People without hope don't want to have children

 I just read this article about how millennials are having children at a far lesser rate than previous generations, and some are even choosing to undergo sterilization so that their choice to be child-free is permanent.

It's cited in the article that people are afraid to bring children into this world because of how messed up everything is. And also it says that they don't see a hope for this world, so they don't want to have children because they just want to behave as hedonistically as possible.

Honestly, I understand that.

If there's no hope for the future, why not have as much fun now as you can? Why not travel, see the sights and enjoy having no responsibility? I can see those people saying kids are just a responsibility that they don't need to have.

We almost decided to not have children. We agreed that the world is messed up, and did we really want to bring children into that?

We found God worked in our hearts and changed our minds to help us realize that if we want the world to be any better that we need to be the ones to raise children that make the world better. In addition to that, we don't believe that this is all there is. We have the hope in Jesus Christ that he came to Earth, died and rose from the dead to beat death so that we can accept his free gift of grace and salvation so that someday we can live with him in a perfect place where there is no more pain, no more sickness, no more death, no more anxiety, no more sadness. And we pray that we raise our children right so they also know Jesus and also will spend eternity in heaven with us.

I understand people who don't have that hope and don't know Jesus and believe that all there is is life here on Earth not wanting to bring children into it. Why subject them to pain and sickness and sadness and death?

However, we believe this is only temporary. But life with Jesus and life in a perfect place that he's prepared for us is forever after death. With that, we want to create as many souls as possible that will have that hope. We pray daily that our daughter will know Jesus and will spend eternity in heaven with him and with us. We had a miscarriage recently, and I am thankful that we created a soul that has already been blessed to be with Jesus forever.

In the article, one girl said why not get sterilized now because she lives in Texas and if she gets pregnant, she won't be able to abort her baby? For her, I kind of agree that sterilization would be a smart thing to do. Better at this point to not have any children at all than to have the chance of a child being killed.

It sounds crazy to get sterilized when you're young, but for those without hope and a future, I think I understand the reasoning.

I'm just thankful to God that he worked in our hearts to help us see that this is not all there is and that we have hope and a future with Jesus forever and that we can provide that hope to our children. And our hope is that our children will spread that message and even more people will believe and have a future hope with Jesus as well.

He is with you

 Our daughter recently noticed the baby photos of me, her and my husband hanging in her room, and pretty much daily she wants to give them each a kiss.

One morning, I just thought, "She loves babies. She would have been such a good sister. Why isn't she going to be a sister?"

She still could someday, but it just seems like she's ready now. We're ready now for a new little one. It's hard to not know why our baby won't be arriving in March as we expected.

"But now, this is what the Lord says --- he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:

    'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name, you are mine.
    'When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.' " (Isaiah 43:1-2)

We're not promised an explanation. In Job, we see God talking to Satan about why Job went through his trials, but Job didn't see that. However, we're told trials are for our good and for God's glory, so that should be reason enough.

We're not told life won't be hard or painful, in fact, we're told it will be. But we're told we will remain afloat in the river of struggle and unscorched in the heat of fire. Because we're God's, and not just one of many, but by name. He knows each of us --- we're his.

I thank God for being with us through it all. He isn't just watching as we go through the pain of miscarriage; he's WITH US. He's not standing on the shore and watching; he's with us in the torrent of rushing water. That's so much more comforting. Think of it like a lifeguard, who loves you, not just watching to make sure you're not drowning as you flail while learning to swim but one who is in the water next to you, holding you up when you need a breath and a break, promising you'll get strong if you keep going, encouraging you, making sure nothing will happen to you.

God is with you every step of the way.

What's our ultimate goal as parents?

 After our miscarriage, I decided to put together cards people had written, Bible verses that spoke to me, our ultrasound pictures and other thoughts in a notebook my mother-in-law gave me when it happened. I hope that maybe someday my children can learn from the lessons that I have been given through this experience, and I thought I'd share some of them on here too.

If you know anyone someday going through the same thing, please share these blogs. I'd love for someone else to find hope through what we've gone through, for God to redeem this situation and find glory if I can help someone else find him through the hardship.

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I decided to listen to an audiobook about Jeannie Gaffigan --- a comedian's wife who had brain surgery to remove a pear-sized tumor --- because I knew I needed some perspective. It turned out that although they have five kids, she mentioned miscarriages and told the story of going into preterm labor at 22 weeks, after seeing a healthy baby girl on an ultrasound only a couple of weeks before.

They knew the baby couldn't survive at that age, and she only lived a few hours. Jeannie asked a nun to save her baby girl, and the nun said, "What is your ultimate goal as parents? Is it to get your children to heaven? Well, this one's already going."

I was driving when I hear that, and I called my husband, tears coming to our eyes, because that's our ultimate goal -- for our children to get to heaven and love Jesus. Well, we already have one baby there. I thank the Lord Jesus we will get to spend eternity with our child, even though we missed a few years here.

"Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and you right hand shall hold me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,' even the darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139:7-16)

I prayed this over our baby. I was fearfully and wonderfully made, and so was this little one, in miniature, perfect form. I know God saw this baby, and he knew exactly how long it would be on this earth as a blessing to us. He wasn't surprised when our babe went to be with him.

Things looked dark here to us, but that darkness is light to him, because he lights it up and because he sees the victory that comes at the end when Jesus will finally come back and defeat evil once and for all. I am so thankful for our child and that he or she now makes his or her bed in heaven, where Jesus is. I absolutely cannot wait to meet him or her, give him or her a hug and tell him or her I love them. We will get to spend forever together.

To others going through miscarriage --- there's hope beyond the now

I wrote this the week it happened, but I couldn't share it. It still hurts --- I'm sure it always will. But I pray someday these next few blogs will help someone else going through the same pain.

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With a spotting concern, I drove to the ER, hoping to get an ultrasound to see that our baby was kicking away and there wasn't anything unusual going on.

However, as a doctor entering the hospital for his shift told me to sit down and wait a minute until a nurse could check in with me, tears starting overflowing the fear that churned inside me.

The intercom turned on.

"Have you been helped?"

"No."

"What can we do?"

"I'm 15 weeks pregnant and I'm having some bleeding," I said, barely able to say the words through my the tears breaking my voice.

----

The ultrasound popped up on the screen of the cart that was rolled into my room, and the physician's assistant that had walked past me when I first entered the ER entrance rolled the wand along my bare stomach.

"I don't like it," he murmured to himself.

I saw the blurred image on the screen, and I could see the bright spot in the center of the little body that a few weeks ago was blinking quickly. However, that bright spot was still.

He kept rolling the wand around in different angles.

"I don't see a heartbeat."

A sob rocked my body, and I pressed my hands over my eyes as I lay on the table, trying to keep my belly still as I cried so that the PA-C could continue his job. I felt the nurse's hand gently on my blanket-covered foot.

"It doesn't mean...that's just what I'm seeing right now and I want to tell you what I'm seeing."

No heartbeat on the monitor, no heartbeat other than my own on the doppler. The PA-C called a larger hospital that my OB-Gyn was based out of and decided I needed a more formal ultrasound.

"I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am," he said.

----

We headed to the other hospital, but I told my husband what had happened and that I could see on the monitor there wasn't a heartbeat. Of course, I prayed that God would do a miracle and we would arrive there to find our baby was just resting and was up and moving.

It wasn't to be.

The ultrasound tech turned the lights off and started by "taking some routine pictures" of my uterus and ovaries. But I knew that if the baby was OK, she would have said immediately that she saw a heartbeat. She didn't.

She measured the baby, and the screen read 10w6d. I was supposed to be 15 weeks along.

She pulled up a view of the baby again.

"Do you want a photo for a keepsake?"

That was it. That was her way of saying it.

Our baby was gone.

"Did I read that right? The baby is measuring at 10 weeks?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"That's when we had our first ultrasound. It was fine then, with a strong heartbeat. It must have happened right after."

She showed us where the skin had thickened on the little skull. She said that only happens when the child has been gone for a few weeks.

The ultrasound tech left the room after kindly asking if she could get our daughter some crackers as she was starting to get antsy. We declined but thanked her for the thoughtfulness.

Tears welled as I asked my husband if he would pray.

"I don't know what to say," I said.

He prayed for us --- for our sorrow --- and he thanked God that our baby was in the arms of Jesus and was able to circumvent the harshness of this world.

I hadn't thought of that. We had created a new soul, and although that little one never made it out to this earth, it was still a human and that meant it went to heaven that day more than a month before. It meant that it had the incredible blessing of never having to experience pain, disappointment, illness, heartache, fear. It was able to escape immediately to a place that God has created for all of his children.

That kind of blew my mind. If there's anything to be thankful for, it's that. What a blessing that our child never had to experience suffering.

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I didn't want to tell people. I selfishly didn't want to hear the sympathetic words or to see anyone else grieve our loss. It's too personal. I didn't want constant reminders as I tried to sort through my thoughts. My man is my rock, and he did what needed to be done. I don't know how I'd do life without him or get through something like this without him.

My thoughts are still churning. One second I'm fine. The next I'm heartbroken that I'll never get to see this child, never get to hold it in my arms. I'm terrified at how I'll feel when I have the surgery and I'm actually no longer pregnant, when this child that I know has been gone for a while is truly gone.

But our Romans commentary, which I made my husband read when I couldn't get the words out, talked about how the Holy Spirit suffers with us. Literally, that night it said when a mother holds her lifeless child, the Spirit is there is anguish right alongside us. No one can tell me that God wasn't directly speaking to me through that passage on that exact night.

Plus, the next day, as I continued to lean on Romans 8:26-27 --- now inscribed on a necklace I wear with a heart that bears the pregnancy and infant loss awareness ribbon --- my best friend texted me that she was praying this exact verse over us.

Again, you can't tell me that our dear Father wasn't speaking directly to us through other people.

So I keep crying out, "Lord." That's it. I don't really have any other words. I keep relying on the Holy Spirit to do the talking for me.

I look at my life, and there is so much good. I'm so thankful I have my daughter to hold onto when my arms are empty, and I have my husband to hold me when I can't hold myself up. Mostly, I'm thankful that our dear Savior has given us hope that those who believe in his sacrifice on the cross will have life after death. So it breaks my heart, but I pray that Jesus will tell our child --- who is now whole and perfect --- that I love him or her and I can't wait to meet him or her.

And I pray that on this side, good comes out of this as well. Maybe it will be a way that we can tell people about the hope of Jesus. Maybe it will be a way that we can empathize with others in the future. Maybe it will be a way for God to bring us even closer together, to make us more appreciative, to make us stronger, to help us know him more --- I mean, God lost a son too, on the cross. Maybe we'll never know what the good is, but God does. He promises that his plan is for the good of those who love him. There's going to be many more ups, downs, questions, fears, tears, thankfulness, pain and love, but I'm so blessed that I have hope beyond the now.