I’ve probably rewritten this story a dozen times in the months leading up to sharing it with the world. How do you narrow down almost 5 years, 4 pregnancies, 6 babies, and a total life change in few enough words that anyone would actually care to read it. Truth be told, each of these 4 pregnancies deserves an entire chapter or more to fully detail the experience and outcomes. We’ve dealt with 4 completely different pregnancies, 4 totally different outcomes. We’ve been treated poorly and well by a myriad of health care specialists, and we went from being luke-warm Christians to a couple on fire for the Lord through witnessing all the ways God has moved through this journey.
For my husband, Jeff, and me, this journey started in early 2020. We had been married for 5 years, were finally in a great spot financially, and with Jeff about to turn 39 and me almost 34, we knew we couldn’t wait much longer if we wanted a few kids. Getting pregnant was easy for us. We got those 2 lines in our second month of trying and immediately shared the good news with everyone we knew! We had our first ultrasound around week 9 and learned that our identical twins had stopped developing. No heartbeats, and a week later, the miscarriage bleeding finally began.
This first loss was hard to understand. Going into that first ultrasound, we had contemplated what twins would be like. My pregnancy symptoms were aggressive before I even tested positive, so we had our suspicions. Our obstetrician told us that identical twin miscarriages were very common, as many things can go wrong. We named the twins Hope and Faith, as a reminder to continue to trust God’s plan for us.
We tried again a few months later in January 2021, getting pregnant on the first try. This time, our viability check was during week 6. I sobbed immediately when we saw that heartbeat! But those tears of joy quickly turned to grief when we learned the baby had implanted just outside the uterus, a rare form of interstitial ectopic pregnancy with no record of a pregnancy lasting beyond 18 weeks. Death and life-threatening situations for the mother were very likely. I had never felt so much pain, hurt, and confusion before. All I could wonder is why God would put us in the position where we had to terminate the life of our living, wanted baby, who we named Zechariah, meaning “God remembers.”
Two weeks after I began treatment for the ectopic pregnancy, my mom died of a stroke at 59. We put children on hold, and our lives began to change, a lot. We both changed to new and better jobs, we moved states, and we finally found a church that felt like home. Almost two years had passed, yet I was still incredibly angry and grief stricken about not being a mother and losing our 3 babies. As our church prepared for Christmas 2022, our pastor did a sermon on John the Baptist, focusing on his father, Zechariah, our 3rd baby’s namesake. It hit me that while I called myself a Christian my whole life, I didn’t even know that Zechariah was the father of John the Baptist! I didn’t know the story of how he lost his voice for disbelief in God’s promises and faithfulness, about receiving the blessing of a son, no less! In an instant, I broke down in tears and finally surrendered my life fully to God. I knew then the name Zechariah wasn’t about God promising to remember our lost baby, but that my whole life, through all I had endured, God remembered me, even when I didn’t remember Him. He needed me to be broken for me to see how he can put us back together again, even better than we thought was possible.
We spent a few months healing and growing our faith with elders and other couples in the church, and by late spring 2023, we were ready to try again. We were pregnant in the second month and began early ultrasounds and appointments with a high-risk obstetrician. To our surprise, we had a great first ultrasound! There was a little baby, beating heart, implanted properly in my uterus. We rejoiced with our church, family, and friends. We did a gender reveal celebration around 10 weeks, naming this baby boy Jonah Daniel, a name that came to me in a dream before we even knew he was a boy. Little did we know that just a few weeks later, I would begin bleeding, likely from a placental hematoma, but that was never confirmed. Four weeks later, at 15 weeks and 6 days, I went into full blown labor due to a placental abruption.
When we arrived at the hospital on September 30th, 2023, my water had broken and Jonah’s heart had already slowed. They gave us the news that I would have to deliver him, a process he would not survive. The hardest part of this delivery was seeing my husband there beside the bed helpless. Husbands are driven to keep their wives and children from pain, but there was nothing he could do for us.
Later that week, a hematologist diagnosed me with a blood clotting disorder, likely responsible for my miscarriage. On the way home from the appointment, I felt an urgency to call my uncle and tell him about how seriously this disorder can impact cardiovascular health. It is likely why my mom died of a stroke and explains a lot of the heart issues throughout the rest of my family on both sides. He took the suggestion seriously and saw his doctor for the first time in 10 years. They learned that he urgently needed life-saving double bypass surgery and a valve replacement. Like Jonah in the Bible our little Jonah served as a warning, too; one that saved my uncle’s life!
Christmas day 2023 was hard. We had already tried for a baby that cycle after waiting 2 months, but my period had started that morning. It was very emotional for me, as I was neither pregnant with Jonah nor with new life. Shortly after, I had a dream that Jeff and I had six babies! Four were with my mom, at a distance from us – a set of identical twins and 2 baby boys. The other two were a set of fraternal twins that Jeff and I were holding. When I shared the dream with Jeff, he instantly knew the 4 babies, Hope, Faith, Zechariah, and Jonah were with my mom in Heaven and that we would be having twins.
That same cycle, in January 2024, we saw those 2 pink lines again. I ended up with implantation bleeding on 2 separate days. We had my hCG quant tested on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday that week, and it had gone up by 250% each time. During our week 6 ultrasound, the tech was shocked that we were not surprised to see not one baby, but two – a set of fraternal twins! I’ll admit, in the first 6 weeks of the pregnancy, I felt a lot of anger and defeat. I was distraught thinking “what is the point when these babies are just going to die anyway?!”
One of our church elders suggested we do a prayer and anointing with oil with several others in our church. Beforehand, one of my close lady friends met with me and we prayed about truly releasing my grief over Jonah so I could find closure and move on with loving our babies 5 and 6. Then, we all prayed over the babies and me. After that day, I felt more peace than I had about anything in my entire life. I was able to truly give my burden to the one God who has the strength to carry them for me.
Each day, the pregnancy brought me joy and faith over fear and worry. While I spent most of the time nauseated, tired, vomiting, and sore, I praised God everyday; “Thank you that I have today with these babies!” God has always used the hard moments in my life to bring about good, just like it says in Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” And who better to entrust with my life and the lives of my children than the one true Father who sacrificed his own Son to make us His children in Christ?!
Ava Jean and Issac David were born by emergency c-section under general anesthesia in June 2024 at 26 weeks and 1 day due to PPROM followed by preterm labor. Ava weighed just 1 pound and 13 ounces, and Issac weighed 2 pounds. The long term NICU experience (over 40 miles from home) has been quite the journey. There have been some scary days, days where the doctors told us they were stumped by what was wrong with our babies, days when we didn’t know what we would be walking into. Then prayer warriors and God to the rescue! Miraculously, around week 8, they both recovered from whatever was preventing them from feeding and breathing well. They are now doing great and about to start bottle feeds at the end of 35 weeks gestational age. Ava is now 3 pounds 13 ounces breathing all on her own, and Isaac is 4 pounds 7 ounces and on the lowest level of breathing support! If all goes well, both Ava and Isaac should be coming home before their due date of September 30th – Jonah’s first Heavenly birthday. God is so so good!
Photos taken by LTB Photography – Knoxville, TN.
Find out more about Project Finding Your Rainbow.
Make sure to follow Journey For Jasmine on Instagram and Facebook!
Pin and help spread the project!
