Firm Foundation

As I stood on the top deck of our cruise ship, overlooking the Caribbean Sea, the sun had started rising and we glided over the waves without even the slightest movement. 8 ft waves didn’t touch this machine. I could have balanced a cup of coffee on the railing if I’d wanted to. The sky impressively stretched out its arms before me, the colors radiating, penetrating, exhaling saturation with each passing breath. I popped in my AirPods and sank deep into the worship immersing me into this moment even further. Not a bit of land in sight. Not another soul to be seen. As the darkness of the night collided hard with the morning light, I stood on top of this impressively huge ship, spanning almost a quarter of a mile long and breathed in the sea air. A moment I would never forget. Breathing out the hard. The suffering. The pain. A life that had never been easy. And yet a journey that continued to be so worth it. Lifting my arms in total surrender to the God who’d never left my side even when darkness had tried to devour and lies had steered me off course. I looked out to the vastness of the ocean. The power of the waves. The beauty all around me. For a second life felt more settled than it ever had before. A stability had taken root and the foundation had cemented itself firm. 

We had the trip of a lifetime, a vacation neither of us would ever forget. We found a rest we hadn’t realized we’d needed and re-connected deeper as a husband and wife than ever before. But as everyone knows so well, vacation vibes come to an end and as we flew home that Sunday evening in December just a few weeks before Christmas – we hit the ground running. Who knew life was about to get shaken up all over again! 

December 29^th, 2022. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach as I handed the pregnancy test to one of my best friends and started the agonizing 3-minute wait. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. Four long years ago we’d started trying for a baby. It was two years into our marriage, and we were ready to start a family. We wanted two kids, preferably a boy and a girl. It was January 2019, and I knew within a few months life would change forever… I was ready. I jumped on Amazon and bought a little baby onesie that said: “Our greatest adventure is about to begin.” I smiled when it arrived and wrapped it up, putting it away in the drawer. That would be Ryan’s gift the day I found out we were pregnant.

Life is never quite that simple. It’s not for me anyway. As one month turned into many months and eventually the months turned into years, the thought of having a family together became a far-fetched hope rather than a once closely held dream. What was wrong? Why can everyone else get pregnant? Why is there always something wrong with ME? Thoughts would plague my mind and lies would take me down. Staring wide-eyed at the infertility leaflets in the hospital, I never thought I’d be the one walking this road. Exploratory surgery revealed nothing, and hundreds of tests later we were still none the wiser. Time had stood still, yet age was creeping forward. 

January 2022. Another fertility session. Another painful procedure. As I laid on the bed, I closed my eyes, body trembling. Hands gripping the edge of the bed. Each session transported me back. Years ago. The abuse was taking place, the men were surrounding my bed. I tried to stay grounded but with each session I could feel myself slipping further away. I couldn’t do it anymore. Life felt out of control. I no longer recognized who I was. I was living more in a state of trauma than I was living in real life. I was done. I had nothing left to give.

It’s one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had. Trying to explain to your husband that you’re done trying and that something has shifted, and you no longer want this anymore. Watching the heartbreak on his face as his dreams shatter and life harshly rips you apart. For 3 long years we’d had this goal. It’s all we’d really focused on and without realizing, it had become our only intimacy. We’d never stopped long enough to see the real damage we’d been doing or the distance it had unintentionally created between us.

We walked into some of our darkest months. See, you take away the goal, and what’s really left? I’m not a big believer that everything happens for a reason. But I’m a huge believer that everything that happens to us is used for good. As we started re-dreaming, re-connecting, and re-creating a new life for us, we found a depth between us that we hadn’t experienced before. Values were re-ordered and beliefs re-prioritized. A new foundation was built. One that was stronger than ever before. And one that wouldn’t crumble very easily.

December 29^th, 2022. The three minutes were over and as I looked all I saw were two fat red lines. I had no words as I stared at the test. A stick I’d peed on so many times. The lines I had wished into existence every day for three years. 9 months ago, my physical therapist had told me I couldn’t get pregnant the way my pelvis was situated. It had been missed by every doctor and gone unnoticed on every test. My body could never have gotten pregnant. Yet here I was. Four years on. Pregnant. 

There are not many times in life where you experience almost every emotion imaginable all at the same time. I went from anger to devastation – I gave up on this dream. I had since built a different life and there was no longer space or room left in it for a baby. Overwhelmed followed by complete shock. I needed an entire day to process the news before I shared it with Ryan the following morning. But when I surprised him with the baby onesie, I had bought exactly four years earlier, and saw my husband’s reaction and every drop of emotion flood out of him, all I could feel was an overwhelming gratefulness and excitement. For the hope which had been lost and the dream which had been buried had been gifted to us after all and who was I to be ungrateful for this unbelievable miracle.  

I take myself back to the ship. Standing on the top deck watching the sunrise as the ocean breeze moves so freely through my hair and over my face. You can’t predict life. Ever. One moment it might feel settled, the next you’re being rushed into surgery and having the very miracle you waited four years for scraped out of your insides. 

The pregnancy lasted almost 10 weeks before my miscarriage started. Doctors identified something was wrong and sent me home expecting the miscarriage to begin within a few days and so I waited for the unknown to start. It’s hard to explain the confusion I have felt surrounding this pregnancy. How do you mourn something you didn’t think you wanted just a few months prior but then feel devasted when it’s taken away? 

The cramping started but very quickly we knew something wasn’t right. As we spent the week in and out of hospital, and I experienced pain like I have never experienced before, I eventually got rushed into surgery on Tuesday morning Feb 7^th 2023, and they spent 3 hours scraping everything out of me. 

As I sit on the couch and stare out the window sore and swollen, I feel sad, yet I also feel unbelievably thankful. I experienced something I never thought I would ever get the privilege of experiencing. My body fell pregnant and the impossible happened. But more than that… a buried dream, a hope thrown away – was handed back to us. A little flame reignited. The last two weeks have been anything but easy. You question yourself, wonder what you did wrong, you question God and ask why this had to happen. But as the messages of support come flooding in, I am blown away by the amount of woman who have walked this path. Who have experienced a miscarriage and mourned the loss of a dream which never came into existence. It’s something not spoken about much, shared only within the intimacy of another walking the same hard road.

To some questions we might never know the answer. But I know that the pain I experienced these last few weeks, physically and emotionally, will be used for good. In my own life, in my husband’s life and in the lives of others. This life is never settled. It’s not even very stable. But for the first time I have been able to stand on a foundation which didn’t rock. It was cemented firm. “Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.”