You want to know how to find light when your world is so dark? Now is the perfect time to start!
I’m going to share with you how to find light when your world is so dark and hopeless. The past couple of weeks have been an emotional roller coaster for my family and me. I needed to take some unexpected time off.
We’ve been going down a long lonely road the past couple of weeks and I’m here today to tell you about it. I wanted to share with you what’s been going on here, not as sympathy, but as an inspiration to you. I hope you find my story a blessing to you and I hope that maybe you can relate my story to what’s going on in the world as maybe a light at the end of the tunnel. Stay tuned.
Listen to the Episode:
My Journey Through a Dark Place
I’m human and definitely not immune to bad things going on. And amidst everything going on right now with the Corona virus, something else happened to me on top of it all. My life kind of took a turn for the worst in just a couple of weeks time.
I went through a couple of weeks the end of April 2020 that is one of my darkest times. However, I’m happy to say that I made it through strong enough to share my story with others. Even though it’s very personal, I want to share it. I’m INSPIRED to share it.
So now that I made through the Valley of darkness, I am here today to share with you as a source of inspiration to you. I hope that’s how you’ll take this story as more of an inspiration. I don’t want you to feel sorry because I believe that things happen for a reason and that that we’re on God’s path. Again, I definitely don’t want sympathy, but I do want to inspire you.
I want to inspire people to keep going. So without further ado, I’m going to start at the beginning. Back before all of this Corona stay at home time…
February 2020: Pregnant!
February 2020 was when I found out that I was pregnant. I found out the normal way that a woman would find out that she was pregnant. So I was waiting to go in to the see the doctor, and then the Corona virus hit.
I decided to just stay in home and wait it out. I took my Prenatal multivitamins. I’ve been pregnant twice before so I know what needs to be done in order to keep my body healthy. In the midst of that, as we all know, schools were closed, we got put on a stay at home order and there was just lots of stress going on.
However, we were staying busy on the farm: Planting the gardens, playing with the kids and just living life. I mean it really hasn’t been a super stressful. There may have been a few stressful days in there, but for the most part we’ve been kind of living life out here on our farm in a normal sort of way. And then came two weeks ago.
April 15, 2020: I Got Sick
So we went through March most of April and then two weeks into April, I got very, very sick. Nausea, sinus headaches and I could not get out of bed. I was throwing up every single hour and I couldn’t keep any food or drink down. It was horrible.
I want to mention too that I’d never had morning sickness before, so I didn’t know if this was morning sickness or if it was supposed to be something else.
I went through a whole day and night of that and was no better. So I called the doctor the next day and they said I couldn’t get in until the afternoon so I stayed in bed and continued the ritual of throwing up until every hour until it was finally time to leave.
April 17, 2020: Doctor Visit
I’m telling you it was the most horrible thing. I knew I was dehydrated and just not my normal healthy self at all. So at the appointment I did the normal, whatever you would normally do when you were coming in for a pregnancy exam. Did the pee test and some lab work and talked to the doctor. He didn’t check my baby’s heartbeat just because I was about 10 weeks along. So he said it was a little early for that.
He didn’t think it was necessary yet. And so he prescribed me some morning sickness medicine and then we scheduled an ultrasound for Monday. So this was on Friday. Ultrasound was scheduled for Monday April 20, 2020.
April 20, 2020: Ultrasound
So we went through the weekend believing that I was pregnant. I had to explain to my little girls why I’d been so sick. Mommy was Pregnant! Yay!
So they were of course over the moon excited and we all were. We were just so excited for this new little one in our lives. And then Monday came the day of the ultrasound. I drank all the water, the gallon of water we’re supposed to drink at a time and then headed into the hospital for my ultrasound. Of course, by myself, because of Corona virus, we weren’t supposed to take anybody with us.
I was really sad at first because I wanted my little girls to see the baby, but I promised them I would bring pictures home to show them.
So I went in and my ultrasound tech was a lovely lady that I know from church. She called me in and got me all ready. We chatted away as she put the gel on and went to work.
And on the screen I could see my baby plain as day.
It looked like a tiny little peanut. However, as time went on, my tech said it was measuring small for 10 weeks. It was measuring at about nine weeks. And also worst of all, she was having trouble finding a heartbeat.
I just told her how sad I was at the girls couldn’t come because she knows my girls. I told her I was very sad that the girls couldn’t come in and see the baby, see the ultrasound, and then she told me: “I’m having trouble finding a heartbeat.”
So then she wanted to do a vaginal ultrasound to get a closer look, which isn’t bad. It’s just a rod that it goes in the vagina and it gets a little bit closer to the baby. So we did the vaginal ultrasound, but still no heartbeat. Nothing.
And she was very certain. The doctor was very certain that it was very dead. My baby was dead. I had a dead baby inside me.
No Heartbeat = Miscarriage
So to put it all into one little sentence: On April 20th, I discovered that I had miscarried a baby. That is the Boulder that hit amidst all of this Covid-19 stuff that was going on. There was a lot of emotions.
And I’m going to talk through the emotions because I’m sure there are some of you listening and reading out there that have been through this, I want to try to relate to you as best I can.
All the Feelings
So the first thing that I immediately felt was embarrassed. Why? Because I was so chit chatty and confident with my ultrasound tech and with the doctor. Also, I get uncomfortable when people feel sorry for me that I immediately felt that sense of embarrassment.
Then a little bit later I was angry when I saw my doctor and he kept telling me: “You’ll have more risky pregnancies due to your age.” And yeah, he mentioned the age thing. Apparently I am getting too old to have children and I was not prepared for this talk. I thought that I was still in the safe range to have children. I know lots of women older than me who are having babies and I just was not prepared for that at all.
And so that made me angry. It kept me angry for several days.
But, my other most immediate emotion was fear. I was wondering how I was going to tell my little girls the news because they’d been so excited. They’d been overjoyed and they wanted to see the ultrasound pictures right away as soon as I got home.
And of course I did not know how to tell them, basically because I knew that their hearts would break and mine was already broken.
Finally, I felt sad and empty. So as you can see, there are so many feelings all at once. But all I wanted to do at that point was go home and sleep and then wake up from this nightmare I was living. So that’s in a sense what I did. I went home and I took more medicine for my headache and I went to bed.
You Can’t Hide from Nightmares that are Real
However, when I woke up a few hours later, the nightmare was still real. As I was laying in bed, I could hear my little ones laughing outside. But my heart sank and I just cried and cried. I wondered how they were going to take the news.
How was I going to explain it to them? So I laid there for hours. I was afraid to tell them. Finally I got the strength to get up and I did get up and I walked outside to sit on our front porch steps. A few minutes later I had a big white Great Pyrenese sitting beside me. He’s giving me kisses. And two beautiful little girls giving me hugs.
With that, I could explain to my girls what happened and when I did, I instantly felt better. I explained to them that there were no pictures because the baby had no heartbeat. We have our hearts to beat to keep us alive and the baby inside mommy’s tummy’s heart was not beating.
So that’s kinda how I explained it to them and they understood right away. I am blessed with two very tender hearted and compassionate girls. Of course they were sad too, but at only four and seven years old, life moved on pretty quickly for them.
Faith and Your Tribe is What Helps You Walk Through Darkness
The next few days did not get any easier for me. I was very depressed and emotional. For one thing I mentioned, the aging word came up in my mind so many times. When the Doctor told me I was getting too old to have children that made me so mad. I was not prepared for that talk at all.
For one thing, I’m 35 years old. And I feel like at 35 years old, I am finally mature enough to be a mother. I finally feel mature enough to put a baby before my own needs. I know that that might sound crazy and I always have put my children first, but I finally feel feel that maturity of an adult now.
It’s hard to explain, but maybe you get it.
Also, my husband was affected too and we had a long talk. I wasn’t alone through all this. I had my family and I had God and that’s where the journey starts to get lighter for me. Yes, it was a dark and horrible journey, but I had someone to hold my hand the whole way and I was never alone.
That’s why I wanted to share such a personal story and such a recent story that is still holding on my heart because I know that we all go through hard times.
Many of Us Are Walking Through Darkness
Many of us now working in agriculture and rural America, we’re going through a dark time right now. It can be scary and it looks scary. It looks like some of us might lose everything. Many people have already given up. They can’t go through the darkness anymore.
They feel so alone. Honestly, I want this post to be your light. I want to give you the courage to keep going and I want you to take my story as a sign that there is a light at the end and that you should keep going – No matter how hard it gets.
I promise you that I have felt so alone myself
I’ve felt like there’s no moving on before. In other podcast episodes, I talk about times that I absolutely had no faith in God or even myself. But I’ve learned that’s why God wants us to go through these dark times. Every time we do go through them, we get a whole lot stronger. If I hadn’t gone through so many dark tunnels, I would not be able to tell you such a personal story today and expressing my faith to you, but I am telling you that because I want you to keep going.
Stay in your lane and do what you love. You do important work, so important. Whatever it is you do, it is for good whether you grow the food for this country, whether you work in a packing plant or whatever it is that you do, you have a huge responsibility laid out in front of you. Yes, there are problems, but how can we think bigger and make them into solutions? This is my challenge to you.
Challenge & Wrap Up
Through all of this. I’ve been selling eggs and produce memberships for the summer to help people in my community. What can you do for yours? We all have to look past ourselves and our own experiences and try to think bigger, friends. I’m telling you that there is a light at the end. Look around you and you’ll see that everything you need to move on and to be successful in life is right in front of you.
Please use my story as inspiration to you. I may have a dead baby inside my womb, but my heart is very much alive and on fire with passion.
Oh, and I am so over the age thing. I’m 35 years young (not old). We will try again for another baby and we will be successful again. I just know it. I know it in my heart and I know God has told me in our talks that it will happen. Just not right now. Now is not the time and I’ll keep praying and keep moving forward and I’m praying this message inspires you to continue on through those dark time with whatever you want to do in life. That is my message to you today.
As I return from the dark journey that I was on for the past couple of weeks. I hope that this has inspired you and that you, you take this message with, with every ounce of passion that you have and go with it because without faith and without a purpose and without a passion, what do you have left?
I don’t want that for you – I want you to succeed and to own your dreams.
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