Planned by God

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29: 11

I'm a planner. I may not always be very organized, but I do like to plan things. I enjoy carefully thinking out our future. I had plans to go to college and become a nurse. Check. I had plans to get married soon after college. Check. I had plans to start a family a few years into our marriage. Check. I have plans for our house, plans for future birthday parties, plans for having friends over. Sometimes my original plans change and things take a different course. I often get so busy in my own planning that I forget that God also has a plan for my life, just as He does for everyone. Though I'm not privi to His plan and all its many details, I have to trust that it is good and perfect for me.

When we started trying for a baby, I didn't know what to expect. But I did think we would get pregnant fairly easily. Well 9 months and 2 rounds of Clomid later, Brad and I got the most wonderful news we could imagine - I was pregnant! Nearly 8 months and lots of discomfort later we welcomed the most perfect 7lb and 9 oz of baby boy I could imagine. Life was good! Things didn't go exactly as planned as far as my timing of becoming parents, but it was God's PERFECT timing. If I had gotten pregnant right away, we wouldn't have my beautiful Will. God is AWESOME! How could I imagine life any better than to be the mommy of this sweet boy? He captures my heart every day and every day I love him more.

He has grown into such a fun little boy. He is walking everywhere and saying Mama, Dada and uh-oh regularly. He smiles and giggles often. He loves to throw ball and shrieks with excitement when he sees the dogs or his Daddy. I was planning to just enjoy him for awhile. Just soak up his baby/toddlerhood and teach him lots of things. God had some bigger plans in store. Plans to make him a big brother!

And MUCH sooner than we planned. But who am I to question God? I have to admit, when I saw this:

And this:

And this:

I was pretty shocked. Brad was stunned. (3 positive pregnancy tests later we finally believed it). How did we go from trying for months and taking Clomid to a surprise pregnancy? That was not in our plans! But it was in God's plans and has been since the beginning. God is giving us an awesome gift: another child! How blessed are we? Some couples struggle for years before becoming parents. Some are never able to have their own. And God chose to give us another baby. God has given me something else, too. PEACE.

Because we weren't trying for a baby and I just happened to take a test, I wasn't sure how far along I was. I wanted to go to the doctor a few weeks after finding out but I couldn't get an appointment until a month later unless I came the week I found out. I figured I was probably 6 weeks along. We did an ultrasound and we didn't see anything. At first I was calm, but after I had a chance to soak in what the doctor said (probably just early, but possibly a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy), I became very upset. Then God gave me Peace. I felt that whatever happened, no matter what, God was in control and everything would be fine.


They drew my blood Friday to check my hormone levels and I went back in Monday for a recheck to compare. Your hcg levels should double every 48-72 hours). At Monday's appointment he told me my hcg was 631 Friday, which my doctor was very happy with. It has to be at least 2500 to see anything on ultrasound, which meant we were too early to see anything Friday. The nurse was supposed to call me Tuesday after lunch to let me know what Monday's numbers were. I felt at peace all day. When my phone rang around 1:30 I ran into the break room, anxious to hear what my hcg was. We were hoping for 1200.

The nurse broke the news to me "It was less than one."

"Less than one?" I repeated, not believing what I was hearing.

"Less than one, sweety. That's a negative result."

My heart sank. Tears rolled down my cheeks. "So that means I'll miscarry? Can that be right? Can it really drop that fast? It was 631 on Friday and I had another positive test yesterday before my appointment." Through sobs, I offered to come and do another blood draw.

She confirmed that because levels double so quickly, they could drop just as quickly. She denied my request to repeat the test. My worst nightmare seemed to be coming true. I barely knew this baby. 10 days before I didn't think I wanted another baby right now, but then once I found out that he or she was coming, I wanted nothing more than to have this baby. I started begging God not to let me lose this baby. I was hysterical, begging Him to not let this be true. Then God restored the peace I had felt before. He told me everything would be OK. I told Him that no matter what, I trusted Him and I loved Him. I told Him I desperately wanted to keep my baby, but if that was not His plan, I was ok with it. With peace came clarity that hcg has to be at least 25 to make a home pregnancy test turn positive. Something was amiss.


The nurse called back at 5:30. She had spoken with my doctor and they wanted me to repeat the test the next day. Since I had to be at work at 5:45 the next morning, I decided to get it done at the hospital where I work. I told a friend in the lab what was going on. She drew my blood and told me they had to send it to the bigger hospital 15 minutes away, since our lab didn't process that particular test. Hope welled up inside of me. I tried to surpress it and brace myself for bad news, but I just couldn't help but be optimistic that my numbers would be great! My lab friend called me at 11:30. My hcg was 4,506!! I was the victim of a lab error! My baby was ok!

My nurse had told me to call at 1:00 to get the results. I called but she was at lunch. When she called me at 2:20, she still didn't have the results, so I told her what the lab lady had told me. She said "Wow! We'll take that!". She put me on hold and spoke with my doctor, who was 'very happy with that number' and wanted to me to come back on April 13th for a second ultrasound. The nurse and I discussed the probability that someone else had gotten my positive results the day I got their negative ones. Though there was no way to track the lady down and correct the error, the nurse did say she would speak to the lab manager about the issue. What a whirlwind!

We returned April 13th for the ultrasound. I was so nervous. I asked God to restore the peace he had shown me in the weeks before. I also asked that my blood pressure be normal this visit because the past 2 visits it was slightly elevated and I didn't want my doctor to worry. I was able to immediately relax. My blood pressure ended up being great and the only thing that bothered me was that I needed to use the bathroom (they want your bladder full to help position your uterus better in early ultrasounds). They finally called me back to the ultrasound room and we saw the most wonderful thing:

Our baby perfect and whole with an obvious flicker of a heartbeat at 148 beats per minute. This little one is due December 1st, but I'm betting he or she will be here mid to late November.

God indeed has big plans for this little one!