before the baby

When Tim and I got engaged, we discussed, among many other things, when we wanted to start having children.  Let's wait at least two to three years, we said.  It'll give us a chance to really get to know each other.

But sometime at the beginning of 2012, I began to have small inklings that Heavenly Father might have other plans.  Since we had only been married a few months and since I was still in grad school at the time, I shrugged it off the first few times.  Then something totally unexpected happened.

I had a miscarriage.  And I hadn't even known I was pregnant.  Didn't even think it was really a possibility.  But the grief that followed was instantaneous and acute.  Needless to say, I immediately began reevaluating my thoughts on the matter.  But ultimately, it all came down to one plaguing question: Did I really want to prevent the coming of a child that was meant to be in our home?

Don't worry, I didn't quit grad school because of all of this soul-searching.  I quit for a thousand other reasons.  But it would be a lie to say it wasn't a factor at all.

Tim and I continued to pray about the matter, but I said very little of my growing convictions.  I wanted him to  independently get the same confirmation that I'd had.

It didn't take very long.

Tim's grandma died in February, and we drove up to Utah for her funeral.  Throughout her service, I felt my convictions growing stronger, but again, I didn't say much about my feelings because I didn't want to influence Tim.  Sometime during the long car ride home, however, Tim got his own sacred answer.  Maybe he'll write about the experience someday, but suffice it to say that by the time we got home, he was even more convinced than I was that it was time to stop preventing pregnancy.

It was honestly the scariest decision we've ever made as a couple - not because we didn't want a baby, but because we knew how drastically our lives would be changed in a very short amount of months.  But we knew that as we moved forward with faith, Heavenly Father would allow everything to happen when the time was right - for Him, for us, and for a child we hadn't even met.