Late January/Early February of 2013 I went to Pennsylvania to visit my best friend, Ashley, who was expecting her firstborn, a daughter.  She was having her baby shower on the 2nd of February and asked if I could lead a "devotional" of sorts with the women who would be there.  "I know it isn't traditional for a baby shower," she told me.  "But it is so important to me that our daughter is raised under Godly principles, so I want my baby shower to keep a biblical focus."  I thought the idea was great, and I naturally agreed and began putting together all that I wanted to share with the women who were going to, in one way or another, impact this little girl's life.

That January my little sister was getting married.  I had never met her fiance, but I was traveling to Northern Michigan from Central New York to be part of the wedding.  I hadn't really seen my sister in a year, and, for many reasons, I was very nervous.  My sister and I were very close, but had fallen out of touch over that year.  The whole story is for another blog post entirely, but, all that to say, I had been afraid that our relationship was never going to be what it was.  Some arguments between family members never recover.  Thankfully ours did, and we are just as close as we were, if not closer.  But I had been dealing with so much on my own that I was very nervous about how I would handle the whole wedding week.

During the month of December of 2012, I spent a lot of time alone with my thoughts.  I could pinpoint certain emotions I was feeling, but I was so quick to try and dismiss them without really thinking through why I felt the way I felt.  I decided to do some journal-writing that month.  First I wrote down the individual emotions that I was feeling, then I took some time to expand on each emotion separately.  It has always been helpful to me to write down my feelings.  I am not very good at verbal emotional expression, so the best way for me to really process my feelings, is to write.  Over the next few posts, I'm going to be sharing some segments of my journal entries from that time, because it does the best job at explaining how I actually felt then, and not just my memory of how I felt.

We had been living in New York for just four months when my parents came for their first visit. Well, it wasn't an ordinary visit, I suppose. There was a women's event that our church was hosting and my mom traveled here to speak. My mom is very active in speaking out on behalf of the voiceless in the stand against abortion. In fact, here's a little free advertising, mom!... Check out her website here! 10% of all her proceeds as an artist go to support her local Right to Life organization.

Anyway... to continue on with my original story....

Mitch graduated from University that May, after we had been staying with his parents for about 4 1/2 months. Graduation was so good, and so bad at the same time. My best friend was graduating with Mitch, so she and her husband came to Canada for the ceremony. It was such a blessing to see my husband and best friend graduate together. I loved sharing in their accomplishment as well as spending time with good friends. I remember as part of the ceremony, we sang Be Thou my Vision. We sang the verse that goes:


Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:
be thou mine inheritance now and always;
be thou and thou only the first in my heart;
O High King of heaven, my treasure thou art...

And so we began the second year. Shortly into that year, my first nephew was born. I really was excited to be an aunt. I never just pretended to be happy; I legitimately was happy and I truly loved my little nephew. I was excited for the day that it would be me taking my little one home from the hospital, and the wait hurt, but there was underlying excitement for what lay in store...

When we first started trying to grow our family, we told only a few very close friends. I didn't want anyone to know. Everyone seems to have an opinion about when you should start a family. Most people I knew didn't have an opinion that jived very well with mine. I knew too many people thought I was too young, so I kept my feelings to myself. I knew couples who had been married longer than I had who thought, "No way! I don't want kids yet!"...I guess in a way I was embarrassed that I wanted so badly to be a mom right away, so I put on the act of not wanting kids. I figured that when I got pregnant, people would just accept it and be excited...no longer concerned if I were too young or whatever.

I went through a long period feeling like wanting kids was a bad thing. I felt like every dream or ambition that I had, people thought, "Why would you want to do that?!" Like it was foolish. So I watched people I loved get excited for everyone who became pregnant, knowing that if it were me, no one would be excited... Or that is how I felt, at least...