I got an email last month and I just knew I had to address it because I can so identify with her heart. I’ll share more in a minute, but I’ve had two very difficult twin pregnancies and then a third pregnancy which should have been easy and uneventful, but turned out to be fraught with complications.

So today we are going to be talking about how do we respond when pregnancy doesn’t go the way we planned, or when things are a lot harder than we expected (and this lesson powerfully applies to motherhood in general as well).

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Here's the email I got:

“I'm new to your podcast and maybe you've covered this topic after Podcast #6, but I have a question for you that I've been struggling with. I'm due with my second child in February and both this pregnancy and my first have been very difficult both physically and emotionally (I'm unfortunately not a fan of the healthcare system that my insurance covers). It's unfortunately to the point that I don't think I want to go through any additional pregnancies (my oldest was 6 months old when I became pregnant with my second baby so I never really had a break). I'm just wondering how you were able to get through your difficult pregnancies? I don't want to struggle through my pregnancies, I would really like to enjoy the experience. Thank you in advance!”

My Pregnancy Journey

I want to first share a little bit about my pregnancy journey and experience because I can so identify with her emotions. I am so thankful for our five beautiful blessings, but we've had some ups and downs in the process as well. 

If you are new around here, we've had five kids in four years. We have two sets of twin boys and a baby girl who was born January 20th. 

Our first set of twins, Malachi & Micah, were born at 36 weeks 6 days and weight 5.5lbs each. I went into labor with them several times starting at 30 weeks. We had to medically stop labor a couple of times and I was in and out of the hospital several times before they were born at almost 37 weeks via emergency c section. After all the stress, thankfully they were born healthy and happy. 

Our second set of twins, Remington & Ryder, were born at 38 weeks and weighed over 7lbs each. From around 30 weeks on, I had over 10lbs of baby and had a really rough final 8 weeks. I could barely walk by the end and was in a lot of pain. As much as we were hoping for a VBAC this time around, we ended up with another c section due to pre-eclampsia at 39 weeks. This time the surgery was rough, I lost a ton of blood, and recover was really really hard. 

When R&R were 9 months old, we got a great surprise: We were pregnant! This was certainly not in our timing or our plan to space them so close together, but God is good! This time around, God had a different plan: a single baby girl! Magnolia Rose was born on January 20th after a third unwanted c section. And we are busy adjusting to life as a family of seven with five little kids, four and under. 

I certainly haven't had the craziest stories and I am so so thankful that my kids are healthy and strong. I know that many others are not as fortunate.  But along the way, things certainly didn't turn out how I wanted or expected and it was really rough at times. At the end of the day, I can identify with my email friend about not loving or even enjoying pregnancy. 

So how do we deal with this? What do we do when pregnancy, or motherhood, doesn't turn out the way we expect?