Family planning

Sharing our story: faith, loss, and finding grace again. This post holds a piece of my heart. It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s my truth — a journey through fertility, loss, and healing. If you’ve ever been there, please know you’re not alone. 💛

This wasn’t the easiest blog post to write — and it probably won’t be the easiest one to read — but it’s real, raw, and something that will resonate with more people than I wish it did. This is a topic that has shaped me in ways I never expected, but I’ve learned that even through heartbreak and hardship, God’s grace never left us.

As I’ve mentioned before, from the very beginning, Austin and I knew we wanted to grow our family. But I was met with fears and concerns. One thing I had always longed for was to be a mother — like many of you here.

I never had a regular menstrual cycle and, honestly, never paid much attention to it until I reached that stage of life where motherhood was on my heart. When we got engaged, I decided to be proactive and sought out an OBGYN to talk through my concerns. Together, we decided to try birth control to see if it would help regulate my periods. It didn’t. After six months, we switched to using progesterone tablets to “trick my body” into a period. It was kind of a crutch to get us through until our wedding.

A month after our wedding, I returned to my OBGYN, still concerned about my irregular cycles and my growing desire to start a family. Since my initial tests came back normal, we decided to try a low dose of an ovulation-stimulating medication called Letrozole, under my OBGYN’s guidance. The plan was to use progesterone to induce a period, take Letrozole, and then monitor for ovulation.

After six months of trying this, I still wasn’t ovulating. At month seven, we decided it was time to meet with a fertility specialist. I was worried and frustrated — but also grateful that my doctor was supportive and proactive. (I know many women are told to wait a year or more before getting a referral.)

The fertility clinic ran more tests, flushed my tubes, and confirmed that everything looked normal. We continued with the same treatment plan, only with a higher dose of Letrozole and closer monitoring through ultrasounds and lab work to confirm ovulation.

After a year of actively trying, I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. I didn’t want this journey — something that should have been filled with excitement and hope — to feel so heavy. Until you’ve been there, it’s hard to explain the emotional rollercoaster of trying to conceive. The hope of every test, the heartbreak of every negative, and the quiet ache of wondering if it will ever happen for you. It’s a unique kind of pain — one that’s lonely, confusing, and yet somehow still filled with hope.

In January of 2022, we decided to pump the brakes on trying to grow our family. I planned to track ovulation only when it felt right and shift my focus back to us. We took the medication that January but canceled all of our fertility appointments.

Then, in February, we found out we were pregnant with our first baby. We were honestly shocked. After so many negative tests, I almost couldn’t believe it — in fact, I wasn’t even with Austin when I took the test.

While I was incredibly happy, I was also filled with nerves and fear about the possibility of loss. For someone who had worked so hard to conceive, it all felt too good to be true. I prayed constantly and tried to hold on to hope, even through the waves of anxiety that came with every milestone.

By the grace of God, we welcomed a healthy baby boy in October of 2022 — our sweet Hughes David.

A year after Hughes was born, we met with our doctor again and started back on Letrozole, beginning to track my cycle once more. This time, there was less pressure and more peace. We already knew my body could conceive and carry a healthy baby, and that brought a sense of hope I hadn’t felt before.

After three months, we found out we were pregnant. I was due for my period but was sure I wasn’t pregnant. Once again, I took a test while Austin wasn’t home — and, sure enough, it was positive.

In September of 2024, our hearts were full and our hands even fuller — we welcomed our second baby boy, Graham Dale, into our lives.

While we’ve always felt called to expand our hearts and home to the children God chooses to bless us with, life was in full swing. We were learning life with two kids, and family planning was the last thing on our minds.

Four months postpartum, I found out I was pregnant — utterly shocked. My first two pregnancies were conceived with the help of Letrozole, and I was still breastfeeding our four-month-old. This time, Austin was home when I took the test, and we simply couldn’t believe it. Shocked but filled with hope and joy, we started dreaming about the future — three under three.

Like with my previous pregnancies, I was on high alert, always bracing myself for heartbreak and struggling to find optimism. On December 31st, 2024, I went in for a dating ultrasound. When no sign of a pregnancy appeared, worry crept in — but I remained hopeful. I was still postpartum and unsure of when conception had occurred. We began trending my HCG levels (the hormone that helps track early pregnancy).

By January 2nd, the numbers looked reassuring. My HCG was rising appropriately, and we assumed everything was progressing normally. But in the early morning hours of January 3rd, I woke up to cramping and bleeding. The next morning, we went to the doctor’s office.

Because my pregnancy had not been seen inside the uterus during my previous scan, I knew this wasn’t a good sign. Another ultrasound confirmed that no pregnancy was visible, and my HCG levels weren’t rising as they should. We were referred to an OBGYN in a nearby town to discuss what this meant.

The doctor explained that everything pointed toward an ectopic pregnancy — one developing outside the uterus — and recommended taking methotrexate to stop the growth. But even though all the signs suggested an ectopic, there was still no ultrasound confirmation.

If you’ve made it this far, you already know how deeply I lean on my faith. Austin and I prayed and talked for hours. It was an incredibly difficult decision — balancing our trust in God with the reality of protecting my health. After an entire day in and out of the doctor’s office, we decided to wait. We wanted to be completely sure before moving forward.

While scared of what was ahead, we stayed hopeful and leaned on each other. On January 4th, we received a call: my HCG was trending down, and the recommendation was to proceed with methotrexate. That afternoon, we accepted that plan.

We spent that Saturday night surrounded by our boys and good friends, trying to process what we were going through. We tucked our boys into bed and finally laid down ourselves. Then the pain began — at first like labor pains, but quickly more intense and unrelenting. I knew something was wrong.

We rushed to the nearest hospital with a surgeon and OBGYN. An ultrasound confirmed what we feared — an ectopic pregnancy that had ruptured and needed surgical removal.

What had already been a heartbreaking experience turned into a terrifying one. In surgery, they had to remove the affected fallopian tube.

Following surgery, I experienced a postoperative complication — a rectus sheath hematoma — that caused excruciating pain and left me completely bedbound. I couldn’t care for myself, my children, or my home.

I honestly lost myself. I had never felt so low. Losing a baby, having my postpartum season with Graham interrupted, being unable to keep up with my toddler, or be a wife to my husband — it all broke me in ways I didn’t know were possible.

For six weeks, I lived in pain, unable to walk, move, or lift my boys. In the thick of it, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Understanding God’s plan felt impossible. Holding onto faith felt out of the question. I was in a deep, dark place — the kind that strips away every sense of control and identity you thought you had.

Healing didn’t happen overnight. It came slowly — in small, quiet ways that I didn’t even recognize at first.

There were days I was angry, days I questioned why this had to be part of my story, and days I felt like I was failing everyone around me. But there were also days when God showed up in whispers — through a helping hand, a friend who checked in at the exact right time, or a simple moment of stillness where I could finally breathe without pain.

It took me a long time to understand that healing doesn’t always look like “getting back to normal.” Sometimes it looks like surrender — letting go of who you were before and learning to embrace who you’re becoming.

When I could finally walk again, when I could lift my babies and tuck them in at night, I realized how much I had taken for granted. The simple things — standing at the sink, folding laundry, making dinner — felt like gifts. God was rebuilding me, piece by piece, and I began to see that this season wasn’t just about recovering my body — it was about restoring my heart.

That’s when “Getting Back to Me” became more than just an idea. It became my lifeline — a way to process, to heal, and to remind myself that even when life feels broken, beauty can be found in the rebuilding.

Looking back now, I can see how God’s hand was at work — even in the moments I couldn’t feel Him. The loss, the pain, the stillness — they weren’t punishments; they were pauses. They made space for perspective, for gratitude, and for a deeper kind of faith that doesn’t depend on everything going right.

When I finally started to heal, both physically and emotionally, I realized I wasn’t coming out of this as the same woman who went in. I was softer, yet stronger. Broken, yet rebuilding. I carried new scars, but they became reminders — not of pain, but of perseverance, grace, and the ones who carried me when I couldn’t stand on my own.

That season taught me that faith doesn’t erase pain — it walks with you through it. It reminded me that even when life feels impossibly heavy, God’s purpose never fades.

I don’t know what the future holds for our family, but I do know this: every child we’ve loved, held, and lost has written a piece of our story. Each has drawn us closer to one another and to the faith that keeps us grounded.

So, to the woman still waiting, still praying, or still grieving — I see you. You’re not alone. Your story is still unfolding, and there is beauty ahead — even if you can’t see it yet. 💛