I Can't Be Clever.

For almost three weeks, I was trying to come up with a clever way to make my announcement. Now I get to make the announcement, and it’s not what I wanted to be telling everyone:
I was pregnant.
…..was.
On January 20th, Paul and I found out I was expecting. It was totally unplanned, and a complete surprise - I wasn’t even sure I could get pregnant without using fertility drugs (like we had to with both boys). I had been having symptoms - tired, thirsty, and weird food cravings, but I just chalked it up to the horrible cold I had. But when I started feeling sick to my stomach every day, and told Paul that one of our favorite foods sounded gross, he asked, “Are you pregnant?” The thought had crossed my mind, but every time I was sure I’ve had symptoms, the pregnancy test was negative, so I refused to think so. Then the next morning, my varicose veins were horrible, and I said, “Okay.” We went and bought a test before our big date, and it immediately showed positive! (Afterwards, we counted up a dozen symptoms I’d been having, and hadn’t even paid attention to…. I guess I didn’t think it was possible.)
We decided to wait a while to tell people. We hadn’t been expecting it, so we knew no one else would be suspecting anything. Two weeks later, we told his parents, and two days after that, I told my family while we were all together. I wanted to wait to tell friends until we had a sonogram and knew a due date, because according to my weird cycles (or lack thereof), I could have been due anywhere from the middle of August to the end of September.
The day after I told my family, I started spotting (on a Sunday). I knew this was common for some women, even though it wasn’t for me in my two previous pregnancies, so I tried not to worry too much. I called the doctor on Monday, but she wasn’t in, so I decided to wait until my appointment Tuesday morning. I knew if something bad was happening, there wasn’t anything that could be done, anyways, so I wasn‘t going to go to the hospital.
As I expected, Tuesday morning, my doctor sent me to have a sonogram. But instead of getting to see our little baby wiggling around, we saw that there was no heartbeat.
Our baby was 8 weeks old.
I miscarried that night, while Paul and I were on what was supposed to be a romantic getaway.

Even though this baby was unplanned, it in no way was unwanted. We were both so excited to be adding to our family, and were so disappointed to find out it wasn’t going to be so. It’s probably the hardest thing our marriage has been through, and I am glad to say, we’ve come out stronger.
Every day is getting better. The first day was the hardest, when the grief was so fresh, and my body was so weak. But we’ve moved on, and I’ve thanked God for everything - letting us be able to get pregnant on our own, having those few short weeks of joy and excitement, and even the way the miscarriage happened. I praise Him that His ways are higher than my ways.

Angel Rhodes, Resting with Jesus.
February 8, 2011 - 8 weeks