I have always wondered if I ever would blog again. I missed it, but I didn’t know where to start. I haven’t written a personal blog since September 2018. I never announced my miracle pregnancy on the blog, didn’t write about that experience, never told my birth plans/story here… I just …. Left.

I never knew how to come back. So many thoughts plagued my mind, and I battled with perinatal depression and anxiety. Would people unfollow since I got pregnant? Would my testimony cause others to hurt that were in the wait? Could I just post encouraging words for those fighting infertility, pcos and endometriosis? Or, did people feel like I was on “the other side” now? 

 

I wanted to come back. I wanted to share hope. I wanted to be a light. 

But I didn’t know how, until now. 

 

I realize that in my blogging, I’m able to turn pain into something beautiful. I’m able to be surrendered to God. A mouthpiece for His Love to spread. I’m able to be used by him. And… it makes space for beautiful miracles.

 

So, I’m welcoming myself back to this place that I have missed so much. 

To share with you that life after conceiving my “miracle baby,” hasn’t been simply sunshine and rainbows. Before conceiving my son…I think that I thought that once infertility ended, my battle was over. But in actuality.. Just THAT battle was seemingly over. Life, kept going on.

I have struggled in motherhood. I have struggled to remain whole as a person after motherhood. I have struggled as a wife. I have struggled as a believer. I have fought off depression and anxiety… and now, I am struggling to love myself again after miscarrige. 

I never thought that miscarriage would be a part of our story this go round with TTC. I know that nobody PLANS to have a miscarriage, but I feel like if this would have happened before… I almost would’ve expected it. 

I was at the top of my self love journey. I’d never been more free, happy, loving, kind and proud of myself. 

I finally felt so feminine and beautiful while pregnant with our miracle baby #2. 

Then, it all came crashing down as I started spotting, then bleeding, then eventually miscarrying our baby. (See full story here if you like. )

 

I was diagnosed with a blighted ovum. When I started bleeding, I should’ve been 8 weeks pregnant, however the ultrasound only showed a sac. A blighted ovum occurs when the egg implants but doesn’t develop into an embryo. This is the leading cause of miscarriage, and sometimes people don’t even know they are pregnant. It may just seem to be a “really bad period.”

Because I started to bleed on my own, I didn’t have to have any treatment or medication during the process. Even though it was tough to process that what was occurring was the “natural” thing, my body did what it was supposed to do as far as miscarrying a pregnancy that wasn’t healthy.

Afterwards, I had to go to the midwife to have labs checked weekly to be sure my hcg levels were down. I only had to get it drawn twice, thankfully. Those were the worst two visits.

I know it wasn’t my fault. I know it was nothing I did, and that I didn’t fail. But, it’s so hard not to feel that way. It’s so hard to overcome those negative thoughts. In one of the hardest moments the week the miscarriage happened– when I needed something to hold on to, my son randomly walked in the room with one of my old prayer journals. As I was reading my old prayers to Yahweh, they made me think of my Worship Wednesday posts. I began to go back and fill myself up with the same words of encouragement that I poured out to myself and others every week. As I was reading those posts, I thought to myself..”what if I’d never written these posts? I wouldn’t have them to go back to now.” It was at that moment that I knew that it was time to return.

 

Time to return back to being usable. Surrendered. Completely vulnerable and transparent, because just like before… This makes space for beautiful testimony.

 

It’s been hard to accept that I (a doula) had a miscarriage. I started to doubt my calling & my worth… Even though miscarriages are common (like 1 in 4 common— that’s 25% of pregnancies!!)  However, I have been able to connect and share hope with even more women now. I can personallyrelate to women that have experienced a loss (because Doulas aren’t just for labor and delivery.) I have a better understanding of postpartum needs after loss (because you still deserve and need postpartum care) and I have a lot to say about that. It’s been a very eye opening experience that I feel led to be transparent about and share my own healing journey. 

 

Although we never planned to publicly “TTC” again, I guess GOD had other plans. So here I am… surrendered