I’m sure you have learned too, our plans are not always God’s plans. Those plans, or parts of them, may turn in to reality at some point, but not always the way we think or dream it to be.

My husband and I were in our late 20’s when we got married in 2003. We had dated for quite a while, so I was more than ready to get going on the family part. But my husband said we should own a dog for at least a year before having kids so we could learn to be responsible for something other than ourselves. So, in December 2004, we got Daisy.

Well, the year of owning a dog first came and went, as did life and everything else. So let’s fast forward to 2013.

We had finally decided to start trying to make a baby. I bought an ovulation kit to help make things easier and after only one month, we were pregnant! We were so excited!!  It’d been almost 10 years since we got married and it was time to move forward.

I did a couple of home pregnancy tests and then went to the doctor for the actual confirmation. They said I was about 5 weeks, so they set an appointment for me to go back in a few weeks to hear the heartbeat. We called our families and told our friends. Everyone was so excited for us!

We went in at week 7 for the first ultrasound to see the baby and hear the heartbeat. We were disappointed that we didn’t hear the heartbeat. But friends told us not to worry as most people don’t hear the heartbeat until weeks 8-10. The doctor wanted us to come back the following week and try again so we did and had the same results. The doctor seemed more concerned this time and sent me to have some blood work done to check my HCG level. In her opinion, the pregnancy was likely a miscarriage because the baby hadn’t grown any since the previous week, but the blood test would tell us for sure.

The gravity of the whole experience hit us like a ton of bricks. To go from ecstatic to devastated in a matter of weeks was something we hadn’t experienced before.

The pregnancy ultimately ended in a miscarriage as the baby never grew past 7 weeks and 1 day. To say miscarriage is a hard thing to walk through would be putting it mildly. You can work through your pain and move forward, but it’s something that stays with you. I could be walking in a store and all of a sudden break down in tears. I would get embarrassed because I would just randomly start crying. But a dear friend told me that when I needed to cry, just cry.

About a month later, once everything was finished, I went back in for a checkup. My doctor wanted to send me to a fertility doctor, but we weren’t interested. According to my husband, we were still young enough to try again and didn’t need the expensive measures. We just needed time to grieve.

But by the end of 2013, we still weren’t pregnant again, so I decided to check with a fertility doctor. Although we had been praying and fasting for me to get pregnant again, I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay with me, and nothing was preventing the process. I went through a series of tests and appointments and then decided to have a procedure done just to make sure all was well. A few days before I was to have the procedure, I developed a blood clot in my right leg, which turned out to be a side effect of some of the medicine my doctor had prescribed. I was in the hospital for a few days to clear the blood clot. While I was there, my fertility doctor visited with me and told me we now had to refrain from trying to get pregnant for 6 months! I was really disappointed. It had already been more than a year since we had the miscarriage, and I still wasn’t pregnant. And now we would have to wait for SIX MONTHS before we could try again!?!

Well, that brings us to 2015. I was so excited and ready to go back to see the fertility doctor so we could start everything again. But, by the next appointment everything had changed. I was told I only had a 1% chance of conceiving a child naturally. What!?! The news completely devastated me! The one dream I had always wanted and pursued for so long was now shattered into a million pieces!

I’m not going to lie to you…this news was hard to hear and come to grips with. On top of all of that, our dog Daisy passed away. So now within a two-year time frame, we’d miscarried a baby, had a blood clot, lost our beloved dog, and told our chances of conceiving a baby were slim to none. This was too much! I felt like God had actually given me more than I could handle!

After this, I went into a dark period for a while. I was mad! I was angry! I was frustrated! I stopped praying. The time in my life when I needed God the most, I just stopped talking to Him altogether. I told myself there was no use in fasting or praying because it didn’t work. I had been praying and believing for a baby for so long and it didn’t get me anywhere but heartbroken!

With my frustration, I started withdrawing from a lot of things. I still went to church and put on my happy face, but I stood in the back with my arms crossed and refused to sing and worship. I truly didn’t see the point.

Then one day, a friend of mine asked me to lunch. I had thought about pouring out my heart to her, but I still wasn’t sure I was ready to be so vulnerable or even just to not be so mad. Do you know that God still loves us in our darkest places? And that even if we think we’re done with Him (even temporarily), He’s not done with us? Lunch with my friend that day turned my world around!

I had put myself on an island thinking I was the only person going through this. My husband knew how I was feeling; he was even experiencing some of the same feelings himself. But my friend was a blessing in disguise! We met for lunch and talked until dinner…literally!! =) I felt so much better after talking to her. I just needed to share my feelings and let go of the negative so that God could refresh me and move me forward.

Later that year we decided to get a second opinion from a different fertility doctor. We were given the same answer, but this time, we decided to talk about our options. We took some time discussing our options and figuring out where the money would come from. Once we got everything worked out, we set the plan in motion for early 2017.

But our plans were halted again when we realized the fertility office misquoted the amount of money that was due. Being that fertility treatments are horribly expensive, we only had half of what we needed to pay for everything.  So, as we worked to figure out the rest of the money issue, I had another medical setback.

There’s a song that Lauren Daigle sings called “Trust in You”. The very first line of the song is:

Letting go of every single dream, I lay each one down at your feet…

This is what I had to do. I had to lay down my dream of having a baby at God’s feet. I finally realized that I was holding on so tight to my dream, that I wasn’t allowing God to freely move in my life and do what He needed to do. The chorus of the song says:

When you don’t move the mountains, I’m needing you to move

When you don’t part the waters, I wish I could walk through

When you don’t give the answers, as I cry out to you

I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in you.

And that’s exactly what I had to do! I had to put aside the money issues, the medical issues, the “Kara-get-out-of-the-way-and-let-God-move” issues and I had to TRUST HIM.

It’s amazing what can happen when we move out of the way and let God do what God does best…the impossible…the miracle work.

Now we’re in late 2019 and we’re ready to go. We’ve visited with the fertility office; we have the correct amount of funds, and everything is put into place to begin late February 2020. I was very excited, but also very nervous. There was still a quiet voice in the back of my mind saying, “What if…” But I was also too excited about the possibility of what was coming to give it a second thought!

I had a positive pregnancy test on March 19, 2020. We went to have the first check-up at 7 weeks. We were both nervous due to our last experience with a 7-week pregnancy, but God is so GOOD!! We heard the baby’s heartbeat, and it was good and strong!

And we heard his strong little heartbeat at every appointment up until the day he was born. We welcomed our baby, James Hyden, Jr to our family on November 24, 2020.  He was born at 4:01am and was 8lbs, 8oz and 22” long. He was born the day before his due date! Ironically, the first time in my household that a Hyden man has actually been early for anything!! Lol!

Our long-awaited promise was fulfilled! If you count the time from when we first got married, we waited 17 years for Baby James. I look in his precious face every single day and just feel God’s blessings pouring over me. He is my rainbow after the storm.

But the fulfillment of promises doesn’t always take 17 years. Maybe it takes more; maybe it takes less. But when God gives you a promise, He will deliver it when He says it’s time. God’s timing is different from ours, but the promise will not expire, and it will not return void! God keeps His word to us…every time!

Baby James at birth
Baby James 10 months old

Thank you for reading my testimony! I hope it brings you encouragement to know that no matter how long you’ve been waiting, God’s miracles still happen every single day. Please come back next week for Part 2 as I share the second half of my breakout session for ways to keep your faith strong during the waiting process.

Always in our Hearts

As 2013 comes to a close, I wanted to say a final good-bye to close out the year.  It’s been an interesting year, but one with more heartbreak than I’ve ever experienced before.

The year began like any other, then a couple of months in, we received the most joyous news.  Our dream of becoming parents was finally coming true!  All the hours we’d spent on planning, discussing baby décor, names and the number of kids we wanted to have, we were finally on our way to having our very own family.  The discussions on room décor were starting to take shape as we decided you were a boy as we had long prayed you’d be.

Sadly, the joyous time was short-lived, as our happiness turned to heartbreak. You were gone in the blink of an eye.  The excitement and joy we had over you in one breath, was quickly gone in the next.  I imagined you would’ve been as handsome as your dad, with his dark hair and shining green eyes.  I guess when the time comes for us to see you again, I can see how close I was to my vivid imagination.

I thought of you a lot since that time.  You would’ve been born at the end of October, so you would’ve had your first Christmas this year. I imagined I would’ve had a lot of fun shopping for you on Black Friday with my mom and sister, the way we shop for my nieces every year.  I imagine your dad would’ve gone with us…mostly because he’s just a big kid version of you anyway!  I imagine all the toys I would’ve had to put back on the shelf, telling your dad that we’re not made of money and that you’re too young for most of the toys anyway!  But it would’ve been fun.

I imagined you at Christmas when I was decorating the tree.  You would’ve had your first ornament on the tree…Baby’s 1st Christmas.  You would’ve had the cutest Christmas outfits and I’m sure sweater vests because that’s what your dad likes.  I imagined placing you in Santa’s arms at the mall for your first-ever picture with Santa.  Unlike your cousin who didn’t care much for Santa this year, I imagined that you would’ve just lain quietly in his arms as if you were lying in the arms of Jesus.  You would’ve had your first trip to Santa Land and the beginning of many other traditions I’m anxious to start with our family.

It was a different kind of year, thinking of what could’ve been that never was.  Your dad and I miss you dearly and we will always love you.  I just wanted you to know that you’re not forgotten.  You’ll always be in our thoughts and memories, but above all else, you’ll always be in our hearts!

ornament

The Master’s Plan

Many of you know that earlier this year, my husband and I were expecting our first baby. And then shortly after we found out, I had a miscarriage and we lost the baby. As I’ve gone through this year, I often check the calendar to see where I would’ve been had my pregnancy not ended. With the month of October, the thoughts surround me quite often, as this would’ve been my ninth month of pregnancy. My due date was estimated to the end of October.

Had everything worked out, I’d be preparing to go on maternity leave with my job. For those of you that don’t know, I’m a government employee, too. No one in our office has been furloughed yet, but the impending thought hangs over our office like a very dark cloud. I can’t help but think how much extra stress my husband and I would be feeling right now, if I were about to take my maternity leave, only to realize that all the sick time and vacation time I had saved to cover my maternity leave was about to vanish in the blink of an eye.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~Jeremiah 29:11

When things happen in our lives that we don’t plan or don’t want to happen, we have a tendency to blame God for those circumstances. We have never once blamed God for the miscarriage we had. We’ve asked “Why?” but never blamed Him. The devil is the one that steals our dreams, kills our hopes and destroys the things we hold dear. But God comes to give us life. And not just life…ABUNDANT LIFE!! The devil may have temporarily stolen a dream from us, but God is going to restore that dream. And not just restore what was stolen…restore it 100-fold!

I can’t help but think this current time I’m enduring at work is a small answer to the “Why?” question. It could just be my own human mind trying to make sense of a tragedy that I suffered. God knows our future. He knows what’s ahead. He sees what we cannot see. God sees the BIG picture. God doesn’t take our future from us; he prepares us for what’s ahead.

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us…” ~Ephesians 3:20

Our dream is soon to be restored and I look forward to that coming day. Right now, I sit and pray and wait expectantly for the “exceedingly abundant” things to come. No matter what our future holds, God is taking care of us, providing for us and preparing the way for the ABUNDANT LIFE He has for us!!

Curveballs of Life

In baseball terms, a curveball is a type of pitch thrown with a characteristic grip and hand movement that imparts forward spin to the ball causing it to dive in a downward path as it approaches the plate. There’s also an expression “to throw a curveball” essentially meaning a significant deviation to a preceding concept.

I use the term as to say “a slight or quick shift in the normal happenings of life” or another, easier way to say it, I guess, would be “to have the rug pulled out from underneath you.” Anyway you say it, you’re basically meaning that life has shifted unexpectedly and left you with many unanswered questions. If we’re left in this state too long, forgiveness and bitterness begin to creep into our existence making it harder, and many times, more impossible, to move on from this point in our lives.

I, though, am choosing to look to God through the recent circumstance that has “thrown a curveball” into the normal, steady life of me and my husband.

As a young girl, I had the same dreams as many other young girls: grow up, get married to a very handsome man and have lots of children and live happily ever after! For the past ten years, I have been happily married to a very handsome man. And I’ve been patiently (well, trying to be) waiting to be a Mom.

I’ve had many, many friends have their babies and begin to raise their families. I’ve hosted countless baby showers for those friends, all the while wondering, “when will it be MY turn!?!” I’ve prayed, I’ve fasted and every time, the same request: “Please God, when it’s our turn, I pray that we get pregnant right away, the first time so that we can start our family with our healthy and beautiful triplet boys.” Same prayer, all the time, never changing.

Lately, I had been noticing a few different and unusual things going on in my body, so I decided I’d take a home pregnancy test to see if my assumptions were correct. I was working from home one day, so I decided it would be a good day to try a pregnancy test since I had the whole day to test my theory, with no one around, just in case I was wrong. Well, two (yep, had to double-check my initial findings) pregnancy tests later and I was ecstatic with overwhelming joy & no one to tell (the downside of being home alone)!

I started by praising God for giving me this miracle that I had dreamed of for so long. I called the doctor’s office to schedule an appointment for the official test (this was my first time and I wanted to be 100% sure). Then, I plotted on the correct time and method to tell my husband. Should I wait for doctor confirmation, just in case? Or should I tell him when he gets home from work?

Well, it’s hard for me to keep really exciting secrets like this, so I had to tell him…it was just too much to hold in. It was bad enough I was going to my workout class the next morning and wasn’t telling my friends; I at least had to go ahead and tell my husband. Needless to say, he was as overwhelmed and excited as me…a dream come true that we had always wanted!

The next day I went to the doctor, received the confirmation I needed and was then given booklets upon pamphlets of useful pregnancy knowledge I wasn’t currently aware of. I called my husband on the phone after the appointment to give him the good news and found myself speechless and crying; so much joy, I couldn’t even process it all. We called our families the next day, crying as we told them. Then, we told all of our friends at church the day after that.

There were screams of excitement, screeches of joy and tears of happiness at our news. Our friends were just as excited as we were to start this new adventure; chatterings of baby showers and decorations and themes began to circle around. Everyone was excited and everyone was ready to see us through our journey.

Our first ultrasound appointment was scheduled for two weeks from my initial visit to the doctor’s office. I was told at that initial appointment that I was 5weeks and 2 days already. By the time my appointment would roll around, I would be one day shy of 8 weeks. My husband and I were so excited because we were going to hear our baby’s heartbeat for the very first time!

I signed up for every baby website I could find. I tracked the status of our baby’s size week by week. I believe at 7 weeks, he (faith speaking) was the size of a blueberry. We had a lot of fun with the weekly updates, learning the size of our baby from week-to-week, seeing what was developing each week. We were fully enjoying all the aspects of being pregnant. I was certainly feeling all the aspects of being pregnant; nausea (no morning sickness, though, yea!), extreme tiredness and always hungry.

The day of our first ultrasound appointment had finally arrived. We saw the baby on the screen; we could actually make out the head, arms and legs…it was really small, but really cool. We were disappointed, though, when the ultrasound tech couldn’t locate a heartbeat. She measured the baby to be smaller than initially claimed, so instead of being almost 8 weeks, I was closer to 7 weeks and 1 day. The doctor decided to give it another week and we set another ultrasound appointment for the following week.

We were pretty disappointed about the heartbeat at first. Many of my friends told me that it was common not to hear the heartbeat at 7 weeks. Even though the heart starts beating at 6 weeks, it was still a common thing to not hear it until much later; more like between 8-10 weeks. We were relieved to hear that! The rest of the week went by very uneventful.

We went to our next ultrasound appointment the following week, excited to finally hear the baby’s heartbeat. We went through the same process as the previous week, with the same result…still no audible heartbeat. This time, we were armed with information that it could still be too early to hear the heartbeat, so we were unfazed. Until we met with the doctor after the ultrasound and she told us the baby hadn’t grown at all in the week since our last appointment. I was still measuring at exactly 7 weeks and 1 day.

I’m not sure of my husband’s thought process at that exact moment, but my mind was still searching for possibilities and reasons everything was still okay and that this was normal. The doctor was trying to be reassuring, but she had the sad, puppy-dog face going so it was hard to find the normalcy and the “everything is still going to be okay” attitude that I was trying so hard to maintain. She told us she wanted me to get two blood tests done, to check my hormone levels, which in her opinion, were dropping. The blood tests, in her not-so-subtle terms, were a final determination that we had experienced a miscarriage and our baby was gone.

We left the doctor’s office and went on what seemed at the time, a scavenger hunt of labs in the area for my blood tests. After locating a lab office after our 5th location try, I had my blood drawn. According to the medical form I had to take with me to the lab, the results were requested as “STAT!”; seriously, it was written in all caps, exclamation point and circled about 6 times…they were serious about getting the results fast! I was told to go back to the same lab again, two days later, for the same blood test with the same request of “STAT!”

We went back to the doctor’s office after the first blood test to retrieve my husband’s truck so we could each go back to work. As we sat in my car, the heaviness of what we’d been told finally took effect on us and we can began to sob in each others’ arms. How could the one thing we had waited on, for so long, be slowly ripping away from us at such a quick pace?

We sat there for a while, just holding each other, crying and wondering how the tables had turned so quickly. Seriously, where did that stinkin’ curveball come from? Many of our friends knew our appointment was that day, so I was beginning to get texts from them asking how it went. My husband and I parted ways and went back to work; but only after I assured him I was going to be okay. Well, I guess I was wrong…those feelings were way more than I could handle. I cried all the way back to work and I cried in the parking lot of my work. I ignored every text I got from friends and family. And when the texts went unanswered and my friends began calling, I ignored those as well. I hadn’t even come to grips with what the doctor told us and there was no way I could verbalize, much less, text to someone and tell them.

While I was back at work, trying to keep to myself and finish the day, I finally emailed my Mom. I gave her a brief synopsis of what the doctor told us and told her I just couldn’t talk right now. She responded by saying she was “so very sorry” and to call when I could. One of my co-workers stopped by my desk to ask about the appointment. When I told her it was “fine” and never turned my head, she knew something was wrong. The only words it took after that were, “Are you sure?” and I turned my head to her and simply said, “No.” My tears were uncontrollable after that and she just hugged me like a Mom would and let me cry it out. She didn’t ask for details, she just let me cry it out and then left me alone. After that, I left work early and went home. I couldn’t even make it out of my car in the driveway without crying uncontrollably for what seemed like an eternity. I finally found enough courage to text a couple of my closest friends to tell them what I’d told my Mom and then I went to bed and cried some more.

Friends had dinner delivered to us later that evening, but we still kept mostly to ourselves. I did manage to go to work the next day, but it was a nice relief because my co-worker had informed the rest that things were not good and not to disturb me with appointment questions. We did experience a glimmer of hope later in the week after the second blood test. Two days after my initial blood test, I went back for the second test. My doctor’s office called later that morning to say that my hormone levels were going up, instead of down, which turned out to be a good thing. There was still hope and they set another ultrasound appointment for the first part of the following week. If the baby showed signs of growth, there were positive possibilities that we could continue with my pregnancy. But, if the baby didn’t grow still, we were pretty much done.

It’s amazing what the smallest glimmer of hope can give you; it definitely renewed my faith in the impossibilities of life. The tiniest of miracles that God can work were within our reach and I was excited to see what the next week held. I sent a text to our families and a small group of my closest friends with our exciting news. We were all praying, believing and looking forward to the next appointment.

The next appointment finally rolled around and we took a final peek at our baby. Sadly, the news was the same, the baby hadn’t grown and I was still measuring at 7 weeks and 1 day. The doctor gave us our options and we decided to give it a few days to see if my body would naturally “do its thing” or if I would have to schedule another appointment to finish out the process.

We relayed the news to our family and friends and began the waiting game to see what our next step would be. This time, the appointment didn’t seem so rough. The initial shock had worn off from our last appointment and we were just left with our feelings of sadness and loss.

My body ended up not taking care of the natural process, so I scheduled an appointment to have everything removed. The procedure was quick and uneventful, but provided me a day of much-needed rest. Now, we’re just waiting on a follow-up appointment with my doctor to clear us so that we can start over again.

Curveballs come through our lives when we least expect them. There’s really no way to prevent them, but we can overcome them. The only way I know how to overcome them is by having God a daily part of my life. With Him, curveballs come and go, lessons are learned and life moves forward. With Him, the life moving forward part is so much easier and peaceful and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rest in peace, Baby Hyden! God took you home at 7 weeks and 1 day, but we know we’ll see you again very soon. Mommy & Daddy love you & miss you so very much!!

Sonogram Pic 2