If you’re anything like me, you LOVE seeing people’s personal photos and reading about their pregnancy journeys. I think every pregnancy is special and a true gift from God. Before I share more about my personal journey, I want to preface this by saying this is simply just my personal story. I know there are many women out there who are longing to become pregnant or have suffered pregnancy loss. My heart breaks for those women. I have been praying for those I see come across my Instagram feed who are struggling to get pregnant. I am also praying for the women who may be struggling, but have not shared this publicly. I pray the Lord blesses those women with a child and that they can find strength in Him while they wait.
My story begins back in January of this year. I was at my annual doctor appointment where I mentioned my husband and I were hoping to start a family soon. This is when my doctor told me we’d better start trying now, because it may take a year or more for me to conceive due to some abnormalities with my uterus. This broke my heart. In my perfect, naive plan, I figured we would try for a couple months and I would just get pregnant. The thought of trying for a year or more and then “discussing next steps,” was definitely not what I wanted to hear. In my time of waiting, I drew closer to God more than ever before. I was constantly communicating with Him. I was asking Him to bless me with a child, but I was also asking for peace, patience and contentment.
Let’s jump to August 26, the day before I was supposed to start fertility courses. I was only a few days late (which isn’t unusual for me), but I decided I might as well just take a pregnancy test. I had tons laying around anyway, so why not? I took the test and there were two lines…kind of. The first line was definitely there, but the second line was very faint. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I ran to the drugstore and picked up one of those digital tests so I could see a clear “pregnant” or “not pregnant.” Of course with me being so flustered, I messed something up and I got an error message on the new test. At this point I was late to work, so I grabbed another test and took it to work with me. The same thing happened when I tried at work. I had a dark first line and a faint second line. I sent a picture to my doctor and she said it looked like a positive to her! I was giddy and over the moon, but I didn’t want to get too excited until I had the blood test done.
“Your hCG levels are rising, Brittany. Congratulations, you’re pregnant!” That was the greatest sentence I had heard in a long time! PRAISE JESUS! I Snapchatted and called my husband immediately. Happy, happy tears were shed from both of us.
I wanted to tell everyone I knew about the sweet life inside me, so later that night we told our families. We surprised them with pink and blue balloons hoping they would connect the dots. My mom got it RIGHT AWAY and so did my sister-in-law. The rest of the family was a little confused, but once they got it, happy tears were shed and jumps for joy!
Unfortunately, a couple days later I had spotting and cramps. The joy I had once felt suddenly turned to worry. I knew I needed to rely on the Lord and His plan. I found myself praying for strength and peace yet again. The spotting and cramps lasted for weeks and after the first ultrasound we did not hear a heartbeat. I was told not to exercise and to take it easy. I was scheduled for an ultrasound the next week, in hopes baby was just too tiny to hear a heart beat at that point. This was the longest week of my life. I wasn’t sure if baby was okay or not. All I could do was pray and rest. GOD IS GOOD!! The next week we heard the heartbeat immediately! More happy tears!
From there, I had spotting off and on for a couple more weeks, but then one day it just stopped! The doctor appointments have gone smoothly since then (praying that continues from here on out). I did feel very nauseous and tired up until last week, but I never actually got sick! I just made sure to eat cheerios or crackers throughout the day to help with the nausea. I am now 16 weeks and am beginning to show a little bit. Baby is due in April 2020 and we plan to find out the gender in December. YAY!
Thank you all for your sweet messages on Instagram! I was so excited to share with everyone! Also, thanks for reading this post and following along. I will continue to keep you in my prayers!
Xoxo, Brit
Brittany Taulbee 