“Shout-out to my past self for putting in the work to get me where I am right now. And to my future self: I’m working, I’m grinding, I got this, I got you.” – Unknown
I fully believe that there comes a time in everyone’s life when you literally have to check out and simply focus on you. Not like one of the moments where you have time to see it coming. But a moment where God will literally knock you on your behind and force you simply be still. This “moment” happened to me at the end of 2018. I foolishly thought this was simply a “moment”, that it would come and go. That life would simply go on. I never dreamed this moment would end up consuming weeks, months actually, of my life. These past eight months haven’t been a moment, they’ve literally been an experience.
The Moments That Matter, A Story of Loss and Gain
But lets back track a bit shall we? To give ya’ll a brief history…here are the times in my life that I felt defined who I am as a person today.
- Loosing my father at 17
- Having my daughter at 19 after being told I likely wouldn’t be able to have children
- Getting my Paralegal Certificate from Boston University – with honors
- Picking up and moving from CT to NC within 3 hours of making the decision
I thought I was done with big moments. And I literally thought that the next big moment would be my wedding day! I literally thought the next time I discovered something about myself or who I was as a person would be in my 40’s if and when I went through a midlife crisis. How wrong I was, foolish even to think that.
In December of 2018, I added yet another life defining moment to that list.
I hadn’t been feeling well physically for about 2/3 months but I kept assuming it was just my low iron and the stress of work. One morning I was sitting at work and I kept feeling excruciating pain in my back, I immediately thought, “Oh no! Am I trying to pass a kidney stone?!” After consulting with my doctor, she agreed it sounded like a possibly kidney stone and suggested I got to the ER immediately. I will never forget laying in the hospital bed and talking to Jesse about how I was going to cry if I had a stone and he was going to feed me ice cream non-stop!
Long story short, the doctor came, asked Jesse to leave (we were not married so she said she wanted to speak with me in private). She then proceeded to tell me I was pregnant. My immediate reaction was, “You lie!”, it’s actually funny to me now that I said that to the doctor. She gave a gentle smile and said no ma’am. You’re definitely pregnant, but we are pretty sure you’re having what is called a threatened miscarriage. In that moment my heart dropped. I kept thinking, not our baby! To go from thinking I was having my menstrual cycle and simply passing a kidney stoney. To KNOWING you’re pregnant and likely miscarrying, guys it was honestly one of the most raw and unwelcome feelings I have ever experienced.
It was literally horrible!
Jesse came back into the room and I will never forget the look on his face when I told him we were pregnant. He looked so shocked and happy! His eyes immediately went to my stomach. How it hurt my heart to have to tell him we were also likely going to miscarry. It make me tear up even writing about it. He tried to be so strong for me, but ultimately knowing he felt the same pain I did, helped me through.
As the days went on my body going through the physical part of it, but Jesse’s heart was going through every emotion with me. Ultimately I had to go and have my blood drawn again 24 hours after, to see if my levels were dropping – which would be an indication of loss of pregnancy. We prayed SO hard those 24 hours leading up to my blood work and we prayed again for the next 24 hours we had to wait until we heard. But ultimately God decided not this time. And so we lost the pregnancy. After that, I was in and out of the hospital, delirious with pain. I also had a allergic reaction to the medicine the doctors gave me. It was like something out of a horrible Lifetime movie.
I remember looking at Jesse in the hospital bed, and begging him to make it stop. He just rubbed my head and kept praying over me. The pain was so horrific, I thought I was dying. I would fall asleep and I would hear him praying. And even in my pain I thought God keep me, so that I can experience life with him.
Eight months later I sit here and I am able to talk about this, not without pain but without deep sorrow or tears of our loss.
I know we both learned a lot about ourselves and our relationship after this. I shut down for awhile and refused to acknowledge anything I felt. And I drank until it numbed the pain and I pushed away a man who loved me through it all. And when nothing else was left for me to hold on to, I turned to God and allowed him to begin to heal the pain. I asked forgiveness for the pain I’d caused and I embraced my future with Jesse. It was the BEST decision I EVER made. And with that I realized these are the only moments that matter. They all matter, they all make up the stories of who we are.
So here’s to the moments that make us but we don’t allow to break us. I was forced to bend before I broke and through this experience I realize I am stronger than I thought, I am resilient and I have a wonderful man by my side. For better or worse, we are in it forever.
Follow me on Instagram for more updates.
Until next time!
