I decided that I wanted to try this whole blogging thing again. I feel like it only makes sense to share what has been going on in my life here. I was scared to do it for so long, but I can’t keep it to myself anymore. So, if you knew what was going on – thank you for all of your support, prayer, and love. If you had no clue, I’m still nervous, but happy to share it with you all now. I’m looking forward to sharing more of our crazy lives with you here!
This is part of my story. It isn’t a great or exciting part of my story, certainly not the happiest part. I kept a lot of it to myself for a while, holding onto pain and hurt because I didn’t want to share it with anyone. I held it tightly in my fists while I looked at each one of you with pangs of jealousy and bitterness. I cried out to God. I gave Him the silent treatment. At some point, I came back full circle, resting in the promises of the Lord, and now I feel a peace and hope and strength that isn’t my own. I do know this – God gave me this story so that I could share it with you, not so I could keep it in a box that only I could see. So, here I am, letting it go. I don’t know what it will mean to you. All I can do is pray that God uses my words, my experiences, my pain, and my growth to maybe reach someone in their toughest times.
I want to rewind back a ways to when Evie was about two years old. I was finally getting into the swing of being a mom of two kids after a bout with some very nasty postpartum depression. My life was normalizing; we had found out that Evie was suffering from severe reflux and a dairy intolerance and had made appropriate adjustments, Ethan finally seemed to be coming out of the daily tantrum throwing faze. My thyroid issues were finally calming down. I was FINALLY losing baby weight! I was involved in a MOPS group, and if my memory serves, that was the first year I served on leadership there as well. At some point Chris and I had a conversation that started something like this:
“You know, if we want to have another baby three years apart like Ethan and Evie we have to start trying to get pregnant again soon.”
We were ready to have Rasco Baby #3 (out of four in our perfect plan)! And that is where the dark, ugly part of this story starts.
Let me tell you a little something about Satan. First off, he is real. He isn’t a scary story or the monster in some movie. In John 10:10, he is described as “the thief.”
“The thief only comes only to steal and kill and destroy…”
And steal and kill and destroy he does. He isn’t obvious about it either. He doesn’t walk up and tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, it’s me, Lucifer, also known as Satan, King of Hell, etc, etc. I’m going to wreak some havoc in your life right now.”
This is what Jesus said about him:
“He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44 (emphasis is mine)
Satan, gets in our head and lies. He lies and lies and lies to us until we believe his lies. When are believing the lies Satan tells us, we are choosing to not believe the truth of God.
Satan comes in and whispers (often in your own voice) “God promises good things for people who love Him. This isn’t good. This is bad. Stop trusting God to take care of this! You can fix it yourself!”
That’s what happened to me. I let Satan get in and kicked God out of the driver’s seat and into the trunk of the car. I won’t go into a ton of detail about trying to have a baby and not being able to for years and years. I’ll just say it like this; it sucks. Every time one of my friends got pregnant, I got mad. Mad at myself for not being able to get pregnant. Mad at God for not allowing me to get pregnant. I told people I was done having kids, when on the inside I was crying for more. I pretended that having two kids, a boy and a girl no less, was perfect. I didn’t even want to call it infertility or talk to anyone about it because I felt guilty that I did have two kids, who were healthy and happy and there were people out there that were struggling in ways more severe than I was. At some point, I made not being able to have a baby my master.
I allowed it to make me bitter. I allowed it to make me angry. I allowed it to make me sad. I put on a happy face, went about my business, all the while it was eating a hole inside of me. I participated in Bible studies, and I would experience occasional reprieve from what I was feeling inside, but Satan was always there to whisper the reminder of what God wasn’t doing for me. And God would get put back on the shelf.
Life went on. Years went by and I still didn’t have that sweet baby Rasco #3. I even daydreamed about the baby, would it be a boy or a girl? Would it look more like Chris or me? What if I had twins? Or I began to think about how easy it would be to have kids in elementary school and just a baby at home. It was my secret obsession.
Thankfully, about two years ago something clicked. I don’t know what caused it, but I suddenly felt like I was finally going to stop obsessing and rededicate my life to God and start living again. As I fought my way up out of the pit I dug for myself, I finally began to truly experience God again. I prayed. I worshiped. I thanked Him, even when things weren’t going my way. Chris and I talked about going and actually trying to get help to have a baby in a few months. I was taking better care of myself. I lost 20 pounds and was healthier than I had been in a long time. I was even training to RUN a 5k.
During the summer of 2014 I began to have some “female problems.” I went to the doctor, who did a biopsy which came back irregular, so he ordered a DNC so that they could biopsy all the tissue from my uterus. A few weeks later, in August, I got a phone call that changed my life.
