Sad Days

"Roller coaster" describes the past 2 weeks of life at the Little household. It doesn't even seem real to be on this side of things and look back at all that has happened here lately! BUT, I am attempting to put into practice what I have learned from the previous cloudy days God has brought in and out of my life. I will not isolate myself. I will not implode with sadness. I will share my lessons learned so God can be glorified. Repeat. :)

A few weeks ago a friend of mine whom I had been praying for told me she was pregnant. Super exciting! The next day, while walking through our Church nursery, we walked by a room with a screaming baby. Ryan asked if I could handle another baby right now. I said "only if God thought I could! eekkk!" That night I had a dream I was pregnant. The next morning I took a casual glance at the calendar and my heart stopped. Later that day I took a HPT and what!? Yep...big, fat positive. How did this happen? Yes, I asked that question because that has not been our experience with trying to have children! There are supposed to be gazillions of doctors appointments, pills, shots, tests, another shot and some more tests to have a baby, right? :) Anyway, I soaked it in all day then shared the news with Ryan that night. We both collectively had maybe 3 minutes of sheer panic. Three kids under two, three kids in diapers, we can't fit 3 carseats (not boosters mind you!) in our Pilot(how can I avoid getting a minivan?), I just packed up all of the bottles in the attic(yep, really thought that), I didn't loose all of the twin baby weight etc.. Funny how fast your mind really can race! But as soon as we let out a deep breath we were both ecstatic. How freeing that God had healed my body...I was going to be a normal patient, normal pregnancy, normal! We both also said we had learned our lesson with Caden and Jenna...you can be desperately trying to have children and if its not God's time...there will be no children. Same is true on the other end! :) So there would be no complaining from us! How thankful we were!I was excited at the craziness our life was about to adopt, how close all of the kids were going to be, how funny God's sense of humor had played out in our lives...

Anyway, since we were not trying for another baby at this time, and I was very aware of what was going on and when and why a baby should not be happening right now...I literally had no idea how far along I was. This was a miracle baby! So I started the phone calls to get in at my OB. You should have seen the faces of the receptionist and my Doc. They literally were more excited on the outside than I was! Anyway, things went fine, no sickness, just the same unquenchable tiredness I had for about 2 weeks with the twins. Last Wednesday I could tell something was not right, progressively things got worse all through the night, a terrible, horrible night, and continued the next morning. I went right in as soon as my OB opened and they confirmed what I already knew had happened. I lost my sweet baby #4. Our guess is I was somewhere between 6-7 weeks. I must have said Phil 4:6-7 about 43 times in the car driving over. I pleaded with God to "save this baby. Please don't let me go through this again. We accepted your surprise with full faith, didn't we? I now have just as many children in Heaven as I do on earth...what? I can carry twins full term but can't carry just one precious baby?" and a million other thoughts.

I'm sharing all of this because I waaaay messed up after my first miscarriage. I pushed all of you out away from my life and wallowed in serious sadness. God has shown me the most convicting lesson in going through this experience! Just a week before, geez, just the day before I lost the baby I was confidently claiming Psalm 126:3. "The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy." When I was freaking out about 3 kids under 2, diapers, my disdain of a minivan :) and all the other first thoughts, I said this verse and decided to choose joy. Now, 24 hours later, all of a sudden, this was not my cling-to-verse anymore. Why not?

Driving home after my appointment I remember thinking "Jesus is still Jesus." What I needed to be telling myself was that "His truth is still truth." That verse is still true in my life despite my drastic change in circumstance. I have no greater reminder that He has "done great things for us" than to walk in the door and see Ryan, Caden and Jenna. I'm sure they thought they may pass out a few times that day I squeezed them so tightly. I have seen God's gentle grace in the process of this miscarriage by giving me the kids to focus on. So I am working each day, sometimes by the minute, to claim the same truth I would have if I was still carrying a baby...not just the ones that fit in a certain, pretty wrapped-up package of life. He still has done great things for us...I still need to choose joy.

Please pray for us. God is good and we see that, but we are certainly hurting. I can already tell and feel the little piece of my heart that is chipped away. I'm working through the very different feelings and struggles I'm experiencing with a second miscarriage. Pray for patience, pray for peace, pray for the doctors to see a cause in the tests they are running on me now. And most of all, pray that God is glorified.