Don’t Pity me Pray for me

We never saw this coming.

Every little girl dreams of her wedding day, I dreamed of it so much I knew the exact day and year I would get married 4 years before I even met my husband.

Fast forward to my husband and I meeting. We fell hard into loving one another in a very short period of time. We both knew that we wanted to get married and share the rest of our lives with each other almost immediately. He will tell you he knew immediately that I would be his bride, but I needed a second to make sure ;). Before we were even engaged to be married we decided we wanted to have a large family. We had even picked out at least 20 name combinations both first and middle, for boys and girls. My husband and I have all the same initials. Being the giant cheese balls we are we thought it would be fun if our entire family literally had the same monogram! Are you already sick of us lol.  No fighting , no stress we just 100% agreed on each name like it was meant to be. I KNOW BARF RIGHT! We are so “those people”.

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Once we were married I made at least 20 different boards on Pinterest. Everything from parenting advice to DIY tush cream. I even had picked out How I wanted to announce our pregnancy and gender of the baby.

Fast forward about 6 months into our marriage we were more in love than ever and thinking we were finally ready to start trying for a baby! I know so exciting right!

Well, we never saw this coming.

We did ALL the “right” things. Started reading and researching. We made commitments to start living healthy in every sense of the word. Financially, Mentally, Physically, Spiritually. We went to the doctor and let them know we were stopping birth control and going to start trying.

I never thought we would actually have to try. Honestly, I worried about dumb things like being too fat to have a cute little baby bump or being afraid of the pain or not wanting to be pregnant during the summer, but never once did it occur to me that I may not be able to get pregnant at all. As a 24 now 25-year-old newlywed these thoughts were nothing compared to the crushing and consuming thoughts i would soon face.

After about 6 months of negative pregnancy tests, I started to have thoughts of doubt that this might not happen for us. What would that mean for our lives? Would me husband be disappointed in me? What if I wasn’t able to give him children? Would he leave me? What was my worth as a woman? Will this month be THE  month? Everywhere we turned it seemed someone was pregnant. Literally at a certain point i had over 30 friends on social media that were expecting. Not to mention the new born babies, tv, tv commercials, movies, babies were everywhere and it was all I could think about.

As the months went on nothing changed negative is all we were seeing and all we were feeling. It was truly heartbreaking for us.

We truly were trying not to be sad,jealous, or angry but it kept happening. There was one specific moment when we knew we had to snap out of it. A few months after our first wedding anniversary we found out my little sister was exacting a child. It was complete surprise. It was really painful and I didn’t know how to deal with it. People get surprise pregnancies all the time without ever trying and that was something I was struggling to understand because I wanted a baby so desperately. In spite of feeling that way I realized I had to be there for her, It was my sister and I love her after all even when she’s a brat 😉 This was exciting and I had to ditch this dark cloud that was constantly in my face. I had to admit that my heart was full of jealousy and I wasnt ok with that. That week I cried more than I ever have in my life. I knew things had to change. We weren’t going to allow this affect our marriage. We didn’t get married because we wanted children; we got married because we wanted each other.

My wonderful, sweet, understanding, kind-hearted husband and I did lots and lots of talking and praying. We needed a heart change.

Fast forward to present day. We are still trying to conceive. I needed to share this because people constantly ask us when we are going to have children and we use to avoid that question like the plague because it was so painful. But now we are able to process it in a different light. Don’t get me wrong we want children and we haven’t given up but that isn’t where we find our identities. In the beginning we didn’t try very hard. I think we were afraid once we realized it wasnt happening. We didn’t want to believe that it never would.

I love my husband so much its unreal but we are real people and it wouldn’t be honest of me to say that we don’t still struggle!  We want to live our lives out loud and in a way that might give others hope and encouragement. I know there are couples that have gone through far more than we can imagine on this same journey to have a family. I use to get upset when people would complain about their pregnancies and I still do but i have to take a step back and remind myself that has nothing to do with me or my situation. I almost feel guilty because I think just life with anything in life people should be allowed to express their feelings and emotions without constant fear of offending someone. Especially when you are pregnant! I am positive pregnant women can be thankful and excited for their baby while simultaneously hate the actual being pregnant part. That is something I didn’t have the emotional capacity to realize before. It is because I think about it and pray about it and talk about it that im able to finally see those things. It’s easy to think that I would literally go through Hell if it meant we got babies, but who knows even with my struggle to get pregnant it is one of those things i cant say how id feel or act because I don’t know so it’s not fair to place those feelings on others. babies are a gift from God im truly always happy for people I just still sometimes wish it was me and im not sure if that will ever go away or if ill ever have my own babies.

I have to say my faith has grown so much during all of this. I am over-joyed to be married to a man who has never once left me hanging. Going through this together and being able to share our hearts with each other in such a raw way has really drawn us closer. That is so special to me! We are still striving everyday to choose happy to not dwell and that’s what keeps us from going back to that place. If i go there he pulls me out, if he goes there i pull him out. I’m getting so emotional typing this because he is just my best friend. We aren’t perfect. We don’t have it all together. We fight, sometimes we can’t stand each other but its our story and we are writing it together and that’s everything. We trust the Lord and we trust each other we don’t have to understand we just know that he has a plan for us and he hasn’t let us down yet.

For other couples out there going through this or going through anything I just want you to know it doesn’t matter how bad it feels right now it will get better and it could always be worse. It sounds so cliché but your perspective makes all the difference. I think often times we tend to want to hold on to our pain but letting it go will give you so much peace.

With all that being said, we were reluctant to share this with anyone and not because we were embarrassed or worried what anyone would think but because we weren’t sure if people would understand and we really didn’t want pity. However, prayers are more than welcome! Pray for our marriage, pray that the Lord keeps working on us. Pray that he gives us children, pray that if not he keeps us filled and fulfilled anyway. Pray that God uses us and our story to encourage others.

If this did touch you and there is some way my husband and I can pray for you we would love to do that you can email me at [email protected] OR leave a comment

Please feel free to ask questions if you have them, our hearts are open.

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