September 21.
For the past month I hadn’t been feeling well. Easy car sickness, bad headaches, and fatigue. I started to notice my headaches getting worse and worse. I went to the doctor and let my family doctor know what was going on. I made sure to tell her that Garrett and I had been trying to have a baby for 7 months now.
First things first. She had me take a pregnancy test and it was negative. She went on to believe I was having constant migraines. She sent me to get some blood work, everything came back in their normal ranges. She prescribed a headache medicine, that was okay to take while trying to conceive, I took it for a week and nothing. My headaches had actually started worsen. They were now lasting from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep. I went back to see my doctor. She took me in that same day I called, she was at a lost. She sent in a referral for both an MRI on my brain and a neurologist. Woah. Things seemed to have escalated. I tried to stay calm, you know, because there’s nothing to worry about yet, right?
But these headaches were horrible. I had continued my normal routine with volunteering, cleaning, cooking, hanging with Garrett and friends. It was taking a ton of effort and definitely taking a toll on my body.
That same night I saw the doctor, I had a dream that I had taken an at home pregnancy test and it came back positive. I then took two more and still all positive! On September 21st I woke up, thought it was kind of an odd dream and didn’t think much of it. My day was going to be super full so I got ready and headed to my parents house (Grace really needed a bath, thanks mom!). From there Grace and I headed straight to Garrett’s company BBQ. I’d had a headache all day, but did my best to socialize and enjoy my time. A few hours in I laid on one of the couches in his office as the BBQ started to wind down. Garrett had one of the longest, hardest weeks he had in a while and was exhausted. We headed home to rest up before heading out to hang with some of his friends. While we were laying in bed, I mentioned to Garrett I was already 4 days late...
Now let me give you a little back story. In August, we had an amazing two week vacation in Europe and anytime I travel on a plane my period usually gets messed up. I’m always late, so I wasn’t thinking much of being late. One week before the doctor had tested for pregnancy and it was negative. So it’s definitely can’t be a little sesame seed in my belly.
Garrett encouraged me to just take an at home pregnancy test, so I agreed and headed to the bathroom. We’ve been trying for 7 months now and I’ve taken several tests throughout this time. I had now gotten use to seeing the “Not Pregnant” sign. I wasn’t expecting it to say pregnant and guess what?!? IT DID!
Pregnant. I grab the stick and walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. I walked up to Garrett, speechless. Garrett keep asking what it said! I showed him and he goes “you’re pregnant?! did we do it?!”
Even though it had only been 7 months, the thought goes through your head “can we even get pregnant?” it was an extremely tough time for both of us, but you can read about that in a previous post.
Tears shed, smiles shared, fists thrown in the air in celebration and hugs were extra tight. We couldn’t believe it. But we also thought are false positives a thing?! We trusted google and google said it was rare. I chugged two water bottles and waited until I had to pee again so I can take some more tests.
I took another...Pregnant.
I took one more (from a different brand pregnancy test because what if one brand was screwing with us). Pregnant.
Woah, what is happening. I was happy crying, but still thinking “how trustworthy can these home pregnancy tests be?”
I was having a hard time wrapping my head around it. Garrett and I got ready and headed out to hang with friends. On the car ride I asked him if we were going to tell people because it was pretty early.
He explained how he wasn’t thinking dad thoughts, he was thinking we CAN get pregnant thoughts! That was his focus and excitement! So yes we are telling people because we know we can get pregnant. That’s what our family and friends had been praying for and now there’s something NEW to pray for. A healthy baby and healthy mama. I loved that. It was so true. We had let in a good amount of people in on the journey of prayer for us to conceive, so let’s keep them updated!
We started to tell our family and friends, LOTS of happy tears flowed.
I have always had vivid dreams and usually remember them all, but how cool was it that God showed me the night before what was going to happen hours later? And c’mon, I don’t think it’s a coincidence...7 months? 7 is the number of completion.
God takes the time to prune us and prepare us. He knows we wouldn’t know the value of something unless He made us wait until He knew we would truly appreciate it.
“Struggle is a gift. God could have knocked Paul off of his horse before he ever consented to the killing of a Christian, but if He had done it too early, Paul would have valued it too little. I have a feeling that when God really wants to use somebody in a great way just like they took the olives to make the oil that went in the lamps that went in the tabernacle so that they could burn in the presence of the Lord, had to be hand pressed so that there would be no pulp in the lamp that would cause the light not to burn as brightly or as long. I have a feeling that God does to the life that He really wants to handpick, what they would do to those olives and He hand presses the life to get the oil to flow from the purest place. That’s what the grind is for. To get out my pride. That’s what the grind is for. To get out my self reliance. That’s what the grind is for. To get out my superiority. If God would have given it to me too early I would have thought I was better, but now I can say I don’t even deserve to be what He’s calling me. But I’m it.” - Steve Furtick
