What to Expect When You are not Expecting

I am going to be completely honest about this post- I am very ashamed how I handled everything. I wish I was more excited, I wish I showered Jon, my husband, with love.  I wish we went out that night to celebrate. I wish I cried tears of joy. But most of all I wish I had trusted God's plan for me and Jon.

The words below are mostly for me to remember how I handled things. My desire is that I will learn from my past and not let it repeat itself. Also I think it is important to look back and see the hand of God evident in life situations.

 On July 18, 2015, I got married to my loving husband. Starting a family was definitely on the list of things to do, but a couple years down the road. In my mind, those years would be filled with travel, school, getting out of debt and living out a few of my ambitions. 

On September 2015, I started feeling strange. My stomach started aching. I gave the aching a few more days, but oddly the word "pregnant" kept coming to mind.

A week later, I looked at Jon and told him, "I'm pregnant -I know it." He thought I was being paranoid and didn't understand how I knew without concrete evidence. At this point I was frustrated and afraid. Firstly, I didn't want to be pregnant. And secondly, I didn't want a baby, not yet. 

Me and Jon argued about what we would do if I was. Our arguing mutated into a full, blown out fight. Our fight was very aggressive, but instead of throwing punches- we threw harsh words at each other. 

I see now that I was lashing out in fear. I fleshed those fears out in anger towards him.

In tears I demanded that he go and get a pregnancy test. He graciously went. While he was gone I prayed, "God please don't let me be pregnant."

The test read positive and sat on the couch in silence for the longest time. I cried and prayed to God it wasn't true.

My thoughts at the time: "MY life is over", "What about MY dreams","I can't travel now","How am I going to take care of a baby","What is everyone going to think of ME", "I have NO money", "I just got married","MY life is hard enough", "People are going to be disappointed in ME", then I got to the desperate point of blaming- "This is Jon's fault, not MINE" - I hate how I got to that point.

I only thought of myself. I viewed my new marriage like we were individuals. I didn't see me and Jon as one yet.

I went to my parents to tell them the news. I was tense and hot tears were streaming down my face. I went into the conversation ready to defend myself or plead for forgiveness. Expecting to be reprimanded but they only showed Jon and I love, joy, and encouragement. 

One of the reasons I was insecure was I didn't believe I could be a parent - so why  would anyone else would believe in me. A second reason was because we weren't financially ready for a baby and I thought people wouldn't be supportive for that reason. A third reason was we just got married and (as vain and ridiculous as it sounds) I thought people would make fun of us.

October 2015 is when I let everyone know about what we were not expecting, but ended up expecting. Thankfully, everyone was so kind and reminded me how children are such a blessing. 

Don't misinterpret my fears of being pregnant as  me being afraid of kids. I have grown up loving kids. I babysat, nannied, helped with VBS and Sunday school. But the thought of having my own child and being responsible for someone other than myself 24/7 terrified me.

Looking back - I had no reason to be afraid. My little girl is a beautiful blessings. I feel so much joy when she looks up and smiles. Selfishness consumed me. I responded horribly to such a blessing from above. And you know what - everything worked out. Even though my husband and I were in and out of work the entire pregnancy, everything worked out. God always provided.

One of the major lessons I learned through this was nothing is on my own timing. God has a plan. He knew we would get pregnant. He knew I would really struggle with it. (I struggled through the pregnancy as well, but we will get to that later). God's plan is far greater than mine.

If I could, I would go back and tell myself everything would be fine. But that's not the way this "Christian life" thing works. We are called to live a life of faith. The crazy part to me is that even though my little family was always provided for I still didn't trust God. After numerous gifts that God sent, there was still a bitterness that weighed in my heart.

The trials didn't stop there - even after finding out we were pregnant more trials packed on and smothered me, I felt like I couldn't come up for air.

Today I am thankful for all the trials because without those trials I wouldn't have been able to work through my trust issues and bitterness towards God.