This post has taken me a few days to write, so I am sorry about the delay. Some posts are more personal than others and this is one of those more personal ones. I am a huge "date" person. I will often say to Dustin, "Do you know what today is?" And, it will be something really random that I remember from years ago. Sometimes a good memory, sometimes a more difficult one.
September 9th has been a reoccurring date in my world for some odd reason. First of all, my youngest brother, Ben, was born on September 9, 1995. What a great day! I was a freshman in college and my girlfriend, Jo and I, both carried pagers (this was before cell phones were really popular) so we would know the moment my step mom went into labor. Now, you might be wondering why Jo had a pager too...well, I didn't have a car on campus at Purdue and she did. So, thankfully, she agreed to taking me to be with my family once we got the call that Ben was on his way. I had been in the delivery room for my other brother, Grady's, birth and certainly didn't want a little thing like college to get in the way of meeting my newest sibling. He happened to be born on a Thursday night. In college terms, party night, so as you can imagine pulling ourselves together to get to the hospital in time was a memorable trip within itself, LOL! Ben really wanted to get into this world quickly and we barely had time to make it to the hospital. Jo and I returned back to campus the next morning exhausted but determined to make it to class. I spent the weekend with all of my family getting to know Baby Ben and, when I think of the start of my freshman year of college, I will forever think of Ben!
9-9-99
I was student teaching and our school principal had asked us to think about the specialness of the date. The kids were all asked to write about their lives on this date and to brainstorm other dates in the future and predict what they might be doing. An example would be 1-11-11 or 2-22-22. What a compelling assignment for not only the students but teachers. I was totally loving life on 9-9-99 BUT I still had a lot of unknowns. I DID know I was going to marry Dustin, a man that not only I adored but as did my family on March 4, 2000. The plan was to graduate in December, pack, move, and get married a few months later. I had no job, no plans other than that. A few short months before that my biggest decision had literally been whether to run to the Discount Den or Gem with my sorority sisters for a big pop. I didn't know exactly what the future held but I was excited and optimistic that God would take care of us and our lives would be just as I had always imagined.
September 9, 2006
We had not faced many challenging things as a married couple. Overall, life had been good to us. Our careers were on track, we had a lovely home, two dogs that loved us, family and friends that were always there for us.
We decided to begin making our family and, luckily for us, got pregnant right away. I never considered that anything would ever go wrong. I was about 8 weeks pregnant and had gone to bed on a Friday night and woke up a few short hours later to severe cramping and you can only imagine the rest. I called the doctor's office and was told to keep my feet up and relax that there was little they could do. Either the pregnancy would make it or not at this point. After a few more hours, I decided I couldn't just lay there and do nothing, so I asked Dustin to take me to the ER. At the ER, they confirmed what we had already suspected. I had lost the pregnancy. Hours later, on our way home, we went and ate lunch. Many of our local friends were tailgating at the first home Notre Dame game of the year and as I thought of the date, I realized it was my little brothers 11th birthday. We decided to not ruin anybody's day and just take the time to process together what had happened and what our next step would be. As we had been told by the hospital, this kind of thing happens all of the time. I remember Dustin saying, "I always thought this kind of thing happened to other people, not to us."
I could have never imagined at that time what our future held. The journey we would take to parenthood and the lessons of love and forgiveness we would learn along the way. God truly never does give you more than you can handle. When you are in the thick of sadness and tragedy, it is difficult to see the bigger picture and what God has planned for your life. Sometimes it is in his time and not yours, but when it all unfolds, it is even better than you could have ever imagined.
So after three failed pregnancies, two birth mothers finding the courage to parent their little girls, and our SWEET Angel, Gavin finally finding his way into our lives...I can truly say God's plan for us has been shown and is good. For this I will be forever thankful!
As most of you already know, we are pregnant again and are certainly learning to take this pregnancy one day at a time. We are 14 weeks. This is further that we have every made it before. Please pray for all of us and that we are faithful and trust whatever God's plan will be.
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