By Aubri Wick
I will praise the Lord at all times
I will constantly speak His praises.
I will boast only in the Lord!
Let all who are helpless take heart.
Come, let us tell of the Lord’s greatness;
let us exalt His name together.
I prayed to the Lord, and He answered me.
– Psalm 34
What are the desires of your heart? For me it was always to be a wife and a mother. And more than just that, I wanted to experience every detail of the miracle of pregnancy & natural childbirth. As a young teen I fantasized about it, from feeling the baby kick inside to even the swollen feet and the natural home water birth that I longed to have someday. I wanted to marry young and at least have a couple of children by the time I was 23. Yet I found myself still unwed by that age and facing the very real possibility of infertility due to health issues brought on by chronic Lyme disease that had gone undiagnosed for 9 years.
I truly struggled to hand my desires over to the Lord, to honestly be okay with it if He never allowed me to marry or have my own biological child. It was difficult to pray, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus,” because I wasn’t ready for Him to come before I’d experienced all my dreams come true.
But realizing that you don’t have control over your own life and future invariably leads you to a crossroads of decision: either you get anxious and bitter with disappointment or you allow God to give you peace and joy because you are trusting in His goodness and love.
I knew I wanted the latter, and it became a daily choice I had to make to trust God. Living by faith is one of the simplest and hardest things you can ever do. It’s a matter of choosing to receive from Him whatever He wants to give you instead of dictating to Him what you want.
I found that as I drew closer to God, I truly did experience contentment in place of discouragement. My troubles truly became a blessing because they led me to a deeper relationship with God that I would never have had without them.
My life verse is Romans 12:12. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
Because of who God is, I can be joyful. I can have hope. I have a wonderful future with the Lord that will make all the troubles of this life fade away. That gives me the strength and patience to cling to Him in the hard times. And I have a personal relationship with Him through prayer where I can pour out my heart to Him and know that He hears me and cares.
During all this time I kept a journal. And whenever I looked back at the past, I saw proof of God’s faithfulness over and over in my life. Oftentimes things had taken a turn I would never have chosen, but they led to an even bigger blessing than I’d asked Him for. That’s a good reminder that the Lord knows what will satisfy our hearts more than we do, because He himself becomes the desire of our heart.
It wasn’t much longer and God graciously brought a man into my life. Russell and I were married in November 2016. And the following August I found out that, despite the odds, I was pregnant. I knew without a doubt that this was totally of the Lord! But only a week after learning that I was expecting, I began experiencing some problems and the doctor told me I had most likely miscarried. The next week I went back in for a follow-up with the doctor and found out I was still carrying the child and all was well. But the problems kept happening.
Thus began a roller coaster of emotion. Afraid to hope, reluctant to let go. I once again found myself struggling to accept why the Lord would allow me to get pregnant only to take the baby away from me so soon.
Turning to the Lord by faith, I found comfort in knowing how much my child’s life was in His hands. It was only because of Him that I was pregnant in the first place. And I knew that, no matter what happened, I could trust Him. He would give me the grace and peace I would need to get through if I never got to meet my child on this side of heaven.
In His goodness, the Lord was pleased to allow me to keep the pregnancy, and even as I’m writing this, I’m cradling my newborn miracle in my lap. But the journey was certainly not the one I had fantasized about as a young girl. When I went to register at the natural birth center, it was discovered that I had a rare condition called vasa previa, putting my pregnancy into a high risk category.
With vasa previa the baby’s blood vessels which are usually encased in the umbilical cord are exposed and grow across the opening to the birth canal. This results in a 95% mortality rate for babies whose mothers deliver naturally because the vessels rupture and the baby bleeds out too quickly.
I was devastated to realize I would not be able to have my natural water birth attended by a midwife like I’d always dreamed of. Instead I was going to have to be hospitalized for the last month or so of my pregnancy and be delivered early by cesarean section at around 35 weeks.
I once again turned to the Lord by faith. I felt I’d finally come to accept this loss of a dream when things took another bad turn. I unexpectedly went into preterm labor at 29 weeks and the doctors began preparing for an emergency c-section. I feared for my child who would be born over 2 months too early.
By His grace the Lord answered our cries and things stabilized. I spent the next 4 weeks on bedrest in the hospital, and my son was able to make it to 33 weeks before he was delivered. Gideon James spent the next six weeks in the NICU. For some reason he continued to need oxygen support almost the entire time, and my faith was challenged again and again. You can imagine our joy when he was finally released and we were able to bring him home!
But before you think this story ends with me riding off into the sunset of “happily ever after,” my journey of faith hasn’t ended yet. Not by any stretch of the imagination. During my cesarean it was discovered I have a rare type of uterus that is malformed. It’s a condition that prevents most women from being able to conceive in the first place, and those who do face a high percentage of miscarriage or delivering a pre-term baby.
I can still find myself struggling with disappointment and fear when I think about wanting more children and not knowing if that will be possible. At the same time I can feel conflicted with guilt that I could even dare to complain when here in my lap is this incredible miracle! But you know what I love about our God? He is totally okay with our pain and struggles. He knows and cares about the desires of our hearts! Not only that, but the more I trust Him, the more I discover how good and loving He is.
So, no, I didn’t get the pregnancy and natural birth of my dreams and maybe I never will. But I have been blessed with the wonderful gift of a son who is the perfect mix of his daddy and me. And no, I don’t have any guarantee that I’ll even be able to conceive again or that future pregnancies won’t also be high risk. But one thing I do know is that I have a great and mighty God who loves me and knowing Him better means more to me than any other desire of my heart.
Aubri Wick, wife and
new mother.
Had the wonderful privilege of growing up as a missionary kid in the jungles of Papua New Guinea.
Has faced over a decade of debilitating health challenges due to chronic Lyme Disease, mold toxicity and other autoimmune problems.
Loves people, crafts and being creative, and the outdoors.