Our Story!

"God did not promise a life without pain, nor a life without problems,"  that was how our Pastor started his sermon today.  It took everything in me to hold back my tears.

Yet God did promise to be WITH us in the midst of our pain, regardless of if we can feel Him or not.  This week I have felt Him in my pain ... through His presence and that of the Holy Spirit,  and comfort and through His Word.

I have also felt the presence of my Heavenly Father ...

through my sweet and thoughtful spouse, through my sweet and thoughtful kids,  and through the friend who made us dinner and called me to listen and to encourage me through the rainbow that was in the sky just hours after our sad news, through the friends from work who made us dinner, through the friend who kept e-mailing me and dropped off some delicious pumpkin bread, through the friends who called me even when they didn't have the words to say, through the beautiful flowers I got from a friend, through the sweet note and sweet treats my first day back to work from a friend from work, through the rememberance angel gift I got as well as a great big hug from another friend from work, and through my sisters who kept calling me, one calling me every single day.  I'm sure I forgot something ... thank you everyone who showed up in my life this week ... you made a world of difference.

This is the story ... it is a bit lengthy!

At the beginning of  September I heard God clearly say, "there will be a baby!"  I knew the voice,
I have heard it before and I have even heard those exact words months before Bella was born.  At first I had total peace about it.  God a couple of weeks later gave me pictures of His faithfulness in my life, and specifically the blessings of each one of our children.  We had not been "trying" to have another biological child!

When it came time though for that time of the month for me ... I started to panick.  I questioned God, and I wondered how I could be a great mom to seven kids, two who would be new, one who would be a newborn.  So a few days before I would officially find out, I went to the drug store and made a purchase.  Well very quickly ... I found out that I was indeed pregnant.

Honestly, my heart panicked and it took me several weeks to get my heart wrapped around the idea.  But my heart did get wrapped around the idea, I was excited to have another biological child.  Sam did not need any time to get excited ...he was excited from the moment we found out.

Soo mixed in with this story is that about last December both Sam and I have been having a desire to have another biological child.  We were actually praying about it when we so clearly heard God call us to adopt Jase.  Mixed in with this is also that we have one biological child, and five adopted children and we don't have good reasons to tell our Matteus when he has asked us why he is the only one born in mommy's tummy.  We can't tell him it is not because we can't have another biological (at least that we are aware of), so we tell Him it is because we only ever planned to have one biological and we are so completely happy with him.  Which we are, and just FYI we are completely content with the amazing  five kids we already have.  For us, adoption or biological, they both hold the same spot in our hearts.  Each one of our children's story is different, but their spot in our family and hearts is the same.  We usually give him other reasons too, we already have five kids, we alredy have six kids, we reshare the need for families for so many waiting kids ... to mention a few of the reasons.  All to say that in our family, it is not our adopted children that have (so far) questioned their story so much ... as our biological son Matteus has!

About a week and a half ago I had a dream that I would miscarry.  I did not put value to the dream but there was something in my heart that was guarded, and I was really feeling like I needed to see our growing baby's heart.  And I was really feeling like I wanted to  see the baby's heart before I made our crazy and exciting news public to the world.

This past Monday was our first doctor's appointment, I was about 10 weeks.  Sadly to both of us, there was no heart and no heart beat.  We were both in shock and immediately our grief hit both of us.  As soon as I got home I started to miscarry naturally.

As I am sitting  in my bed, I am still going through the physical process of miscarrying.  It was tough beginning of the week emotionally, and a tough end off the week physically. 

Walking this has brought to light how many others of you have had to walk this.  Walking this has broken my heart for those of you who had to repeatedly walked this. 

Walking this has also made me profoundly aware of My Father and the comfort of His presence, as well as the comfort of friends who show up in the midst of grief.  Honestly, this is probably the saddest thing I have ever walked.  It has changed me and will now forever be part of who I am.

One of the first questions our kids asked when we shared this with them was, "will you try again, to have another baby in your tummy?"  That question came from Faith, who was relating it to a movie we had watched where the mommy miscarried.  Matteus also relating to the movie said, "only if the doctor said she could Faith.  Mom, did the doctor say you could?"

THANK YOU to anyone who has prayed for us this week.  We have SO appreciated your prayers!  THANK YOU to everyone who reads the words I write ... I am humbled that you join our family on this journey of living LIFE!