My name is Rebekah Chamberlin and I’m currently 22 weeks pregnant with a healthy little baby. This will be my and my husband’s first child, Lord willing. While we’re elated and really starting to get excited, we still remember to thank God every day for our little miracle. I would love for my first blog to be bubbly and happy and filled with all the wonderful things that pregnancy brings! Eventually I will get to that one, but I first wanted to share with you a little bit of background and explain why it’s so important for me to begin my day by thanking God for what He’s given me.
Truth be told, this is not my first pregnancy. It’s a shame that in this day and age, many couples still feel they have to suffer in silence through the pain of infertility or losing a child in the womb. At the ripe old age of 24, you don’t really stop to give your fertility much thought. My husband and I were excited to start our family together, and in April of 2010, we set out to do just that. An agonizing 5 months later, I came running into our room to wake up my husband crying joyfully that we were going to be parents. The first thing I did was run to my iPod and started playing the lullaby album Blink by Plumb (one of my personal favorites!). Even though I almost immediately started getting very bad “morning” sickness (um… right, people, try all-day sickness!), nothing could dampen my spirits! I was going to be pregnant through the fall and winter and give birth in June. How perfectly God had worked everything out for me, and just the way I wanted!
For my first doctor appointment, I had to wait to go in until I was over eight weeks pregnant. My husband was so excited to hear the heartbeat and see the baby on the sonogram that he took time off work that day to come with me. We were beaming as we got called in to the exam room and met with the doctor. As they put the probe on my stomach, we could see the little tiny baby; it was a wonderful! After a short while, though, the doctor started frowning a bit and really moving the probe back and forth. I started to get a bit nervous. But I knew that God gave me this baby, so everything was going to turn out fine.
After the doctor had to do another more detailed type of sonogram, he turned to us and said, “There’s no heartbeat, I’m really sorry.” For being a medical professional, I sure acted very naïve, “So what does that mean, doctor?” I didn’t understand at first. I was so sure something was going to happen; they would decide to take another look and there would be a heartbeat. or maybe I’d wait a few weeks and come back again to see if it had started. The rest of what was said is a bit of a blur after that. I remember the doctor saying that there should be a heartbeat by now and something must have gone wrong. My options were to wait and see if I eventually had a natural miscarriage or they could do minor surgery to take care of everything. He advised us to go home and think about everything and call after the weekend. I had tears slowly dripping down my face as we left the office. We got in the car and my husband just held me in silence. We started driving home and I asked him if we could go to visit friends of ours instead. He called them and briefly explained the situation and they lovingly and graciously accepted us into their home. Having gone through a similar situation themselves, it was an immense blessing to be able to talk with them. They cried with us and were able to comfort us like few people could have.
We went home and I started doing a lot of research and we decided to have the surgery. I called the doctors office the next day and they were so kind on the phone and said they would squeeze me in on Monday. It was a long, painful weekend as we had to share with our families and close friends that we had lost the baby. A few people offered comforting remarks, but some of them were unintentionally more painful then helpful. I was convicted by people’s responses. How many times had I been unknowingly insensitive or just “didn’t know what to say so I said nothing?”
We made it through the weekend, and on the day of our second wedding anniversary, spent the day at the hospital. God was good to us; everything went as expected, my body healed well and all the staff had been so nice to us. It was a long week after that, trying to keep it together at work and then crying for hours at night. I knew that God was in control and that He loved me and had a purpose in the situation, but I still cried out to Him with violent sobs asking Him why He took my little baby.
Of course, I won’t have an answer until I get to Heaven, but for now, God has been working powerfully in my heart and drawing me into His loving arms and teaching me to let go of those things that I hold dear in this life and cling to Him. He is the source of my joy and contentment, no matter the situation. He’s teaching me to truly, genuinely love the unlovely and those struggling with deep hurts. He allowed the situation to draw my husband and I much closer together then I thought possible. The pain is still there and it may always be, but God is slowly healing my heart and shaping it into what He would have it be.
This is why I begin every day thanking God for what He’s given us, every day with this new life is truly a precious miracle to me.