This was a journal entry written on July 5th, 2020.

Today, three weeks after returning home from our annual Team Tilmes retreat, I’m writing out our 2020-21 goals and intentions on notecards and hanging them up. In the past, I eagerly wrote and hung them right after coming home. But this year was different. Our annual trip ended quite terribly and made me want to do nothing but cover up those goals and intentions until right now.

We drove to Louisville on a Friday with the best kind of secret: we were pregnant. 12 weeks, with our formal ultrasound scheduled the following Wednesday. At 8 weeks, we went to the OB, heard a strong heartbeat, and were given a due date of January 3rd. The unknown was so exciting– would we have a boy or a girl? Would our baby come early before the new year or hold out until 2021? What would life be like as a family of three? I’ve really never felt so excited or in love or curious about a person I didn’t know at all.

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The week before I miscarried, I stopped feeling nauseous. For the first ten weeks of my pregnancy, I felt mildly sick all the time. The thought of certain foods could make me gag, and in general, nothing sounded appetizing at all. But right around week 11, which in hindsight was the week before I miscarried, I felt fine. So fine that when friends asked how I was feeling I would say “I actually don’t feel nauseous at all anymore. I hope that’s a kind gift from God and not the sign of something bad, but I feel totally fine!”

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For weeks after our hospital visit, I cried.

I cried because we lost our first baby. I cried because it felt unfair that we waited twenty months to have to wade through (drown in?) this pain. I cried because the plans we were dreaming up in early January suddenly and without warning were cancelled. I cried because my husband experienced the same events in different ways, and I hurt for him, too.  I cried because I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I cried when I imagined opening myself up to the vulnerability of being pregnant again. I cried when I considered opening myself up to the vulnerability of talking to God about my hurt. I cried because there was life growing in me and then there was not. I cried out of anger at my body, which wasn’t doing what I always thought it was supposed to. I cried when we got a package of props I ordered for our announcement photo because it felt like a cruel reminder of what we no longer needed. I cried when I cleaned off my dresser and found the pregnancy test I had been saving for a memory book — now a memory of loss. I cried when friends dropped off flowers because the grace of God felt close. I cried when friends responded with thoughtful words. I cried when friends responded with honest words admitting they didn’t know what to say, but that they cared, because I believed them. I cried when friends who have been through the same thing responded with heartbreak because it hurt to know they knew the feelings. I cried over friends who didn’t respond at all. I cried when a friend stopped by to drop off bread just because — she didn’t know my news — and it was the first time I said “I had a miscarriage” out loud. One day I got in my car and I cried a lot. I cried because it was the only thing I felt I could do. I cried on the first day my life started to feel “normal” again: at the moment I realized I hadn’t cried at all that day. I cried during group prayer at a friend’s baby shower. I cried in the shower when I thought Danny couldn’t hear. I cried at times without knowing why I was crying.

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We were half way through quarantine when I lost an appetite for coffee and meat and really all foods that weren’t cold or white (cold AND white? Even better!). I didn’t know it at the time, but my body was changing, which I’d find out the day before Danny’s birthday. My period was several days late, so I decided to pee on a stick, and did that nervous back-and-forth-pace in the bathroom until two minutes passed and the vibrant plus sign was undeniable– we were pregnant.

I have peed on many sticks over the last two years, but none have been pregnancy tests until April. Every month I pulled out an ovulation test to confirm that, yes, my cycle was “regular” and, yes, I was ovulating. But I never needed to take the other test– the one we all want to take unless we don’t — because my period always came… right on time. And then it didn’t.

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