The seeds that die...

This time last year was a really exciting time. After years of not feeling ready for another baby, we planned at least a year in advance that this would be the time we would get pregnant again after 5 years of feeling anxious about having a second child...or any child ever, I finally felt ready and excited. These were mine and James' secret plans to have a baby around summer 2019. On the months coming up to our planned time to 'try' we had plenty of prophetic words about having a baby girl even from someone I'd never met before! One of the prophesies was that I would have a girl and she would bring so much joy to my life and family!

This was so exciting, I soooo wanted a girl and had a name picked out years in advance, had planned work holidays and work commitments around her arrival. I am one of those women who just don't even need to try to get pregnant, I'm pretty sure if I look at a child, I can just inhale them and BOOM and pregnant!

This maybe triggering for some of you reading, if you want to skip at any time but want to get to the GOOD BITS if you scroll down and look for ****signs I will put there for you so you can skip ahead!

Almost immediately, without knowing I got pregnant and before I knew it, I lost my baby. It was sad and there were a few tears but I just carried on. Unfortunately these things happen and sometimes our bodies can fight a pregnancy...as google told me. Very quickly after that I got pregnant again but didn't find out for a while as I didn't really have morning sickness, I found out around November time and I was soooooo excited! I was a little further on than I realised but shared with our staff and trustees at our Christmas party and since there's such a big gap between this one and Justice (my now 6 year old) everyone was so surprised and were happy celebrating with us! That Christmas time wasn't an easy time, I struggled with sickness and fatigue before I was pregnant and had held back on getting pregnant before because I had struggled so much with ongoing sickness, I didn't know if we would cope if I was pregnant and sick. So I just decided in faith that I would go for it and believe for this pregnancy/birthing season to bring a reset to my body as well.

I spent much of Christmas season in and out of hospital, we had some scares with this pregnancy but scans showed the baby was growing and my pregnancy hormones were still going up and were high. So I would be in tears of fear and relief quite a lot. But thank God the baby was growing! I was so excited I just decided to order some baby girls clothes online in faith and just couldn't wait to have her! Around the end of January 2019 I was having pains...I'd had a lot of pains in this pregnancy so I'd got used to it and I was at work and I was in a long staff meeting and the pain was getting severe I had to sway on my seat. After, James was leaving to pick up Justice from school, I begged him to take me home first, I wasn't coping with the pain. So I went home and by the time James was back from school run, he returned to me on the floor on my hands and knees.

James wondered if I'd eaten something and I needed the toilet or if I'd lost the baby. I said no its just pain...the worst I'd had. I thought to myself, I would have noticed if the baby had left my body, I would have felt something and I didn't feel like I needed the toilet. James was supposed to go back to work and I said I was fine he should just go, but he lingered for a while. Following James' advice I went to see if I just needed a big poo! As I sat down to check...I felt the baby come out. I knew straight away what it was and just gasped thinking PLEASE GOD NO! James heard me and came to the bathroom. I got up and explained what had happened. We don't have a light in our bathroom and it had gotten dark so James turned his phone light on over the toilet so I could get the baby. I will save you the gruesome details but after I had packed and cleaned up everything I could see in the dark, we dropped Justice at my mums house and went to the hospital.

Picture from hospital...pulling silly faces to lighten up!

One of the baby clothes I bought in faith

They kept me in overnight and somehow even though I had the baby in a tub next to my bed I thought...maybe by some miracle I'm still pregnant. They didn't check the tub with the baby inside I had brought when I went to the hospital, they did some check ups and examinations...not pleasant but said they'd scan me in the morning. I already had my 12+ week scan booked the next day so I just stayed over night so they could make sure I didn't lose too much blood.

The nurses were so lovely and reassured me that they've experienced babies surviving these types of things so I felt comforted. It did help me survive the lonely night in the hospital even though I had held and was sleeping next to a box with my baby in, I am so thankful for those nurses. I didn't want to fall apart on my own if I had hope.

The next day my mum and James were with me at the hospital, I got up and had a shower and even did my make up ready to receive good news. I kept reassuring James that the nurses said babies had survived this. A nurse or doctor (I can't remember which) came and talked about options if the baby had already passed I could just go home, or if it was dead inside I would have to have a pill and then it would come out. I still held on to hoping everything was ok, it didn't make sense to be feeling the worst if the worst hadn't happened yet. I thought, it was dark last night, maybe my eyes played tricks on me, I saw a baby, a very small baby in my hand, but it was dark, maybe it was just blood and something else. I went to the scan, they checked best they could and handled it very medically and not emotionally, which helped me keep it together when they told me they can't find anything there anymore. I thanked them and left the room and it was a tough walk. Because of the examinations, I'd been given my own room.

I got to the door, mum and James were waiting for the news in there. I knew as soon as I walk in the room it wasn't medical anymore, the trauma of the night before was made real and I had to tell James what was in my hands the night before. He couldn't look at the time and while he turned away and sobbed I was trying to wash off the blood that covered the body. His sadness gave me strength to just pull myself together and just have faith in that moment, I kept repeating "Maybe its just blood." to calm him down the night before. I stood in front of the door getting more and more emotional, I looked around the ward for something to distract me so I didn't break into tears. I really didn't want to cry. I saw pictures of babies all over the walls. I didn't have any courage for the moment and didn't want to talk. I went into the room and my mum and James were behind the curtains at my bed. I shut the door behind me and was silent, trying to just control my breathing. They were asking me from behind the curtain what had happened. I was silent, I wanted to say what happened in a normal voice that didn't sound sad, but couldn't get the sound out. James came behind the curtains and just hugged me and I don't even remember what I said but James just sat down on the floor next to the wall so sad and cried. I just stood there for a while and then went for another shower so I could be by myself and cry as much as I wanted without worrying about James feeling the need to comfort me when he was struggling.

Some family gave us some money to go to a hotel for a couple of nights, I couldn't go back to the house yet, I didn't want to use our bathroom for a while as you can imagine so this was a huge relief! I was VERY thankful!

In the days away James and I laughed together, cried together, prayed together, named both the babies we had lost together and buried the baby together.

******** I didn't have moments of "whys" or "why God" or times of questioning my faith. I didn't need a why. To me, these are just things that happen unfortunately. It's horrible and I had days where I just didn't know how I'd ever get over this. I did have some people tell me this is something that you just don't ever get over. For some that maybe a really comforting and reassuring thing to hear...to me I had to go back to God about that, because I wasn't satisfied with it. I have babies in heaven, yes I was traumatised, yes I was torn up inside about...but they have found a peace and a joy in their place now and I just felt that was something I need too. I needed peace and joy about where they are right now and I couldn't believe that, that was impossible.

I am definitely closer to that place, I do still feel sad about the loss I experienced but I can honestly say I am getting over that trauma and grief and I do believe one day I will be at a place of joy for my babies I will meet later. Thats where my faith is at now.

The BIGGEST help...

So this next part maybe a little out there for some, that's ok, this is just what brought me great peace about this baby I lost in particular and I really felt like this is the biggest reason I wanted to share my experience, because it brought a whole new perspective on life and loss that brought great peace in a time of pain. So I never asked God for a why but I felt he gifted me with the why.

The day after we arrived at our hotel I was talking with James about the scripture John 12:24 "Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." I said, probably in tears, I know it sounds weird but I think maybe this baby was supposed to go. James then said he'd been thinking about an amazing Christian minister from Australia called Neville Johnson who had shared a couple of stories. The first one was about when a couple with a dying baby went to him asking him to pray that their baby would be healed. As Neville went to pray for the baby he said he just felt like it was as if the spirit of the baby was saying "No, I have planted my seed and fulfilled my assignment in this world...I need to go now." Neville Johnson's daughter went on a mission trip as a young person and left him a letter. She ended up dying on the mission field and when she had died he opened the letter and found she had gone prepared to die for the gospel!!! She had said that she was a seed and her assignment would be complete on this mission.

Neville talked about how some seed is of such quality, it doesn't need long on this earth to fulfil its assignment.

Hearing this on my hotel bed brought so much hope and faith! I prayed to God,

LORD let me carry the seeds released by these babies who have gone, let me carry them well, let these seeds bring healing and revival! Let me carry them to the ends of this world and bring so much more healing than any trauma or pain I've felt cannot compare to! Let this pain be so worth it for the miracles I'll see! I don't wanna just lay hands on people who want a baby and they get one, I don't just want a nice song that will minister to a few people. I wanna carry the weight of these revival seeds on my sound! I want the world to be impacted by the assignment on the seeds that have died. Let my sound carry resurrection power and anointing! God I just want to carry and release these seeds you've allowed to be in me for a while.

Will I ever have my baby girl that was prophesied or did I lose her?

After this conversation I was out at the pound shop near our hotel and saw a baby vest that said 'born in 2019' I decided I'd buy this in faith, that I would have a baby this year! When I got to the car, James was inside I think listening to a teaching or reading the bible or both but had read the scripture Genesis 26:12 "Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundred times what was sown. The LORD blessed him," We felt like this was God speaking to us that this baby would still come this year!

Not long after, I got pregnant again very quickly and now I am about 30 weeks pregnant!!!!! I did have some pain and scares with this pregnancy at the beginning so I did have to battle some fear especially because I didn't want to announce it and then have to tell people I'd lost another. But as I write I have a little girl who is kicking me! She is due just after I turn 30 in November!!!

I wanted to share everything and not just the good news of my pregnancy as I know there are people who have gone through this and much, much worse! I want you to know, you who have lost...nothing is ever wasted and seeds are multiplied! You still carry the multiplied seed of that baby...your babies seed was so precious and of such quality that it has multiplied! It's not your fault and the Father wants to bring healing to you! I am still healing, but I'm not where I was back in January and February. I had down days a lot over the months and I even struggled to be excited for this baby I carry. I had so much fear and sadness that only God has been healing over time. I now remember the prophetic word about 'the baby girl coming to bring so much joy in my life and to my family' and now that prophetic word is a weapon when my mind is at war when Im worried finances won't work or when I worry if she will survive or if she's ok.

And for those of you who may not have carried a baby yet but have struggled to get pregnant YET...I'm believing with you for your miracle! Maybe you're a Hannah, who's crying out for a baby but heaven may be saving your womb for quality seed that might need birthing in prayer and not just physical efforts. God closed her womb so she could birth a prophet...who knows who you could be carrying soon!

Songs that helped...

Through the tough times over christmas when I was in and out of hospital and also battling illness I listened to a song I really didn't like when I first heard it, but suddenly I related to. It was an Avril Lavigne song she wrote about her battle with Lymes disease. So much of what she was singing I really felt in both this battle against sickness and pregnancy fears.

After the last miscarriage I could only listen to worship the following week, I couldn't sing, I couldn't get the words and the sound out but there was one song I listened to that I wanted to sing so badly but couldn't get the words out and would just cry through it, I was asked to lead worship a while back at my home church The Ramp. One of the things I love there is if you are going through rough stuff they will give you grace to pull out but they also understand that sometimes you need to give people the chance to give a sacrifice of praise.

There are rare times in your life (we hope so anyway) that you feel this much pain, but these are the times you really want to take the chance to lift up a real sacrifice of praise. It's such a beautiful moment with you and God. So in the end I decided to lead worship with a friend of mine, she led the first song and I led this song that I really wanted to sing to God but even in private hadn't yet been able to sing past one line. On the sunday night, I did have my moments where I stumbled over my words but I just sang with all of my heart...

I don't understand Your ways Oh but I will give You my song Give You all of my praise You hold on to all my pain With it You are pulling me closer And pulling me into Your ways

Now around every corner And up every mountain I'm not looking for crowns Or the water from fountains I'm desperate in seeking, frantic believing That the sight of Your face Is all that I need I will say to You

It's gonna be worth it It's gonna be worth it It's gonna be worth it all I believe this

You're gonna be worth it,

You're gonna be worth it,

You're gonna be worth it all

You're so worth it

You're so worth it

You're so worth it all

Gonna be worth it by Rita Springer