One year ago today, I took a pregnancy test.

Over the previous almost two and a half years, I’d taken tons and tons of tests. Ovulation tests, more pregnancy tests, blood tests, other tests that our fertility doctor had run. All had been normal, all had shown things were working as they were supposed to, all the pregnancy tests had been negative.

After some very expensive attempts to get pregnant and failing, we’d decided to just take the summer off and regroup in the fall after saving up a little bit. And during that time, God worked big time on my heart. I finally surrendered. After years of waiting and hoping, I was at peace. I was ready for whatever was coming. Even if it was nothing.

Nathan had been praying every night for almost a year for a baby brother or sister. In June, he told me that he had asked Jesus for a “Bruber Sister” for his birthday and that Jesus had said yes. Starting the first part of July, he would walk past me, pat my stomach and say, “There’s a baby in there, Mom.”

By that point, I was so past thinking it was anything other than just wishful thinking on Nathan’s part. But I threw a cheap pregnancy test in my cart at Walmart one year ago today and when Nathan went down for rest time, I took the test, more to just to be able to tell Nathan it wasn’t happening and Jesus had other plans for us.

A faint line showed up.

I just stared at the test, decided it was probably a false positive since I had never used that brand before and took the other test in the box. And it also had a faint line. I got Nathan up from rest time, drove to the closest store, bought a name brand test, came right back home and tested again. And the line was immediate and very dark.

I just started bawling. I was shaking and crying and I immediately called our fertility doctor since he was the last doctor I’d seen and they put in orders for blood work that day. Jon was going to be home in an hour, so I just paced and cried and hugged Nathan and prayed and prayed and prayed. Nathan thought I had completely lost my mind. 😉

I kept watching out the window so as soon as Jon pulled into the driveway and got out of his truck, I met him at the door, started sobbing again and just said, “Guess what?” And he started crying.

And that’s when the panic set in. I was scared of another miscarriage, terrified of all of the what ifs. What if I lost this one too? What if something happened? The peace that I had just hours before was completely shattered.

Slowly, sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently (as is His way sometimes) over those next nine months and especially during those first thirteen weeks, God taught me all over again about how to be content. No matter what happened. Parker’s pregnancy was not necessarily easy – I had some spotting at nine weeks which completely paralyzed me with fear, we had an umbilical cord issue that required lots of ultrasounds, I went into early labor. Each time, God specifically reminded me that He loved me, He loved this baby and He had a plan for the two of us.

And now, holding my precious, smiley, adorable baby in my arms two days before my precious, smiley, adorable big boy’s fourth birthday, my heart is filled to overflowing. God is good. Even when we don’t see it at the time.