Noah's Rainbow

  Listen to this post here      My husband will be the first to tell you: I am a control freak. I have been this way for as long as I can remember. I like to plan things way in advance and when things get off schedule, I do not handle it well. I utilize the calendar in my phone, we have a giant command center in our kitchen with monthly and weekly calendars, and I have a paper planner on my desk at school. I keep to do lists at home and at work, and have been known to write things on them that I have already finished, just so I can cross it off. I like to have a plan when we travel, and I like to figure out what we’re doing with our free time over the weekend; otherwise, we end up wasting time “not having fun.” Sounds like a blast, huh? So when we were ready to start trying to have a baby, I fell into old habits. I read this book that all my friends had read and swore by. All of them had babies to prove that it worked. It was all about tracking your cycle, and it...

Listen to this post here   I’ve spent much of my life waiting for the things I prayed to God for. Many of my friends met their husbands in college, while I spent most of my college years- and about seven years after college- praying that God would bring me my husband until I met Justin at 29. Many of my friends started their careers after their college graduation, while I ultimately went back to school and spent several years praying for God to bring me a good job before I ended up in my dream position. So when my husband and I were ready to start trying to have a family, I prayed that God would bless us with children AND I prayed that He wouldn’t make us wait too terribly long. I was already 32. I felt like I didn’t have a lot of time to spend waiting for this one. At the beginning of that journey, I was hopeful. God had brought me through so much, I felt certain He wouldn’t put me through the ringer again. After a few months went by, I continued to remind myself that it t...

     Listen to this post here        I’m often a rose-colored-glasses wearing type of person. I see the good in people, even if they’ve proven countless times that they can’t be trusted. I try to find the silver lining of a situation, even if there’s hardly any good that can be dug out of it. I want to make things work even when it has been strongly proven that it won’t. I am a glass-half-full, positive vibes only, “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” girl. But only under one condition. And that is… The person is anyone but me. The situation has to do with anyone but myself. The thing to be worked out doesn’t involve me. I am so good about telling other people how much they are loved by God. I encourage others by reminding them that God is in everything they face, even the hard stuff. I remind them that God will work everything out for their good and His glory. But for some reason, I struggle deeply with taking hold of any of that ...

     Listen to this post here       I’m feeling really vulnerable as I write this piece. As of late, today’s topic is something that I really struggle with, and it’s a little scary for me to open up about this struggle. But I also believe in being real about this specific struggle we face as women in pregnancy and motherhood after loss and infertility. It is a club that no one wants to be a part of, and so it has been turned into this taboo thing that we only discuss in whispers. That’s not how we care for those who face this reality; instead, we have to be honest and vocal about the challenges that women in this club face, and if I’m going to be a voice into the world for us, then I have to lay it all out there. I have mom rage. There, I said it. I am really struggling with anger on my journey through motherhood after loss and infertility. It is ugly and hard and makes me feel like the worst mother in the world. It is tied up in guilt and shame, two ...