Once again, it’s been awhile since I’ve written a thing. You could say this time, I’ve been a bit distracted. I’m sitting in my living room this morning trying to keep my mind occupied. The realization hit me when I woke up at 5:42 am, that in about 24 hours (or less!), I will be at the hospital getting induced and bringing our first baby into the world.
“Yikes” is all I can say!
It’s been an interesting 10 months and if I’m being honest, I was really just trying to make it through. I can’t say my first pregnancy has been the most enjoyable experience and each day brought its own challenges. And now that we are finally at the end of the line, with a baby in sight, I’m being forced to sit and process all that has happened and all that God has been gently teaching me since the lines appeared on that pregnancy test. I wasn’t sure I wanted to share all of this, but as I have learned over the years, if I can humble myself and share how God has (sometimes, painfully) molded me, He may use me to be an encouragement to others and bring Himself glory…and that is all I can hope for.
Let me preface by saying this: as I share these things on my heart, I know that many have great difficulty in conception, pregnancy, and childbearing…greater than the difficulties I have faced. There are miscarriages. There are diagnoses. There is infertility. There is constant pain and sickness. And my heart breaks for situations like these. My experience is my own and my struggles my own as well. And as I share these struggles and feelings I have had in regards to pregnancy, know they come from my own brokenness. I know many of the attitudes and feelings I experienced these past 10 months were not good ones. They were experienced by a sinful person, in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. But I want to share them as they contribute to the whole of this writing.
I have always wanted to be a mom. In my school scrapbook, my dream job in second grade was to be a “mommy.” I had doll and stuffed animal “babies” growing up (I may have even pretended to breastfeed said toys). I always loved being around little kids. That desire has never gone away…it has been a constant in my 20-some years of life. When I went to college, I knew I couldn’t just get my “MRS” degree and not prepare for any other paths God might lead me down, so I settled for a degree in Speech Pathology and hoped I could maybe meet someone to secure that double major 🙂 Being a mom was always my number one pick of a job and anything else came second.
Fast forward to January 2022 when I took that first pregnancy test.
I was so scared to look at it, because for some reason in my mind, I just figured it would take me a long time to get pregnant. We hadn’t been waiting all that long (especially in comparison to so many), but I was so afraid I wouldn’t see the results I was hoping for. When I did see those two lines, I just started sobbing. My prayers had finally been answered. God graciously answered “yes.”
And His “yes” is where things get hairy.
The first struggle I ran into was major morning sickness. We like to call it “all-day” sickness in our house because the “morning” part is honestly a joke. I was sick all day, could hardly eat anything but toast, crackers, and gatorade, and was exhausted. And it lasted the entirety of my first trimester and quite a few weeks into the second.
In my second trimester, after the all-day sickness abated, I started to get lightheaded really easily. I’ve passed out a couple times before in the past, so I know what my body feels like leading up to something like that, and that’s all I felt for weeks. Even sitting down, my head would start to feel like it was swimming and I would get clammy and short of breath. Cue the extra doctors visits, bloodwork, heart tests, and a good report back that there was really nothing wrong with me…it’s just how my body responds to being pregnant.
In my third trimester, once the baby got quite sizeable, I started to get all the regular symptoms there on top of the lightheaded feelings of the second. The pelvic pain, the scrunched lungs, the lack of energy. This trimester even included a trip to the hospital with very high blood pressure.
As I experienced each wave of different symptoms throughout each trimester, I had people asking me about how excited I was, how I was feeling, etc. and I told them fairly honestly: I hated being pregnant. I felt horrible for letting on how I felt, especially knowing that there are so many women out there who would kill to be in my place! But in all truth, I truly despised pregnancy, and that was just for the physical symptoms.
Unfortunately, that was just the half of it.
I have struggled this entire time with major anxiety. Fear is a sin that entangles me often. I have always battled against it. With all the physical ailments pregnancy brought, my fears just seemed to heighten. In the beginning, I feared losing the Baby. I’ve feared driving while experiencing the lightheadedness. I have feared labor and delivery and all the “what-if’s” there. I’ve feared bringing the Baby home and not knowing what I’m doing. I’ve feared being alone when my husband goes back to work. I have often wondered, “If I have had such a hard time taking care of myself these past several months with all the physical needs…how in the world am I going to take care of a baby??”
I also sinfully struggled with a poor view of myself and anger towards others. I’ve never had a good body image and have had a hard time seeing myself as “fearfully and wonderfully made.” I gain weight easily and have exercised little throughout this pregnancy because of the physical symptoms I’ve experienced. Enduring comments from my doctor and others about my body’s appearance has been very hard for me. The comments hurt and I’ve shed lots of tears over the way I look, as I criticize every little thing I don’t like about my new body. But this is not just about others’ unintended insensitivity, but it is a deep-seeded struggle with sin in myself. I idolize my appearance and I don’t trust my Savior when He tells me I was made in His image.
Lack of contentment. An ungrateful heart. Fear. Poor view of God’s creation. Bitterness. It’s all sadly characterized this pregnancy for me. When I sit here and contemplate the last 10 months, I can’t say I am very proud with how I have faced everything. There is a lot of guilt here. After all, like I said earlier, many people would love to be in my shoes.
To top it all off…I knew getting pregnant and becoming a mom was my desire for so many years and when God finally answered my prayer, I shamefully wondered if I was even ready for it and wished we might have waited a little bit longer.
In sharing all of these struggles, there is a lesson here and I’m still painfully learning it. I don’t share these things to get empathy, but to share how God is reproving me and instructing me going forward.
2 Timothy 2:11-13 has come up many times throughout the past 10 months and has really stuck out to me. The passage says this:
“This saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful — for He cannot deny Himself.”
I have been a miserable person these past several months and I have wallowed in it. I have not been very grateful for this pregnancy and all it entails. I have let anger and fear have control over my life. I have sinned against our God, who loves to give good gifts to His children.
Yet, despite my sin, God has been so very merciful to me.
I have been faithless, yet He has remained faithful because that is who He is.
God has been gently reminding me of these gospel principles for the better part of a year.
“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this; while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8
There is nothing I could do to earn God’s faithfulness in this season (or ever!). After all, I certainly despised His beautiful gift of pregnancy to my husband and I simply because of the circumstances surrounding it. Rejecting a good gift definitely would not earn God’s favor. Sin never does. But thankfully…it’s not about earning His favor.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 6:23
His mercy and forgiveness and faithfulness is a GIFT. It is given in spite of our sin. And like any gift we are given, all we are asked to do is humbly receive it with joy and thankfulness.
My pregnancy has been long and painful, mostly in the spiritual sense. I wish I could go back and change my attitude and trust the Lord with all the many struggles I faced. It would have been a much more joyful time in my life. I pray you don’t have to learn a lesson as hard as this one. I pray that when you experience “trials of various kinds”, you choose to “count it all joy.” I truly wish I would have! But I am realizing now just how gracious and merciful He has been to me through all this. I don’t deserve His faithfulness, especially when I was so faithless.
As I think on the gospel of Jesus and watch this Baby growing inside me wiggle around for the last few days before I get to meet him or her, I am praising God for His good gifts, mourning my sin, and thanking Him for His mercy.
Love Sees You 