Living on Love, because we had nothing else.

I met the man I consider the love of my life one month after turning 16 years old. Looking back, it is no wonder everyone thought we were crazy. Donovan likes to say he married me young so he could finish raising me right :) Well, that is pretty much what we did; finish raising each other. We met at my first "real" job, Sportsworld (the local skating rink). Donovan was the DJ and I was the skate guard. Our pay was $5.15 an hour, and we worked our tails off for it. The first time we were formally introduced, I thought to myself he is cute but I would never date him. I really felt that way. Before I knew it, his sexy South African accent had me. I was falling for him but he was uninterested, I could not believe it. Not interested! I would get all dressed up on Fridays when it was time to pick up our paychecks and I would hope I ran in to him. Well, it must have worked because a few months later, He wanted to date but I was kind of over him by this point. He took me out to a nice dinner and formally asked me out to which I replied, you are a really nice guy but I am just not the girl for you. Well, he must have been praying, because I started to fall hard. Eventually, we were both on the same page and began dating Aug 27, 2005 (This was a few days into my senior year of high school and now our daughter's birthday) We will fast forward a year, Donovan proposed to me after a few miles of riding our bikes on litterly the hottest day of the summer. I was wearing spandex shorts, a sports bra and I was covered in sweat. After he asked me, I started to feel sick. I guess it was the nerves plus the heat because I started throwing up everywhere. Skipping over a few details, we rode our bikes back to the cars and I was fine the rest of the day. We got married May 19, 2007. I was 19 and Donovan was 21. We were clueless about the real world, but we loved God and we loved each other. Our first year of marriage, we both worked and we both went to school full-time. I only knew how to cook breakfast foods and the word budget was a new concept altogether. Fast forward almost 5 years. Now Donovan is graduated with a "normal" job and I am getting to be an at home mom while taking 2 online classes. This is so easy compared to where we have been. In the past, there have been times we did not know how we were going to pay our bills and every time, every single time, the Lord would provide. We have had anonymous checks show up in the mail, we have had people at church give us hundreds of dollars, and I have had people not cash checks I have written all because they said the Lord told them to do it. I have learned that getting married, no matter the age, if your goal is to honor the Lord first and foremost you can rest assure that you will be taken care of. Marriage is not hard because you are too young, marriage is hard because of selfishness; an expression you see more often in young people. One of my favorite pieces of marriage advice we received was "remember, marriage is not about each person giving 50 percent, but it is about both people giving 100 percent all the time." I am reminded of this when I am acting lazy, and sometimes I wonder how many more couples would stay married if they put as much thought and work into the marriage as they did for their wedding and reception.

Our Miscarriage

I know some of my friends are going to be mad at me for finding out such big news through Facebook but I could not emotionally handle a 30 minute conversation with every close friend and relative today. So please forgive me. This morning I was scheduled for my first OB appointment since finding out I was pregnant on December 11, 2011. We were very excited to get to see the little baby and hear the heartbeat. I will be 9 wks tomorrow so I expected to see a fairly human looking little guy. Unfortunately, sometimes you're plans are different than how life unfolds. During the ultrasound, the technician said, there is the gestational sac but there is no baby. She was very matter of fact about it and then said I could speak with the doctor in a few minutes. After waiting for what seemed like forever, the doctor said, please come into my office to talk. He explained, you are pregnant but there is no baby. (My thought was I am nauseous and throwing up and I don’t even get anything for it). I was still trying to make sense of it all as he started to list off our options 1. Wait for my body to abort the rest of the pregnancy, 2. Take a medication that should bring on the rest of the miscarriage or 3. Have a D&C to surgically remove the rest. As of now, I will just wait a while and pray my body does the work for me as I am not fond of medical intervention. One thing I do know is that God is good. His plans are greater than my plans and his thoughts are higher than my thoughts. He is still in control and I am grateful for the family I do have. I do not know what this all will bring for the Engelbrecht family but I do know we are not anxious to get pregnant for a little while. Focusing on the fact that I can eat sushi and have a nice glass of red wine with my dinner is very therapeutic right now. I felt the Lord tell me very early in this pregnancy, whatever happens, to write about it. I was kind of hoping that meant something fun like being pregnant with twins.haha. I did not expect it was to be pregnant with no baby. I think miscarriages of any kind are greatly under talked about. Now that I have had one, I see why. After being emotionally drained, the last thing I feel like doing is talking about. Especially over and over again. So please do not take offense for me not calling you. Donovan and I each only called our mothers. However, everyone knows we were expecting, because I am terrible at keeping exciting news a secret. I do not regret telling everyone so early on, because I want people to be aware of what just happened and to know why I need a little time to myself. I am not a private person, so not telling that we were pregnant and not telling that we had a miscarriage would have actually hurt the healing process in my opinion. Yesterday I read half of the book Heaven is for Real, and in it, the main character tells his mom about his second sister that he met while in heaven. At first the mom was confused, saying you only have one sister. Then the mom realizes, that must have been the baby she had lost at 8 weeks. I believe that all life is a miracle and not until we see someone working to save it or trying so hard to have it, do we really appreciate it. If anything good comes from this situation, I pray that all glory goes to God, the giver of life and every good and perfect gift.