Is anyone still there?

Hello again. I’m glad you’re still here. Do you have time now? I have a long story ahead… take a sit and a cup of coffee (or wine) and let’s catch up for a bit…

Sorry I kind of disappeared once we got to London.

Life was pretty full and sweet.

Granted, it took us one full month to find a flat that was absolutely lovely but that we also absolutely overpaid for it. Let me tell you, London is EXPENSIVE! Not that we didn’t know it, but it did still shock us at how much we were paying for a 2-bedroom flat.

We chose West Hampstead as the place to live and it was a really nice neighbourhood. We loved it! Our landlord agreed to sign an initial 6-month contract as we had no rental history in this country and on the 5^th of March, my birthday, we moved in.

That night, after lugging our belongings around London we went out for dinner and a West End show (Wicked – which is fantastic!) to celebrate both the move and my birthday. That night we slept on the floor in the middle of the living room in the middle of all our belongings.

A week later I started working as a receptionist for a business centre in London and met wonderful co-workers who would become friends!

If life in London was a movie, this is the part where a montage to an upbeat tune would cut in with infinite scenes in the tube both very full at rush hour and empty during weekends, laughing at work with Barbora, shopping for groceries, seeing friends, cooking, sitting at a pub, furnishing our flat and exploring London. London is a fun city. SO much to do and explore!

Our first year was also filled with weekend trips throughout the UK to both explore and see if there was another place where we would like to put down roots, as we quickly realised that buying property with London prices just wasn’t in the cards for us.

After a trip to York to celebrate our anniversary we fell in love and decided that would be the place we would want to settle. We started making plans to move in 2020.

And then I fell pregnant.

It was the happiest I probably have been in my entire life. It did throw a spin in our plans, but we didn’t care we were SO happy our family was about to grow! We told our family and closest friends and I felt like I was walking on cloud 9.

And everything came crashing down a month later.

Just like that, the baby was gone. The weeks between November 2019 and mid-January 2020 are a bit of a blur. I am SO thankful my parents were here to celebrate the year end festivities with us. It helped heal part of my very broken heart.

Anxiety, insomnia, shame are all things one goes through when going through this type of grief. In the midst of it all, after being reassured by many doctors that this is common and 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, I allowed hope to grow again. ‘It won’t happen again. It was just a sad fluke’ became my mantra.

We decided to go ahead with our plans to move to York. We found a beautiful house to rent, handed our notices and a few weeks before our move, lo and behold, I was pregnant again!

This time there was no excitement taking the pregnancy test, just fear. This time we decided to share the news with no one until we could see a doctor. I was going through the days obsessing if I was sitting for too long, if I carried a parcel that was too heavy, if I ate the right things. I just wanted to do everything in my power for this baby to stick and be healthy and safe. But there was nothing I could do. 5 days before our move we lost the baby.

This time I was just angry. Actually livid. My faith was tested to an extent it had never been tested before. “Why would a good God allow me to fall pregnant just to take my baby away from me, again?!” I could feel bitterness creeping in.

The move and the new house were a great distraction, during this time. It gave me a project while I was looking for a job, and then the Coronavirus pandemic hit and we went straight into lockdown.

At first, being on lockdown was actually perfect. It was easier not having to be anywhere or have anyone expect anything from me whilst I was grieving. I was in complete lockdown with God as well. I remember telling Him, ‘I’m done! if You’re in this, the ball is in Your court… You’ll have to speak to me somehow because I just don’t have anything in me right now.’

And for a while He was completely silent. And I felt isolated. (Fair enough, most of us were isolated at that time… haha… you know what I mean, though). And then we added Miss Moneypenny (A.K.A. Penny) to our lives, our little Weechon pup, and I’m forever grateful that we did. She has brought such ridiculous joy, that absolutely helped me heal.

After a while I felt ready to I start spending time with God again and He started showing me that my trust, for a long while now, has been on a specific outcome rather than on Him. And that somewhere along the way I attached His goodness to Him saying ‘Yes’ to things in my life. I also attached my identity in what I was doing and lost sight of who He really made me to be.

As the weeks have gone by and we have all been adjusting to this “new normal” mid-pandemic world, I have learned a few things through these dark times:

Today would have been the day we would meet our first baby, and I decided to share this story because I felt I needed to come out of hiding and be vulnerable and share that this is what I have been through. And if you, or someone you know is going through this, I’m here to talk, or not talk.

Because miscarriage is not something discussed publicly very often, it is incredibly isolating. And usually, when it is, it is spoken from people who have overcome their journey and are sharing their victory. Don’t get me wrong, I love and live for these stories of God redeeming a bad situation, and I pray we will be here sharing our victory too one of these days, but it is rare that people share their story while they are in the midst of it. Down in the dumps. So here I am, sharing from our messy middle. It is painful, it is hard, but it is also beautiful and filled with hope.

How about you? How have you been?