Yes, I said it. Our baby.
For 5 ½ weeks, the Lord allowed me to carry our first child. On May 1st, Trevor and I found out that we were expecting our first child. We were more full of joy than I can explain. He had just gotten home from Afghanistan in April and we were excited to say that this would be our little deployment blessing! We decided to name the baby “Tadpole” that week based on how big he/she should be in my tummy. So to us, our baby’s name is Tadpole. I will never forget walking into Dale and Quinn’s house to take Quinn and her girls to Red Lobster for dinner and giving her a hug and saying “By the way, I probably shouldn’t eat the shellfish tonight” and watching as tears of JOY streamed down her face as she figured out that I was in fact PREGNANT! On May 4th, we already had an appointment with The Vitae Clinic in Austin, my doctor we see for Natural Family Planning (NFP) and it was perfect timing. This was our third pregnancy test confirming the good news! My doctor also gave me a progesterone shot (ouch!!) because I’ve always had low progesterone and sent us on our way until a 2 week follow up. Before we went in to see Dr. K at the Vitae Clinic, I was hesitant to allow myself to get too excited because my blood test had shown that my HCG levels were pretty low still but I continued to tell myself “Hello, you’re only a few weeks along, they will go up!”. Dr. K felt confident as well that the Lord had in fact blessed us with our first child and agreed that I was definitely carrying our baby. If I hadn’t taken a test by now, I would have probably gone to my doctor anyways because I was exhausted and showing every sign of pregnancy other than nausea. I could literally barely walk from my office at the hospital to my car outside without getting extremely winded and despite that exhaustion, I was thrilled to be feeling so bad because it meant our family was about to grow!
We began thinking of creative ways we could tell our families when we spent a week in Colorado with them the next month and had no idea how we would keep the news to ourselves for the next 4 weeks. On Sunday, May 6th, we had dinner with the Timmons and Church’s and knew we couldn’t keep it from them any longer and decided how we would tell them. It was the perfect evening. I told Chels and Audrey that I wanted to take a picture with them and Trevor went to take the photo and yelled “Allison’s pregnant!!!!” As you can see, everyone was completely shocked, but ecstatic about the news of our growing family <3
If only that moment in the photo, we would have known the news we would hear the following day. My provider at Fort Hood had been having me get blood draws every other day on post to watch my HCG levels rise and on Monday we were told that they were not only not rising anymore, but it was my worst fear…they were dropping. When she called to tell me about my blood work, I remember standing outside of the break room on our floor in the hospital, speechless as she said “This will not be a completed pregnancy and you are miscarrying.” I didn’t believe it at first. The next few days were awful. I was in the worst emotional and physical pain I’ve felt in a long time. I ended up staying home from work ½ of the week and barely left my bed for several days, but was thankful to have a wonderful husband right next to me the entire time. It just seemed so unnatural and I was honestly horrified.
Just a few days later was Mother’s Day and while Mother’s Day has been a very emotional day for several years, this one was the worst. A good friend of mine and I were shopping that morning at Old Navy when a man approached us and asked “Are you Mothers?” wanting to hand us a rose for Mother’s Day. I immediately out of habit said no and continued walking. My friend who has also had 2 miscarriages looked at the man and said “Yes, WE are mother’s to 3 babies who are with Jesus.” Yup, that moment the tears started to flow. I don’t feel like I deserve to be called a mother because I have not "mothered" a child on this earth, but I know deep down that it was the Lord who called me to motherhood when he planted that baby in my tummy.
Trevor and I don’t know if I was carrying a baby boy or a baby girl but we do know that we will get to see our baby Tadpole in eternity and will be able to call that baby our son or daughter one day soon. I struggled with whether to share such an intimate part of our lives on my blog but I decided to for two reasons… First because our baby has weight and significance in this world and I want everyone to know about his/her little life. The second reason is because when we struggle, our weakness show’s God’s greatness and I can say that I would be a mess right now if it weren’t for His promises of goodness and faithfulness to us. We are thankful that the Lord allowed us to conceive this child and grateful for the 5 1/2 weeks He allowed me to carry this sweet life. His plans are always to prosper and never to harm us.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”– Jeremiah 29:11
