Hopeful Hearts

Since Mr. H and I have moved into our new house we have been most excited about finally attending the Village church on a consistant basis. We didn't make the Saturday night service which meant Sunday morning I woke up, fighting the urge to stay in bed and snuggle with Mr. H, and headed to chuch on my own. I really wanted to stay under the covers but I am so glad I went with a detour to stop for my new fav. drink {iced coffee, coconut sweetner with heavy whipping cream}.

I was nervous as ever to go to church with all these crazy hormones and all. I thought I would be a blubbering mess. And I was going to have to sit by myself. Instant hormone booster: Alone and a blubbering mess.... not good. In my last blog I talked about God's perfect timing and Sunday morning I experienced this as soon as I walked through the Village doors. The power point that plays before the sermon begins showed a slide about the Hopeful Hearts Ministry. This ministry provides support for women who have either lost a child or are suffering from infertility. {God has perfect timing.} I sat there by myself thinking how wonderful it is that there is a ministry that provides this kind of support. I consider myself kind of outgoing, more so a joiner when I have a friend to go with, so I didn't know how I felt about attending yet. Seconds later I found out that my parents were at the same church service so I no longer had to sit by myself. {Perfect timing x 2.}

I made it through the service without blubbering too loud :) Sunday and all day Monday my mind kept returning to the Hopeful Hearts meeting that night. I wanted to go and decided to tell Mr. H and my mom about it so they could keep me accountable for going. Mr. H incouraged me to go and my mom felt the same way. That evening arrived and with nerves and sweaty palms I pulled into the parking lot. Wonderful... only two cars were in the parking lot. My natural instinct was to turn right around and go home. Especially since it was Mr. H's night off. I fought the urge and opened the door, I mean I had already drove all the way there. As I walked in I was instantly so glad I stayed.

Within ten minutes the room began to fill and I was surrounded by 15 women, some in the same circumstances having lost a child but some suffering with infertility. I felt so comforted to be surrounded by women who, without even knowing my name, were so kind because me being there meant I was grieving in a similar way as they were. When the meeting began we shared our stories, some full of sorrow and tears but others were celebrating because they had overcome the battle of infertility. As the meeting ended I felt like I had gained 15 new friends, women who would be praying for our family and for our healing. I think I was nervous to go to the meeting because I thought I would feel sad when I left, but I left with a feeling I had not felt this far. I felt thankful.

Many women there were battling infertility and spending thousands of dollars on fertility shots that in turn were only causing more pain; physically and emotionally. I felt thankful that we are able to get pregnant. And even though that joy was taken we will be able to have a baby one day.
Just not now.

Like I said, God's timing is perfect. Even if His timing is not my own. With Hopeful Hearts, His timing was my own and I am so happy I listened.

"God is near to the brokenhearted, He will rescue those crushed in spirit." Psalms 34:18

I have been trying to decide if I was going to create a post or just let it be... moving on from the past week and a half. I'm working through the emotions and feel like each time I talk and let it out it makes it a bit easier to feel these feelings. I think I've started and stopped this post multiple times... anyway here it goes.

In the last post I told you we had our doctor's appointment to reveal the sex of Baby H. During the sonogram the ultra sound technician discovered that our sweet baby had cysts on one of it's little kidneys. At 16 weeks the baby's kidneys begin to function on their own and due to the cysts, Baby H's kidneys were not functioning or producing any fluid around it's body. She told us the baby had Poly Cystic Kidney Disease. The news crushed my soul. And I felt my heart sink. Our doctor had scheduled us to see a prenatal specialists the next morning and the 15 hour waiting game until our appointment seemed to creep by.

The next morning my sweet husband, my mom and I went to the appointment. That morning, has been the hardest, emotionally draining day in my life thus far. The appointment revealed that our baby had cysts on both kidneys; it was infact Multi Cystic Kidney Disease. Because the cysts were on both kindeys and no fluid was being produced, there would be no lung development which is fatal. Fatal- the hardest, heart peircing word. I crumbled. The hardest news was still to come.

While dealing with the news that my dream of becoming a mother and starting a family with Mr. H were no more, we had to decide which path we would take. In order to recieve the most information and know if this was something genetic between us or just some 1 in a 1,000 bad luck we were checked in to the hospital 2 days later and I delivered Baby H at 18 weeks on Friday June 17th, 2010. I will keep the events of that day private and close to my heart. It was the most heart breaking, life changing but spiritual experience.

Ok... phew the hard facts are out.

So here we are in the aftermath, working through the emotions and feelings that come with losing a child. I am unsure about a lot of things and I know I may be for a while but there are a lot of things that were made clear to me that I discovered in the loss.

I married the most caring man in the world. He is truly tailor made for me. Through the heartache and mountains of tissues. I have fallen head over heals in love with Mr. H again. He has surprised me with his tenderness and selflessness over the past week and been there for me in ways that have left me speechless. God gave me this man knowing that we would face this heartache together and he would be just what I needed in every single way.

God's timing is perfect. In a situation like this I have to rely on my faith and believe that this is in Gods hands and His timing is perfect. His timing may not agree with my own desires but I am trying with all my might to trust in this truth. We may not understand now, or in a few years. But through other struggles that have passed I believe that one day, one small thing will happen and we will see that God's timing was in fact perfect.

We have some of the most loyal and loving family and friends. We have been wrapped in the prayers and love of our sweet friends and family near and far. It's so encouraging to know that we have people in our lives that will pick us up when times are hard and provide us with anything we need. We have been living off meals from family and friends since last Thursday, we are full of good food and the love they have given us. Thank you so much!

I am trusting in those 3 truths and relying on those when the days get hard. There are good days when I can laugh and feel like myself but of course the times are hard when I remember the heartache or can start crying over the silliest thing. I am hoping some of this may even out when the hormones balance out. Let the healing begin...

Noooo I am not completely ignoring the fact that I am in love with our new house, and everything house-like.... but I have even better news. We get to find out the gender of Baby H on Monday! Like, not tomorrow, but the day after-that Monday!

It seems like so long ago when we had our first doctors visit and they handed our sweet sonogram picture to us. It will be amazing to see how much this bean has developed since the Week 8 picture which was head, body and arm buds. I am dying for the next 48 hours to fly by!

People kept asking are we going to find out? Are you going to wait? Well if you know me... and especially if you know my husband you know that a surprise baby gender is not in the cards.

So far one of my favorite pregnancy memories has been when I told my Kindergarten class I was having a baby. Each morning at carpet time I write them a morning message to work on our writing skills and this message contained the surprise. I told them they had to read it by themselves and their faces were priceless. In their morning message I had them write to me telling me if they wanted the baby to be a boy or girl. The overwhelming majority picked girls... a premonition?!? :) I am so happy to have these messages and to be able to share them with Mr H.

" I want the baby to be a boy because so I can play with me" So sweet!

Look closely and you can see the baby sticking out of my belly :)

As the countdown has come to a close, baby names have been the topic of many discussions. Mind you, before our pregnancy anytime baby names came up in a random conversation Girl Names were hardly ever discussed, he was just certain it would be a boy. But now the reality has sunk in that chances are 50-50 baby! :) Funny but I have had no trouble thinking of boy names, even though we had previously agreed on one. But girl names are much much harder.

We joke and kid about wanting and "knowing" Baby H is a girl or a boy, but either way we feel blessed to be growing a healthy, large baby and cannot wait to share our exciting news with friends and family.

Only 48 hours to go...