When was the first time I realized I wasn’t in control of my life? You might think that it came to me when I was in high school and crashed my first car just one week after getting my driver’s license. Or you might think that it came to me when I found Jesus and became a Christian. You even might think I realized this little known fact as I have struggled through depression since my teenage years. While all of these instances could push anyone over the edge, the true turning point for me was my children. And I’m not just speaking about the two boys that are my joy. I am also referring to the third child. The child I lost. The child that is waiting for us in Heaven.
My husband always told me “If you want to make God laugh then tell him your plans.” I always chuckled in response but never let those words sink in. Little did I know how much meaning those words would bring in the years to come. We made our plans: Get pregnant in our 4th year of marriage. Have a child of our own by our 5th year. How hard could it really be? We could put the family on hold and whenever WE were ready WE would decide to start our family.
The fourth year came and we started trying. And amazingly enough, we were pregnant on the first try. I thought to myself, this must be God’s plan because it worked out so perfectly. We settled into this pregnancy with ease (or naivety) and began planning for this little child that would change our world. Well, that child did change our world, but not in the way we had hoped. After the loss, I prayed to Jesus to fill my empty womb. I cried. I screamed. And I wallowed in the deep valley of loss. Laura Bush put it best in her autobiography :
“…for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent, ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?”
Just a couple months after the initial loss, I masked my grief through the obsession to get pregnant again. The obsession to conceive took over my life. I did everything I could to gain control again. I changed my diet. I quit exercising. I researched ways to get pregnant faster. I tracked. I temped. I tested and tested and tested. All for naught. I truly felt crazy at times. I felt my world spinning out of control. I thought “If only I could get pregnant again this loss won’t hurt so much.”
I began setting milestones. I felt confident that I would be pregnant by Easter because that would be the perfect plan. What an amazing Easter miracle that would be? Easter came and went. And I cried over the negative pregnancy tests. Then I was sure that I would be pregnant by my first due date. I knew that God had held out because this really would be the perfect time now. It would commemorate the loss of the first baby with the beginning of a new life. How perfect would that be? The due date came and went. And I fell into a deep depression.
It took me almost a year to realize what a fool I had been. All this time I had been fighting for control over my life never relinquishing that control to its rightful owner. I had my so called “perfect” plans. Dates and times that would be perfect in my eyes. But what could be more perfect than God’s plan? If only I could have faith in Him.
Exactly one year from the first pregnancy, I would find myself pregnant again. This time I would realize that this pregnancy was not of my own doing. God had once again entrusted me with His child. My husband and I would be the steward of this life. This child did not belong to us, but was rather a gift.
My first ultrasound appointment was scheduled on the same day as the previous pregnancy one year ago. And I thought "What could be more perfect than that?" And yet, God had even bigger plans because on that day we found out there were two. And, oh, how those words have changed my life. God showed me on that day that He always has a plan. And His plan is always beyond what our human minds can even imagine.
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