One year today...

One year ago today I started this blog, with at first writing a note  a few days before on Facebook to let you all know about the news of our pregnancy. I was super nervous about starting this blog as I am not much of a writer, but this blog really became an outlet for me to lift some weight, share my experience and what I was feeling, which was much needed in my journey with Trisomy 18. This blog helped me to feel comforted by so many of your comments and knowing that with each read people were praying for our baby. 

At the time of starting this blog I was really praying for a happy ending. My happy ending. As the days continued I read more and more stories of others who had walked this road of Trisomy 18 before me and knew that I needed to find my happy ending in not bringing home our baby, but in growing in my relationship in Christ, who I needed to rely on to get me through this journey so much more than I ever experienced and in hopes that our story can change the lives of others down the road. As I continued to rely, pray and read God's word, I began to pray for God's will for our baby's life and for my husband and I's, not my own will. It was a bit of a freeing experience as I continued with the pregnancy. I use freeing kind of loosely, because it didn't lift all the weight of worry and fear that I felt, but I knew God had Gracie's life in His best interest and that He created her just the way she was for His purpose. 

I read the following verses the other day and wanted to share with you, as they brought some comfort and insight to myself. 

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 - “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. ¹⁶ If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. ¹⁷ But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, ¹⁸ I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. ¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, ²⁰ loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Gracie is engraved into my heart and soul, with that I am changed forever and for the better at that. Thank you, God, for allowing me to be a mother to a beautiful angel and for granting me the courage to be open with my family and friends. I pray that one day in your perfect timing, God, that you will fulfill our desire for Corey and I to write a story of a brother or sister for Gracie.

Thank you so much for reading and continuing to read our story. Please feel free to share if you ever know someone who is going through what we did or similar.