Andrea's Mountain
“Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.” Exodus 23:25-26 NIV
The Mountain
One of the toughest things to do is for women to open up about grief and loss concerning unborn children. It can be sort of a Pandora’s Box experience; revisiting those feelings and emotions that still in some capacity have a question mark or an unresolved fragment that is unexplainable to anyone who has not experienced it for themselves. Even as I type this blog post, I’ve asked myself, over and over again, how to start or exactly what to say. I know all too well that infertility or life without your heart's earnest desire can feel like a broken, desolate and hopeless prison sentence of despair. Even though you have a host of support and an array of people encouraging and lifting you, the dark disparity of blaming self, feeling inadequate and incomplete is the most real and agonizing place that exists in a woman’s heart.
My husband and I met in college and when I laid eyes on him I knew he would be the man I would spend my life with. I was certain that I would one day give birth to his children. I would often sit and ponder who our children would look like? I had dreams of being a mother long before I had a husband to give way to the dream. When we got married in October of 2010, we knew we wanted to wait a couple years before trying to have children.
When we decided we were ready to embark on this new journey together and start a family we never knew we would face so many obstacles. We thought we would just rub our feet together (in my husband’s words) and BOOM-- be pregnant! We would have a house full of children (or not), and live happily ever after. However, like a lot of things in life, it turned out that it wouldn’t be so simple for us.
In 1998 I was diagnosed with Systemic Erythematous Lupus, an autoimmune disorder. I knew from a mentor of mine when I was younger that women with lupus could have difficulty getting pregnant. Like many women, I was on birth control. Having a chronic illness, being on birth control helped to regulate my body, in some ways, and become a means of security to live a somewhat normal life. I even knew family and friends who lived with Lupus and had children without any complications. I was sure that things would work out for us. My thought process was that this was an old, outdated way of thinking that technology had triumphed and new advanced medicine had been discovered helping many women worldwide. We had worked hard to become professionals and earned good incomes, lived with Christian values and seemed to be the featured candidates to become parents.
At the end of 2011 we became pregnant. We were so excited and we couldn’t wait to tell our family and close friends. My labs looked good, I was basically in remission with Lupus, so my OB decided to have me stop my Lupus medications. My husband and I had plans to go out of town during the time to be with family for an event, and the pregnancy made us even more excited to go. At about 7 weeks into the pregnancy (about 2-3 wks after we found out we had conceived) I began to have some spotting, which began to gradually get heavier.
The Lupus factor made all of our pregnancies considered “at risk” so we called the OB office and they advised us to come in. The most unnerving feeling is having to go into that doctor’s office setting with a pit in your abdomen because the signs point to a problem, but you are trying to stay faithful to the practice of what you believe in your heart. The nurse attempted to find the heartbeat with the handheld doppler but could not detect a sign of life. She then stated,”We may just need to do an ultrasound,” which I now realize as I reflect was a comfort mechanism and glimmer of hope that existed even within her, that it wasn’t what it looked like. My husband and I went ahead with the ultrasound “No heartbeat!” In that moment, my heart sank and my dreams were shattered! They wheeled us out the back door and that was it– no baby. That experience was one the most heartbreaking experiences I had ever felt in my life.
In between letting time pass and trying to heal and move on, nothing tore the scab off the emotional wound worse than people asking questions about our life. “When are y’all going to have children?” and “What are y’all waiting on?” were hard to hear. Even though people may not have known what we were going through, there was a small part of my heart that thought * If one more person asks me about us and children, I’m going to lose it!* It was one of those things you hadn’t really thought your response through, but you seriously didn’t want to have to keep answering the same questions about the thing that perplexed you the most. I would often have to remind myself that the friends, family and even loved ones had no clue of the delima we were in. Hindsight being 20/20, I realize that people meant well, but the agony of the emotional pain was not numbed by knowing a person’s heart.
After time had passed we decided we would try again, and in 2012, I became pregnant– and this time, my twin sister was also pregnant. Having a twin sister and sharing everything with her virtually my whole life made this experience such a joy … well for the length of a deep breath at least. About 9 wks into this pregnancy, while in the shower, I saw red coloring in the water and began having slight cramping that turned into intense pain. I yelled for my husband to come upstairs. I was already kneeling on the floor and he kneeled beside me, wrapped his arms around me and said “I hate you’re having to go through this. Let’s continue to trust God despite what we see right now.” He then went on to say “One day you’re going to have to give your testimony to someone to help them through their situation” (and here I am.)
All I could think about was NOT AGAIN and WHY ME?” We ended up in the ER, the pain unbearable. I was literally climbing the wall! An ultrasound was done and the awful news came, “You’re having a miscarriage.”
Sick to my stomach and depressed is the best description I can give for this moment. There are times in life when you thought you knew what a broken heart was and then something happens and you realize that now you know for sure what a broken heart is. After having my moments and time to heal, I knew I needed to pull myself together and exit the mindset that was attempting to consume my being. I called my pastor often during this time for guidance and prayer. I am a naturally happy individual, but it was becoming hard for me to be happy for others as they enjoyed their pregnancies. At times, it was difficult to see my twin sister, who I absolutely love– with her blessing because I was empty– I was supposed to be carrying my child too.
When I think about it… it really wasn’t that I was unhappy for them because I know that I was happy for others, but the pain of loss made it hard to focus on anything other than what I was experiencing. I wanted to know the joy of having a little person growing inside of me and most of all I wanted to have children for my husband.
After the 2nd miscarriage, I ended up leaving my job in the Neonatal Intensive Care and went to work at an Urgent Care Clinic. I absolutely loved working with babies and enjoyed my job, but it became too difficult working with the little ones. As I transitioned to my new role, I became friends with a God-sent lady that I developed a close bond with. We talked often, cried together and learned about each other’s life stories. After learning of my situation she gave me a scripture to read, Exodus 23:25-26. I read this scripture daily along with my scriptures my pastor gave weekly.
During this time, my twin sister gave birth to her baby girl, who I absolutely love and babysat often. Co-workers and friends became pregnant, and I started truly being happy for them and celebrating them and their season.
It’s the darndest thing sometimes in life when you think things are lining up and out of the blue and you are hit with another curve ball. The 3rd hiccup happened simultaneously with an event at the pharmacy. The doctors decided that if we conceived again, I would stay on my Lupus medication to assure my body was not fighting against the fetus as it grew in my womb. As we were figuring out a good plan of navigation through these hiccups, life happened and threw more potholes in the way. At 11 wks into our 3rd pregnancy my Lupus meds were out of stock and by the time they were back in stock, we had begun to miscarry once again. The frustration was real.
We had invited my mom up for the doctor's visit because there were plans to check heartbeat and possibly do an ultrasound. We were excited about my mom getting an opportunity to share in the experience with us. Again, another heartbreaking outcome, which nearly drove me to the edge because we had gotten so close. Anyone who has experienced events I’ve shared in this blog, knows that the 12 week mark is the golden point, statistically. Getting so close to the mark was such a let down, one of those where you just feel like saying “F” it all. I even had thoughts of driving my car off into this lake, but looking back I realize that depression had sat in so bad. I called my pastor, he talked to me and he spoke to the spirit of depression that was trying to take over my being.
After our 3rd miscarriage, my husband and I were sent to the Women’s Center. The Women’s Center ran multiple tests, everything came back fine for the both of us. I became obsessed with so many emotions. I began to rush things along and we started infertility treatments. The pill didn’t work, so we tried artificial insemination.
It was now June of 2013, three months had passed when I told my husband I didn’t want to continue with the fertility treatments anymore. Again, one of those divine intervention moments when GOD revealed that my husband felt uneasy about the infertility process, but never said a word because he wanted me to be happy knowing we were doing all we could do. I was tired of giving myself shots. I was tired of wiping to see blood. I was tired of the disappointment. Trying to become pregnant had all but taken me out. I prayed about it and finally surrendered my will to the will of GOD. I remember praying and saying to the Lord, “when you are ready for us to conceive, we will be ready to receive the blessing you have for us.”
I started back making conscious efforts to enjoy my husband, life and trusting God.
In September 2013, exactly 3 months after stopping fertility treatments, we found out we were pregnant again. Outside of the morning sickness, this was a great pregnancy. Not only did I take in every moment and enjoy it, but this pregnancy started morning prayer in our house. Everyday, my husband would lay his hands on my bump and we would thank God for everything being okay and decree out loud, “Life and Favor be unto the fruit of my wife’s womb!”
On May 24, 2014, we delivered a healthy baby girl named Faith Marie Davis. She was literally the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The scripture declares that if you honor the LORD with the first fruit of your increase, your barns will be filled with plenty and your presses will burst with new wine. FAITH was our new wine and we honored the LORD by giving her a name that would remind us of the blessing she is, in addition, we get to inspire all who will listen to the testimony GOD gave us through our storm. Faith’s middle name, Marie, was the name of my husband's mother, who passed away when he was 18 years old. The funny thing is Faith is a spitting image of my husband’s mother.
Today we have been blessed with two more girls, Gracelee Noelle, who is GOD’s Grace to us, our surprise baby– born just a few days before Christmas in 2016. Then there is our little “mic drop” Hope Princezola who was born in September of 2020. Our Pandemic baby, a time when the whole world could use a little hope.
The Message
The whole journey taught us so many lessons for life and gave us a testimony to lift couples and young mothers with the dream to become parents. We learned that the greatest blessing in life comes through some of the toughest storms. We learned that when we stop trying to force God’s hand, surrender to HIS will and trust HIS timing everything works in a capacity that far exceeds anything we could have ever imagined.
If you think about it, motherhood (at its finest) is a sorority of women supporting one another through the journey of an emotional roller coaster of uncertainty filled with prayers and hopes. Through this process I learned that while I was awaiting my breakthrough, continuing to celebrate others and their blessings allowed me to be in position to receive mine.
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