Angels and a Rainbow

Four years ago, I was a 18 year old girl sick to her stomach over the smell of dog food. I instantly knew what it meant...I was pregnant. I was dating the father and although we were a bit nervous since we were both still young, we were also so darn excited that God chose us to be parents and we fully trusted his plan. Fast forward 3 weeks later...I see blood. Again instantly I knew what was happening but waited to go to the ER for a few days. Miscarriage has a way of showing up in your life when you least expect it. I wasn’t even planning on getting pregnant, but I did and now I was miscarrying. Why? How is that fair? It's not. But it was God's will and we had to trust Him.

The next few months my boyfriend and I continued about our normal lives and later that year he proposed. Yes I was engaged at 19 and had been pregnant once that ended in a miscarriage. About a month later my mom suggested that I take a pregnancy test because she just had this ‘feeling’. This pregnancy ended with a healthy little boy we named Jaxton. Our sweet rainbow baby. When Jaxton was almost 2 I found out I was pregnant again. We were definitely not expecting it but we were so excited. We had our normal monthly doctors appointments, set up a 20 week ultrasound (the one where you find out the gender), and went about our normal lives while this sweet babe grew inside me. I had a routine check-up the day before my 20 week ultrasound that didn’t go as expected. The doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat on the Doppler or ultrasound. My heart shattered. I am a healthy young woman, why is this happening AGAIN?! My body never naturally miscarried so I ended up having to have a D&C and shortly after went into a severe state of anxiety and depression. It was so bad that my doctor had me undergo a MRI to make sure it wasn't a brain tumor. 

A few months later after lots of physical and mental healing, my doctor called to tell me that the pathology reports came back from the fetus and showed Downs Syndrome. Somehow this created a sense of immediate relief. I’m sure you’re thinking “how can someone be relieved by that?”. Here’s the thing though; God knew something we never even considered and did what He knew was best. We never did the genetic testing because we would have never terminated the pregnancy even if we had found out about the diagnosis early on, we would always have chosen life for our sweet babe. But God knew that a person with Downs Syndrome would live a more challenging life. There would have been struggles, complications, who knows what else, and instead He chose to take our baby into his arms and make him perfect.

I am 22 years old, I’m married to the same guy I was dating at 18, have had 3 pregnancies, 2 miscarriages, and one healthy baby here on Earth. My Tiny Tags bracelet has two angel wings on it, as a beautiful reminder of our two angel babies. My necklace has Jaxton's name - our sweet babe here with us. I’m a young woman who has honestly been dealt a pretty rough hand when it comes to pregnancy, that being said, I wouldn’t change a single thing that has happened to me, because through both the tough and great times, I have learned to lean on God and trust in Him.