"You give and take away."

Pslam 34:1 - "I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips."

(The beautiful roses my husband brought home for me on Wednesday evening.)

It has taken me a few days to decide if and how to post about this. But here I am, oodles of thoughts and feelings racing around in my heart and mind, and now I will try to give them voice. It is my prayer that perhaps some part of what I am about to share will draw you closer to my precious Lord, that He will be glorified.

On Saturday July 21st, I took a pregancy test and it was positive! Those of you who have ever seen two lines in that little window know what joy emmediately filled my heart. I looked in the bathroom mirror at my smiling face with my hand gently covering my stomach. Right away, visions of this little person growing inside of me began to form. "Who would they look like? Was it a boy or a girl? How would we adjust to having three children three years and under?" This baby wasn't "planned", I had just weaned Chloe not even a month prior and really wasn't expecting my body to return to fertility so quickly. After 8 months post-weaning Emma with no return to cycling and then taking clomid to induce ovulation, which God used to give us Chloe, I must admit Travis and I were a bit synical, and therefore not as "cautious" as we could have been. But as shocked and nervous as we were upon receiving this blessed news, we quickly grew into the idea that we would be becoming a family of five in nine months!

My mind started churning with plans for moving Chloe into Emma's room and giving them a girly haven while decorating the nursery for this new little one. Emmediately I was dreaming of those first movements I would feel inside my womb, the dance my hand would do with tiny feet as they moved accross my belly.

Then...Tuesday night arrived. A routine trip to the bathroom brought everything crashing down. Yes, that's when the miscarriage started. I don't think I'll ever look at the color red the same again. It started out slowly, "maybe this is implantation spotting" I thought, "surely it will stop soon." I called my sister, my mom, Jenn each time hoping they would tell me it's going to be okay, this is normal, when deep inside I knew it wasn't. Sleep came slowly that night, after tears in Travis's arms and praying for peace, comfort, and assurance of God's soveriegnty in this heartbreak. My eyes opened Wednesday morning, was this real, was I really losing this baby? "Catch me father, carry me. I will praise you because you are good!" I prayed. The blood test I had taken on Tuesday to confirm that I was pregnant came back and yes, I was in fact pregnant and therefore miscarrying. His peace poured over me, I can't explain it. It was well with my soul.

"Thank you Father, for this beautiful life you created in my womb, for gracing us with this tiny soul. Thank you for creating each life with purpose, be glorified in and through this baby. Lord, as the song says, "you give and take away...my heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name!"