We are so excited about our baby that is due in April, and we have been learning this year through experience (not just head-knowledge) that EVERYTHING, good and bad, is from the Lord. It all works together to bring Him praise, and we feel that we have been through things this year in order to help others and give a voice to things that are not always talked about… so please forgive the length, but our God is good to us and we want to share the story!
We had everything all planned out “perfectly.” After we got married we would wait two years, then start trying for a baby, get pregnant in the fall, and have the baby around the end of that school year. Like most life plans, it didn’t turn out that way at all, but 8 months later we were elated to find out that we were expecting the week of Mitch’s 30th birthday in March!
We had gone on vacation and been so busy planning his party that we were totally surprised! With family being in town for his birthday, we went ahead and told both families because we wanted to be able to celebrate in person and celebrate we did. It was a joyous occasion! With out getting into too many details, as time passed more issues and concerns arose and things were not looking good, yet there were things that the doctor couldn’t explain so she kept bringing us back each week. We had so many family members and friends lifting us up in prayer and it made such a difference! The next time we went in for a sonogram, we got to see the baby’s heartbeat! Our doctor was pleasantly surprised and moved our due date, thinking that we just got the dates wrong. She told us that after seeing a heartbeat your chances of miscarriage are less than 5%, but because of the rough road we had she told us to come back in two weeks for another sonogram so we wouldn’t have to worry.
Up until that point we had braced ourselves for bad news, but after seeing the heartbeat we felt free to really celebrate and relax. So when we went in for the follow up sonogram we were totally shocked to not see a heartbeat. Through measurements we knew that the baby had died the day before. It was the week of Easter, the time of highest praise for us as Christians, and our world turned to sorrow. Because it was a holiday week, we had to make decisions quickly and scheduled one final sonogram (just to be sure) and a D&C for two days later.
Physical healing came quickly, but emotionally things took much more time. At first, we were just busy. It was investor week that week and we had family staying with us, as usual. So in the midst of our pain, we still had responsibility. It was certainly the biggest time of growth in our marriage this far and brought us much closer as we faced one of our biggest fears together and talked about things we’d never talked about before. We are so blessed to have family and friends who continued to support us, encourage us, and pray for us. The weeks and months that followed were actually harder because slowly everyone else returned to “normal” life and everything about our world had changed. There aren’t the right words to explain how a house can feel so empty because someone is missing that was never physically there or the ache you feel for a hand you never got to hold. So we grieved in our own ways… I rearranged half of the house, so that things would look different, since they were so different to me. Mitch quit working as much for the first time in our marriage and we went on dates in the middle of the work week. We poured ourselves into reading more scripture and into prayer. And some days I just stayed in bed, but gradually the days started getting warmer and spring turned to summer, and summer to even hotter summer… and somewhere in there we started healing.
During that time we also found out that the baby we lost was a boy. It was important for us to know this because he was our first child and we wanted to give him a name. We also wanted others to see that we had lost a baby and not just a pregnancy. We had picked out several boy and girl names while we were pregnant, but the Lord had different plans. Several days after we found out it was a boy, we still had not picked one final name. In passing one day, I mentioned to Mitch that we still needed to name the baby, as I had spent some time that morning looking over names. Immediately, Mitch said, “How about Elijah?” which was the name I had found that morning, but it was not a name we had talked about before at all, so we know it was God who had picked out that name. It means “my God is the Lord” and was complete confirmation to us as to where our baby was… in heaven. We chose the middle name James.
We were surprised (again!) to learn that we were pregnant after the first month we were released to try for another baby. We were excited, but also nervous, with our innocence gone about what could happen. But then we looked up what the due date would be and knew that only God could orchestrate something that amazing! My prayer after we lost Eli was that we would be pregnant again before November, (our previous due date) because I thought that would make November easier to get through, but God took it one further and our new due date is the day before we lost Eli. So not only will November be better, but April will now have something happy to go with the sad, too! It was hard at first because we still miss Eli very much and grieve for the him, but we have found that even when you think you’ll never be able to love another baby as much as you did your first… when they come along, you love them just as much!
I learned many things and was strengthened in things I knew about the Lord in SO many ways… here are just a few:
*Some things are only understood through the rearview mirror. Now I see that without losing Eli, this new life within me would never have been. While that doesn’t make it any easier to have lost Eli, I understand so much more clearly that we were not meant for this earth and I have a deep longing for heaven. (2 Corinthians 5:8)
*God is either supreme or He isn’t. That means He is in control of everything, good and bad. If He never gave us anything bad, He wouldn’t be sovereign and there would always be someone else who could come in and mess up His good plans. I’m so grateful that the He is sovereign because through His love He also promises to give us things for our good, to give us hope, and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)
*I struggled with how to guard my heart (Proverbs 4:23) but then I read this verse in a totally new way.
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:4-7) We don’t have to guard our own hearts… the peace of God will when we pray!
* God can deal with our emotions and wants us to express ALL of them, good and bad. One way to do this is through music. (Study the Psalms and you will learn so much!) One song that especially helped me was “Blessings” by Laura Story—it was the first song I heard after I found out we lost Eli.
I’ve said all of this to say… that our God is amazing and we will never understand His ways, but we know that we are safe in His arms. We can’t wait to share the new things that He is teaching us as we continue our journey as Team Warren and welcome this new baby into the family! Thank you to everyone for all of your love, support, and prayers along the way… we love each of you dearly!
Baby Warren ~ 11 weeks 6 days ~ 5.5 cm long
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