After 12 Weeks: Why We Waited

Recently I read a blog post (find it here) that made me think a lot about my recent life choices. While the author of this post makes a very valid point, and I do believe that woman should be allowed to tell or not tell about their pregnancies, I would like to speak on behalf of the woman who DO chose to wait until after 12 weeks to announce their pregnancies.

In late June of this year, while serving at as a leader at a youth camp, I found out that I was pregnant. I was very excited, and told just about everyone. I'm really terrible at keeping secrets, so it wasn't hard to tell anyone who would listen to me that I was going to have a baby. In early July, my husband and I announced to friends and family, in a very public way, that baby was coming in March 2014. So on July 20, when I stared to heavily bleed, you can imagine how devastated I was. It was hard. One of the hardest things I have gone through. My husband was gone for another week, and I was going through this, at the moment, very much alone.

One of the worst things about loosing our baby, was the comments and congratulations that were all over social media, and the amount of people who knew we were expecting. It took MONTHS for everyone to finally know that no, we were not expecting anymore. A month and a half after loosing our baby, I posted this to Facebook "Public Service Announcement: I miscarried our baby. I am no longer pregnant. If you know someone who still thinks I am, please set them straight. I'm really tired of having the "No, not this time, I'm not pregnant anymore" conversation. It sucks, even when its an innocent conversation, it really really really sucks. So spread the word people, and please...stop telling me I can eat what I want because I'm pregnant..." It was hard for me to realize that maybe there were still people, still, who did not know. 

I went through and deleted things. Reminders of something that would never be. Hurts that cut me to the core every time I saw them. A cake posted by a friend for my baby shower. Posts of congrats and blessings and prayers. It all just hurt so much. 

I had a lot of healing to do after our baby went Home to Heaven. It was rough for a while. I cried...I cried a lot. And I grieved, which is something that I had never had to do before. Some days, I couldn't stand the attitude that parents had towards their children. I'd come home, and cry to my husband and say "What I wouldn't give to know that I will have to change a poopy diaper" or "I would love to have to wake up at three AM with our baby..." 

So later this year, on October 16, while one of my very best friends was in labor with her third baby, I took another pregnancy test. When it came out positive, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I didn't know if I wanted to be excited, or if I wanted to hide. I didn't know if this baby would live, or if in a month I would be telling everyone, no sorry, not this time...again. While I cried over those two little pink lines, my husband held me. 

As a family, we made a choice not to make this new little life public until after 12 weeks. Let me make this clear, we were not ashamed of our baby, or living in fear, we were making a choice that was better for us. And it does not make me insane. It makes me human. 

I told people I trusted. I told my parents, my husbands parents, my boss at work, people who I knew would pray for us. People who I knew understood that, while I was excited, I was just...scared. I needed those 12 weeks to wrap my mind around the idea that I could, in fact, carry to term. I needed those 12 weeks to remind myself that I am stronger than fear. I needed those 12 weeks to talk this out with my husband and draw on his support. I needed those 12 weeks. It was not out of fear that we did not tell people, in a public way, that we were pregnant, it was out a need and desire to learn, for myself that not ALL pregnancies end in heartbreak. 

I didn't want to have to go back, again, to delete and tell everyone that I lost my baby. I, who am a very emotional person, held that grief to myself. I wanted to celebrate and rejoice the life of my baby, who was very real to me, on my own, with my husband, in my own way. For once, I didn't want to blast it all over a Facebook status about incredibly torn up I was inside. Because I was. More than most people know, I had a really hard time learning to trust that God knew what he was doing when I started to see that blood. It took a long time. A really long time. And it was hard. 

And forgive me, but I didn't want to have to do that all over again. 

I wanted to wait. I wanted to hold the life of this new baby close to my heart, me and husband both did. We wanted to keep this wonderful little secret and share it together. We didn't want public knowledge. We wanted quiet, and peace, rest. With one another, with our new little life. 

Granted, with this little one, I got terribly sick, and I'm sure that most people knew already. But they respected that it was PUBLIC knowledge. They didn't pry. They didn't ask. They waited, and those who knew, prayed. 

Only once did I have a good friend ask me if I wasn't living in fear. It was hard to answer her. Pregnancy after miscarriage is a whole new ball game. Every time I went to the bathroom, I expected to see blood. With this baby, when I got to how many weeks I was when I lost our other one, I was a huge mess. I had a day where I cried because I had a backache. Every cramp, every weird feeling sent me into panic. I memorized 2 Timothy 1:7 and 1 John 4:18 and repeated them to myself over and over. I talked and cried to God and my husband. So yes, there was fear, but no, we weren't NOT announcing publicly because we were afraid of loosing our baby. However, I was afraid of telling people and then telling them, once again, no, not happening. 

The day I hit 12 weeks, I rejoiced and cried. That week, we told publicly and invited friends and family to rejoice with us. 

It is a choice. One that every mother must make. One that every family must make. Crazy enough, none of us knows what will happen to our children. Even now, at 14 weeks, something could still happen. How many more days do I have with my baby, I wonder sometimes. A month? Two? Until 38 weeks? Maybe I will only have this baby until he/she is three or four, or 16. I don't know. You don't know. 

God does though. He knows the number of days I have, my babies have, that my husband has. He already knows. I release that control to Him and let go of those things I can't control, which happens to be a lot of things. 

Basically, I just wanted to share these thoughts, and invite other mothers who needed and wanted to wait until 12 weeks to know you are not alone.  

I get it. I really do. 

And there is nothing wrong with that.