Before we share our pregnancy story I just want to throw out a disclaimer. In no way do we compare our pregnancy journey with others. Every pregnancy is unique full of highs and lows, celebrations and stressful situations. We just want to share ours with you because we learned an incredible amount of life lessons during it, that we hope can help anyone going through a hard time. So here is our pregnancy story:
It was Thursday night, October 18th, 2018. I had 30 minutes before I had to go show a couple of houses to a client. I knew the next two days were full of homecoming events that I was in charge of for the high school I teach at. I remember looking at Chad and telling him I was going to take a pregnancy test real quick before I left. We had been trying for a couple months and I just needed to know if my period should be coming. I always feel like it makes its grand appearance whenever is the most inconvenient so I thought for sure it was going to come on one of these two busy days for me. So I got the pregnancy test with Chad right next to me and next thing I hear him say is “NO WAY!” I looked at him and immediately thought “Nuh uh! We have been trying and it hasn’t happened yet….there is no way!” But sure enough he showed me the stick and there were two blue lines! We were pregnant!!
This was one of the happiest days of my life and still is but as we celebrated the amazing news, quickly week after week the news turned into an emotional roller coaster. There were days I felt completely numb. I would wake up and hope it was all a dream. There is no way we are going through this.
“All the markers baby has points to down syndrome.”
“She has dropped from the 16th to the 8th percentile. Be ready at any day to give birth.”
“We need you to come in twice or more a week to keep an eye on her.”
“She will be born with male tissue that resembles a penis along with her female parts. You will have to think about if you want to have surgery for it. Male hormones might have already gone to her brain and she could struggle later thinking she associates more as a boy and will be depressed.”
“We want to prepare you. All sorts of specialists will be in the room when you give birth to check on her.”
“We think you need to deliver at a different hospital because she could be in the NICU.”
“We just want you to be aware of all your options. You can still terminate the pregnancy.” They told us this one at 33 weeks and at 35 weeks. I was induced at 38 weeks.
These are only a few things we heard on our pregnancy journey. I look back on the 38 weeks of pregnancy that we went through and I just can’t help but think it was a really bad nightmare that I finally got to wake up from. It all started with the first ultrasound…and each one after that unraveled more and more of the scary unknown of what our future could hold. I honestly think the worst part wasn’t all the theories of what she could be born with, what syndrome she could have, what the quality of her life was going to be like, it was the feeling of helplessness. The feeling that there was nothing I could do to help her, no way to tell her that no matter what I will love you with all my heart and will do everything I can to make sure you have an amazing life no matter how long or short that might be, just please God let me keep her. I prayed every night for a miracle, begging Him, asking Him why we had to go through this.
I want to share how we overcame those 38 weeks in hopes that maybe it will help you get through any trials you may be facing. Those 38 weeks were not easy. They were full of emotions that I do not care to admit having. There were a few days that we felt like we could handle it all but the days of worry, fear, stress, exhaustion from hearing day after day what new things were wrong or what possible life threatening syndrome she could have took over.
It was these little daily choices that we made that helped give us strength during this unexpected journey. Boy did we imagine it going WAY differently when we saw those two blue lines but sometimes God has a different plan.
Below are the daily choices we made:
- Allow yourself time to grieve and work out all your emotions.
- Lean on others for guidance and strength.
- Write your journey, your emotions, all of it down.
- When you’re ready, talk about your struggle with people around you.
- Accept that you have a purpose (in our case that our baby has a purpose)
- Ask for prayer because the power of prayer is life changing whether you are a believer or not.
We will dive deeper into each of these daily choices in future blogs so stay tuned!
Follow our sweet baby girl’s purpose on Instagram at paysonspurpose