Y’all. It’s been a while. A long while.
But, over the last 5 months, I’ve just really struggled with the “mom guilt”.
I was so concerned that if I wrote about my current pregnancy, it was like I wasn’t honoring my 7 littles waiting for me. And if I wrote about miscarriage, I was neglecting Crew Jameson, who is still doing wonderful, and kicking away as we speak, 20 weeks in.
My. Brain. Is. A. Mess.
But then I realized none of it mattered. The ultimate goal of this was to encourage people. And that’s what I intend to do. So, here goes.
Looking back over my 6 miscarriages, the first 2 are often the most sad to me. Not that they aren’t horribly tragic, because they are. But I have nothing to even prove the first 2 existed. No ultrasound pictures, no bloodwork, nothing that I purchased, nothing. Only my traumatic memories.
Then came Oliver. His pregnancy was such a whirlwind, consisting of me panicking every single day until he got here. I didn’t even get to actually enjoy it.
When we were finally ready to start trying again after Oli, I knew I wanted (needed) things to be different. I wrongly assumed that having a baby would be easy to do at this point, but even still, I needed solid memories.
This came in the form of worshipping while I wait.
Pregnancy #4
I had no doubts in my mind that this would be an easy pregnancy. But, unfortunately, it ended between 6-7 weeks, and I didn’t know until closer to 9 weeks. During those 9 weeks, I spent tons of time in worship. Here’s the song I attached to that time.
And while I only have one ultrasound of my baby who had already passed, this song still consistently brings me joy from that time.
Pregnancy #5
This pregnancy was very short lived. I only even know I was pregnant for 4-5 days before things went south. But. I chose to worship during that time too.
Pregnancy #6 (twins)
This was a rough one. From the moment I found out about them, I worshipped. I knew that these were the babies meant to complete our family. We all know now, that I was wrong, as I lost them at 2 different times. But here’s the song that kept me going during that time.
Pregnancy #7
This pregnancy took me by surprise. Although I knew this baby wouldn’t make it into the world around 8 weeks, I carried him or her for 19 more days before finally letting go. During that time, this was my favorite worship song.
Crew Jameson
This was a shock to my system. I had put having a baby on pause. But during that entire pause, and through this entire pregnancy, I’ve worshipped. I stayed up nights praying over the walls of his bedroom. Through every nervous moment and every scare (and there’s been plenty), I’ve worshipped.
So what’s the point?
The point is, that no matter how horrible, awful, or traumatic most of my memories are surrounding pregnancy, I can always look back to the God who carried me through it all, and has His hand every single step of Crew’s pregnancy.
So.
I know most of you won’t experience exactly what I have and that’s okay. But you will experience SOMETHING. Something hard. Something terrible. Something traumatic.
But I encourage you to worship through it.
Will it solve all your problems instantly? Absolutely not.
But at the end of your journey, whatever it may be, you will always have something to remind you of the God who got you through it.