Our Story, part one

"How's your year been?"

He asked it so casually, this friend of mine.  I was photographing my friends and their beautiful one-year-old, crouching on the ground with Waverly strapped to me in her Sleepy Wrap.  I was in the zone, clicking away, so it took a moment for the question to settle fully.  My year.  How has it been?

Anyone who has ever been a teacher asks this question all the time, and it references, of course, the school year.  I smiled and said, "Good!  Hubby will be done with grad school in May.  Can't wait!"  We kept chatting and clicking and laughing at our babies, then headed our separate directions.

It wasn't until I was driving home that somehow the question popped back into my head.  My year.  Our year.  Forget "school year" time-frame; what all has gone down in the past year?  Has it really been an entire year?

It was about a year ago that I was newly pregnant with our miracle baby, the baby we weren't sure could happen.  At least not easily.  And I was sick.  Oh so very sick, all the time sick.  It was about a year ago that I woke up one morning and felt off, so I called my school and said I was coming in late.  Within the hour we thought we were losing our miracle baby.  I will never forget the tense line of the nurse's jaw as she pulled out their emergency ultrasound machine, nor will I ever forget the sweet breath of relief that flooded our souls when that little fluttering heart came up on the screen.

I was sent home with fluids and meds, then ordered to rest.  Not a week later I was back in the emergency room, this time confident that my happy-go-lucky baby was ok, but knowing I was not.  I remember sobbing in the little triage room, feeling like I was already a horrible mother because I couldn't even eat or drink enough to nourish myself and my growing baby.  Another night of fluids, meds and rest, and another round of "we're not sure what's wrong."

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our lives as we knew them were slowly unraveling.  Looking back, I know two things.  I am fairly certain now that "we don't know what's wrong" symptoms I was experiencing were severe gall bladder attacks; not contractions, not infections.  I am also completely certain that those attacks were due in part to the intense stress surrounding our lives at that point.  Here we were, homeowners, deeply in grad-school related debt, and both of our jobs were on the line.

My faith trusts a Lord who is sovereign, a Lord who held everything together while our hearts were trying not to panic.  While I knew from the depths of my soul that my God loved us and would care for us, as would our families (both biological and those in Christ) it was still a time of great emotional difficulty.  Yet joy was ever growing in our hearts as life formed within my belly.

To be continued... 

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