Thursday, June 4, 2009

A little polka dot...

Today, I am 5 1/2 weeks pregnant with our baby! Such a tiny little dot growing inside of me...what a miracle. My first Dr's appointment was yesterday and it was a little overwhelming, but fun at the same time :) Our due date is February 2, 2010!

It's been almost a year since Billy and I said our vows and committed our lives as one to our Savior. It was a joyous day and celebration... Shortly after our honeymoon began a journey into trusting every aspect of our lives to Christ...something we thought we had covered.

How we got here...

Shortly after Billy and I got engaged we decided I should go on the pill to get my body used to it before our wedding night. We had saved ourselves for our wedding day so the idea of contraception and prevention was pretty new to the both of us. I went into my dr's appointment very unaware and uneducated on the choice I was making, and willingly took whatever prescription she wrote. About a month after we got married we started to question our motives for going on the pill and what it was doing physically to my body. God is the one that open and closes the womb, He is the Author of Life...Did we really think that WE were (or should be) in control of bringing LIFE into this world? Children are seen all throughout scripture as blessings. Was our reason for going on the pill only so that we wouldn't be "inconvenienced?" We said we weren't ready...but if that's the case, would God really give us a child if it were more than we could handle? God had proved over and over that He will provide for us and never abandon us, yet we felt that we needed more money. As we began to evaluate our reasons for preventing and our reasons for using the pill, we were overwhelmed with how selfish our motives were. Throughout Scripture we see that children are blessings from the Lord, and we were telling the Lord that we wanted to take matters into our own hands and say "no thanks" to the blessings He may have in store for us at this time....


WAIT! You're probably thinking...holy moly, are they going to be like the Duggar's and have 18 kids?! What we're not saying is that prevention is wrong. We're also not saying that we want to have 18 kids :) What we are saying, though, is that we chose to go on the pill for all the wrong reasons. We selfishly wanted to live life for ourselves, and part of that included keeping God out of the plan of having kids. For us, it was a trust issue. By God's grace, He provided a sermon at the perfect time one Sunday morning. We had been spending so much time in prayer before our Lord asking Him for answers on our next steps. I'll never forget hearing our pastor talk about stepping out and trusting God with the big stuff, the things we want to hold on to. Billy looked at me and we knew, we needed to surrender control to this aspect of our lives.

Over the next few months I kept getting really scared that I was pregnant right away. I kept worrying and wondering every month when it was time for me to start. I was afraid it would all happen to soon. Then it got to the point where I wasn't pregnant right away so I started to worry that I couldn't get pregnant. It was like the flipside of the trust issue...Ok, Lord, we've trusted you with this and we trust that You know the best timing, but why hasn't it happened yet? I wasn't trusting that He would give us children in His time if that was His plan.

One night I was so sick of worrying and I finally laid in the bed (Billy was away for work) and I put my hand over my belly and said, "Lord take it...I want it to be yours and I don't want to worry anymore. I want to trust you completely and I give it to you." A few days later after some unusual symptoms, Billy and I started to wonder if I was pregnant...

After asking a few nurses at church if it were too early for me to take a test, I went for it! Billy was at the movies with some friends really late on a Sunday night and I decided I'd just go ahead and take a test that Billy had bought earlier that day. Slowly but surely, a blue positive started to appear! I took another one to be sure, and yep...another blue positive! I tried to think of something creative and fun to do for Billy to let him know he was going to be a DAD but I was just so overwhelmed with the positive that I just paced back and forth for a while. Then I heard the door open and I ran downstairs and just blurted it, "I'm pregnant!!" He looked at me to see if I was kidding, and when he realized I wasn't he started smiling and laughing from ear to ear. We shared the next few moments together in shock but so incredibly amazed and excited. I was a little sick to my stomach so he made me some noodles and butter and we sat on the couch and talked for the next two hours. It was such a sweet and precious time for us.

So here we are...amazed, excited, grateful and overwhelmed!! As I look back through this part of our marriage I can see God's hand all over it. In the beginning He let us cross paths with several people who were wondering through the same thing, which was so neat to talk and pray through together. He gave us that sermon at the perfect time that helped us take the step in trusting Him with it all. He allowed Billy and I to get adapted to Billy's new travel schedule (every week) before all the new hormones came.. An awesome job opportunity came up yet I felt like the Lord continued to tell me "No" to the position (even though I REALLY wanted to say yes)...now we know why :) The timing of our pregnancy allows me to finish up my last semester in December and still have time to get ready for baby! He has given Billy new opportunities at work which will make it easier for me to stay at home with our baby. All of these details He cared about and He knew the best timing! Looking at those details reminds me over and over that He has the best plan for us. It has been hard, but such a blessing to trust in Him for all things.

I promise I won't write so much next time...