2 False Positives or an Early Miscarriage?

Yesterday on Instagram I shared something that left me feeling very vulnerable.
I almost didn’t post it. I almost said no this is too much.
But even though it felt scary, I wanted to share my experience. So I did.
And I’ve been so touched by all of you.

“Feeling a little bit vulnerable with today’s video.
But I felt like I was gonna bust if I didn’t put into words what I’ve been feeling.
Struggling with 2 positive pregnancy tests followed many negative ones.
Not sure if they were false positives or if it was an early miscarriage…
but feeling all the emotions lately.
Wanted to share my experience and heart on this topic.
Focusing on all that I have to be grateful for and just praying for my heart
that it has peace with whatever happened. @blesnefsky has been so great through it all.
My new necklace from @lisaleonard has special meaning to me now. ”

A month ago, I started feeling funny. I noticed things that I felt when I usually first find out I’m pregnant.
I get bloated. I get nauseas. and I’m moody as heck. haha.
I usually find out EARLY if I’m expecting.
For the month I chalked it up to moving craziness…. But the other day I dropped Micah off at preschool
and at a red light threw up into a trash bag. I went straight home and took a pregnancy test. It was positive!!
I paced around the house with emotions of joy and fear all jumbled together.
Excited because I KNOW what this little positive test means…it means another sweet little one is joining our
family and I have all of those amazing memories of my other kids to reflect on.
I know it’s hard… and exhausting…
but I know how I see their faces when they are born and couldn’t imagine our family without them.
couldn’t imagine life without them.
I felt fear because I doubted if I was a good enough mom to have 5 kids. 5 sounds like a lot.
I grew up in a house of 4 kids so that is familiar territory.
5 is a mystery that only friends were brave enough to handle. haha. I
cried but not tears because I was sad. it was “what the heck oh my gosh oh my gosh is this real there’s
another little person who is supposed to be in our family?!” tears.
I held Asher and told him you’re not the baby anymore! you’re a big brother?!!

I took another test later in the day because I just wanted to be sure.
I felt like it couldn’t be real maybe the test was wrong.
It came back positive again.
We talked baby names. We talked about how we would tell my parents but wait to tell everyone else.
We talked possible due dates and the fact that I would finally not be pregnant during the summer. haha.
We went there. All in. But I still wasn’t sure it was real.
I ended up taking more tests over the past 2 weeks….all were negative.
I was all together confused and a big ball of emotions.
I kept thinking the next one would be positive again…
We went away on retreat that weekend and I tried to just find peace with all of it.

I think over this past week I’ve been trying to figure out the appropriate way I should be feeling.
But…I feel sad. I feel like I had something and then I lost it.
A part of me feels like I shouldn’t be upset. I mean look…
I’m blessed with 4 sweet kids. I should be grateful.
But I believe that a life begins at conception… so either
1. it was a false positive. or 2. it was a baby that very early on, didn’t continue developing.
I feel weird calling it a miscarriage even though I know there are many types of miscarriages.
Different terms for them depending on the stage of your pregnancy.
I feel like I’m grieving the loss of someone I didn’t even know.

I’m still feeling strange about the whole thing…
just sad and confused and a tad guilty about feeling sad.
If I’m being perfectly honest.
Just trying to stay open with Ben about my emotions. Communicating.
I know I have the tendency to bottle it up but I think it would bubble over into other things and I don’t want it too.
I wanted to put that all down here in case anyone else is feeling these things too.
It’s ok. and we’ll be ok.

I wrote the above post earlier this week..but never posted it. I eventually filmed a video
because I felt like if I didn’t speak it I would just burst.
I can’t thank you guys enough for your comments on my Instagram post and video…
Your kind words and all the heart sharing mean so much to me.
I read every single one. Cried over most. 💕 It was scary to post it but I’m so glad I did.
It’s hard to feel sad when I look at this sweet babe.
He makes me smile and was a total flirt at the grocery store today.
I mean… Batting his eyes at anyone who was in his path.
Tonight the youth group girls are coming over for our kickoff night of Girls’ Group!
I’ve been looking forward to it and I’m excited to chat and eat Doritos with them. :)

Thank you again for following a long with us on our family journey.
It is always a little scary sharing so much but I feel like there is a bigger picture, and that we need each other.
We need to share our real thoughts and emotions and not make everything so picture perfect all the time.
It’s helped me heal a lot by sharing about this experience and my feelings.
I hope that you feel encouraged to do the same.