Josh thought it was best to wait to tell our family until it was “safe” to share–meaning incase we had a miscarriage. To me that felt like he was saying..we are excited, but let’s not get too excited incase something happens. I agreed and respected his wishes and I thought it was the smart thing to do too. It was the longest wait ever. I found that it is very hard to stay out of the “what if” zone before having the first sonogram.
I found that fears like to submerge during this waiting time period such as fear of a miscarriage, fear that something being wrong with your baby or even that you are really not even pregnant at all. I wanted to share with you my experience with this and the insight I received during the in-between time of our little sacred secret. In this post I will share with you a simple strategy I learned to stop fear in it’s tracks and how I learned to fully sink into joy.
As the weeks went on his thinking, of wanting to wait to tell, was starting to get to me. I had feelings of doubt and would think things like what if Josh can sense something and thinks something could happen to the baby?
It’s like if you can’t see it then it makes it hard to believe everything is okay. I realized this type of fear is literally the perfect example of lack of faith.
“Faith is the confidence you have in something that you can’t yet see. Hebrews 11:1”
I found that I was doubting mainly because I simply couldn’t see with my own eyes how the baby was doing. I needed proof to settle my fears. I had to wait for that first sonogram to know for sure, or did I?
Let me explain my revelation that I will never forget and still use this skill to this day to squash fear in its tracks.
One day I was reading this awesome book called the Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown. Let me just tell you that vulnerability has always been a huge struggle of mine from being extremely modest, to not telling a soul what I am going through, to even not allowing myself to feel joy incase something bad “might” happen. Brené explained how she realized the very thing I was struggling with. She shared how whenever something so happy and perfect was happening in her life, her mind would go into this self defense mode and be flooded with horrific thoughts that could happen in that perfect moment to destroy it. For example, she shared how she was coming home from a wonderful date with her husband and as they were walking up to the door, she feared someone popping up out of the bushes and killing them both.
She imagined a perfect night ending in a tragedy…
She said, “it is our minds trying to protect us from getting hurt when in reality it’s already hurting us.”
We can’t even love or feel joy if we have fear walls that barricade us in. We simply can’t be truly vulnerable and enjoy life to the fullest if we live in the fear and play the game of “what ifs.”
I thought two things.
#1 Wow! I am glad it is not just me and this is exactly what I needed to hear at the right time. This was exactly what I had been experiencing in my early pregnancy and thankfully I caught this thinking in a trap and nipped it in the butt quick after learning about it. This is why I am sharing with you, because you are not alone.
#2 It is in my nature to get to the root cause. I love that she shared where these thought derive from. I love getting to the source and changing behaviors, etc. I thought to myself, well is there a behavior I could do to stop fear from nudging in during what is supposed to be a special time?
I was experiencing what should have been one of the most happiest times of my life. Being pregnant and being a mom was an ultimate dream of mine and I should have felt ecstatic and blissful. Instead, I was googling out of fear (you know you do too) and thinking of horrific things that could/might happen. You name it…I was fearing deformities, neural tube defects, the zika virus, miscarriage, etc. I had officially allowed myself to step into fear. I was even doubting how I got pregnant so easily. Could it really be this easy for me? This magical perfect scenario can’t be true can it?
I was on my way home and that sorrowful, yet lovely song came on the radio, “Thy Will” by Hillary Scott. It was basically describing how she didn’t understand and she was in pain, but let thy will be done. It didn’t help that I had recently learned the song was written from her heart breaking story of having a miscarriage. It really upset me that people literally go through things that are heart wrenching like this. I started to feel for the people around me that literally had just dealt with miscarriages just before my pregnancy began and even during my pregnancy. I sat in remembrance for a particular person who I knew had a stillborn birth very far along.
It is hard to gulp and hard to understand why them and why not me too? We will never know why or understand fully why babies die and horrible things are allowed to happen on this earth except for it must be apart of a greater picture that we can’t see. Even though it hurts it must be all for God’s glory and ultimate will. Take in mind that we are not in living in the world that God wanted us to live in. There is sin, evil, environmental toxins, pathogens, etc.. All of these things and more can hold us back and keep us from experiencing Heaven on earth.
As the song was literally bringing tears to my eyes, that I too may be chosen to battle a journey for God’s glory or because of something environmental that caused it, I heard God say to me to be vulnerable. He reminded me of the book I spoke about above and I began to process it all.
I remembered exactly what she said, she said
“YOU CANNOT PREPARE FOR VULNERABILITY.”
It may or may not kick you in the gut.
That devastating situation may or may not happen to you. If it happens it’s still going to hurt. So no matter how many times we put our guards up and let our minds flash horrible thoughts in the presence of something that should be joyous, we can not prepare ourselves enough for what is to come. In other words it doesn’t do any good to worry about the future. We can’t worry enough to make it not hurt us.
Matthew 6:34 says, Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The verse practically says it does no good and it doesn’t benefit you in anyway to play the “what if” game.
I know this is like basic biblical truth but something really clicked with me this time.
So I decided right then and there at 7 weeks pregnant to SINK INTO JOY.
I wasn’t going to NOT let myself get too excited anymore.
I don’t like half doing things and I didn’t want to half be excited and half be scared.
Brené Brown collected studies on vulnerability and asked some of the most joyous people how they maintain such joy and their answers all boiled down to having lots of GRATITUDE. They were always thankful.
You see, gratefulness diminishes fear and it brings the purest JOY.
It brought me straight to the verse..
Philippians 4:4-9 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Let’s break it down together..
I love that the Lord said to put it into practice. Faith without works is dead right? James 2:26. How can we grow our faith without putting work into it? How can suddenly trade out our doubts for faith? Philipians 4:4-6 is THE recipe. The verse actually begins with rejoice! Be Joyous! And this is how…
Start with talking to your dearest friend Jesus. He says to cast your cares on him. Ps 55:22. Just tell him all about it. Bring it to his attention and lay it at the foot of his cross. The verse says to come to him with your request and don’t forget to be thankful and think of all that is lovely and put it into practice and the peace of God will be with you! What is all this doing? Oh ya eliminating anxiety in other words fear!
In that moment, in the car I immediately began to express gratitude and I told God 3 expressions of gratitude.
THANK YOU for giving me a baby.
THANK YOU for my husband.
THANK YOU for always being with me and showing me love.
My fears began to squander almost instantaneously. I began to put this strategy into practice for several more weeks or anytime a fearful situation or thought tried to present itself. What I got in return was the ability to fully love. The ability to let my heart be vulnerable and go all in. I wasn’t afraid anymore to let myself get excited. I was able to rest easy and to sink into joy and love so deep.
Thankfully, we got the positive report from our first sonogram that baby looked great and we were indeed having a real baby! Lol! We told our parents soon after that. It is actually a cute story of how we shared. At our 12 week mark we made it facebook official and I just remember thinking oh no! We really exposed ourselves. What if something goes wrong with the baby and what if I do miscarry we would have to retell the whole world what had happened.
That was another vulnerable moment. Sharing to friends and family takes vulnerability. Vulnerability is what it takes to feel true joy and those thoughts of fear was not going to make it any more easier to share a tragedy. So once again I stated 3 expressions of gratitude to my God.
THANK YOU for a healthy baby.
THANK YOU for blessing me with the gift of being a parent.
THANK YOU for having your hand on my life.
Instantly my fears were gone. I practiced this strategy and used it throughout my entire pregnancy along with many other strategies and mind concepts to prepare for my natural birth.
I hope to spread the news that women are capable and created to birth. I want to empower pregnant women like you with specific methods that I used and prepared myself during my very own pregnancy so that you can have a fearless birth as well.
I hope this encourages you and helps you feel equipped for all of life’s journeys ahead.
Love,
Dancee Pinkston
About Dancee,
Dancee Pinkston is a certified birth doula & childbirth educator. She is the creator of the Fearless Momma Birth Academy with over 770K+ Subscribers and 252,000,000+ views. A nutritional sciences graduate of Texas A&M University, mother of 2 girls and wife to her high-school sweetheart since 2012. Her mission is to help pregnant mommas have better birth experiences and live more empowered lives.