Addie Rae: If I Could Go Back . . .

(Taken from personal family blog)

I found out I was pregnant on January 22nd which was our fifth month anniversary. At this point I would give a million dollars if I could to go back and change my initial reaction. I so badly wish that I could say I was jumping up and down for joy and that I was so excited to be starting on this new journey with my amazing husband; because the truth is that this IS an exciting journey. . . it just took me awhile to realize it.

The 22nd was a Wednesday and I got off early from work that day. All day while I was sitting in the office I couldn’t shake the feeling that our lives were about to completely change. I had no idea that 35 miles away was my husband who was feeling the same persistent impression. I still don’t know how I was able to safely drive from work because my mind was racing a mile a minute, as far as I know I was the only car on the freeway that day. Instead of going straight home I stopped at a grocery store and instead of buying just one pregnancy test I bought two.

On the pregnancy test it says to wait two minutes for the results to be final. Not even 10 seconds passed that I was staring at the huge unmistakable positive plus sign. I actually waited the full two minutes just to see if the positive sign would somehow change to a negative sign. It felt like the longest two minutes of my life but the sign never changed. At that point I think I entered shock. I wasn’t planning on using the second pregnancy test right away. It was our fifth month anniversary and Danny had a date planned for that night so I was debating on waiting to use the second test for the next morning since I had the day off and would be home all day. Soon after I got a text from Danny saying that he was going to be a little late coming home because his dad needed his truck so he had to wait a little before getting it back. While waiting for Danny I knew that there was no way I would be able to go through our whole date and night without telling him about the pregnancy test hidden in our bathroom. At that point I wanted to take away all doubts so I took the test again. Just like the first time the positive sign came up quickly and clearly and at that time the tears fell down hard.

I can’t say that I was surprised because honestly we weren’t preventing it from happening; I was just so shocked that it happened so quickly. Even though I knew that Danny and I had done nothing wrong and that we were financially in a position where we could have a baby I still could not stop the tears from falling. I bawled like a baby just thinking of the fact that I had a little baby growing inside of my body. I felt inadequate and scared. I also felt selfish as I thought about all the woman out there who would do anything to trade places and have a baby on the way. It seemed like forever before Danny walked in through the door. Once he finally came home he immediately gave me the world’s biggest hug. He kept asking me what was wrong and then he asked who died in my family. Wow I must have looked pathetic because “what’s wrong?” turned into “who died?”. I still couldn’t bring myself to say the words out loud though so I silently showed him both of the pregnancy tests. I’ve been known to pull pranks on him in the past but because of my reaction he knew this was nothing but the truth.

Danny handled the news a lot better than I did. On top of all of my confusing emotions I also started to feel bad because I felt like Danny had no one to be excited with. Danny was being prepared all day with his own personal experiences so my news wasn’t the biggest shock to him. I seriously married the most understanding and patient man and the thing that got me through the whole first trimester was the comforting fact that our baby will have this man as the father. I am now at a point where I wish time will just fly by because I can’t wait to hold this little baby in my arms. I can’t wait to see the look in Danny’s eyes when he first sees sight of our child. I can’t wait to see the baby’s first grin and hear the baby’s first giggle.

Even though it took me awhile to embrace this pregnancy and there are a lot of things that STILL terrify me about pregnancy I am glad (glad is an understatement) to know that I do NOT have to worry or wonder about whether or not this baby is meant to be here. In fact I truly feel like God wanted this baby here months ago; but I kept fighting it and putting it off. I had a lot of worldly excuses like finances, my body, what others might think and I really did not want to be pregnant for our one year anniversary. Danny felt very strong impressions about me using birth control pills – he doesn’t have any opinions on the pill itself – he just didn’t feel good about the timing of it. He felt like we were preventing ourselves from being in a situation where we would have to fully rely on God’s will and at that time I felt very differently (I loved the pills lol). Anyways I kind of started to not like my ward’s Relief Society because every Sunday without fail I would feel guilty when motherhood was brought up and I felt like they were talking straight to me which I felt was crazy because I had only been married one month, two months, three months. . . I felt the same way during General Conference that I was supposed to put myself in a position where I had to trust in God. I couldn’t understand why I would feel so guilty taking the pills because I honestly loved them and I would still be on them now if I went with my plan instead of God’s plan. One time while Danny and I were reading scriptures he made this comment “we know from serving missions that God’s plan is to create families and teach them the gospel, so shouldn’t we talk to Him about His plan instead of us making the decision ourselves of when that plan should start?”. This comment kind of hit me hard because up to that point I had never prayed about it. I made the decision all on my own that I wanted to wait two years before even considering expanding our family. A couple of weeks passed by and I was sitting in Danny’s institute class when I felt super strongly that it was time to get off the pill. Even though that feeling was strong, I still ignored it. I hadn’t even been married three months at that point and the idea of getting off the pill freaked me out. I didn’t say anything about that moment to Danny until late on Christmas Eve almost two months later (I'm a horrible wife). It was that night after prayer and after talking with Danny that I decided to get off the pill.

**Side note: it takes 6 months to a year to even get pregnant when stopping birth control is a big fat lie. I got pregnant right away.**

If I could go back and change my reaction – I would. If I could go back and change the way I never sincerely prayed about my husband’s promptings – I also would. If I could go back and change how I ignored all those promptings I personally received – I absolutely would. I no longer want to put my will before God’s. I thought I had learned this lesson on my mission but apparently I hadn’t. I am so happy that we are not going through with “my” plan because there is nothing more perfect than the plan our Heavenly Father has for us.