My Special Announcement

This post is from my heart. Not for you to judge me, but so that God can use my voice as a testimony to turn this non-traditional situation into a blessing.

In January 2013, I had everything going for me; living for the day, not worrying about tomorrow. I had the love of my life living in Nashville, who I had hoped to get married to someday. I thought I had my whole life planned out. During this time, my life was full of friends, parties, and fun, but I didn't take much time to let God in. This was a recipe for disaster. I took a wrong turn not thinking of the consequences, and not thinking about anyone else. I was simply living for the moment. In late February I had suspected that I was pregnant. After a plethora of pregnancy tests, my whole life changed. I immediately broke down into tears and I felt my world turning upside down. I was so afraid, so scared to hurt my parents and afraid to disappoint everyone.

As a child, I was never the trouble maker, very obedient, always feeling happy, loved and supported. I've only had one spanking in my lifetime (thanks dad), and it was for excessively jumping from one twin bed to the other. The only time I've ever truly disappointed my parents was when I got kicked out of my senior prom for drinking. I can still remember the earful that I got on the short, three mile drive home. I never wanted to upset my parents like that again so you can imagine how afraid I was to break this life changing news to them. I hid my pregnancy from everyone except a few close friends for about five months. The whole five months, I was basically in denial and I wanted everything to go away. I've hoped for things that are unspeakable... things that I never saw myself thinking.

There were a lot of choices that I could have made, but I don't think that I personally would have been able to live with any decision other than keeping this baby. With that being said, I don't think that anyone deserves to be judged for making their own choices, because you never know what situation they might be in.

Now that I have announced the pregnancy to my family and friends, I am ready to announce it to the world. I didn't want to randomly start uploading pictures of my baby onto social medias without an announcement of my own. I know that the news has already spread by word of mouth, but I wouldn't want anyone to hear my story from anyone but myself.

I am excited to say that I will be having a baby boy sometime in the next 15 days. It may not have been the perfect "story book" beginning, but this baby boy will be my own perfect and happy ending. I truly made a mistake, and have hurt those who loved me the most, however, I can not take it back and will spend the rest of my life making it up to them, and proving to my little boy that he can be proud of his mommy. I know that everything happens for a reason and that God has your life planned out before you are even born, but I do recognize that He also puts us in situations to see that we will make the right choices. This past year, I had strayed so far away from God's path for me and this was definitely a way of bringing me closer to Him. Things were going so well in my life that I forgot to rely on my relationship with God. The only way that I was going to get through all of this was to ask for forgiveness from HIM, everyone I've hurt, including myself, and owning up to everything.

I am truly thankful for my family. I always wanted to be the princess that they thought I was, and because I wanted to be so perfect in their eyes, I ended up hurting them tremendously. They have been so loving and so supportive through all this that I regret not telling them in the first place. My Aunt Lynn and Uncle Kevin even stepped up to the plate by offering to adopt this baby.  While I appreciate their offer, I just couldn't bare the thought of giving up something that I had grown attached to.  My family only asks me to finish my last year of college strong so that I can give baby Noah the type of life I was blessed to have growing up. I am more determined now than I have ever been to finish school because now I have someone depending on me. I am so grateful for everyone's kind words and support and I see that I am truly blessed to have good people in my life. I thank each and every one of you who have been so supportive of me, I honestly don't know where I would be without you all.

This will be the blog that I post all of baby Noah's pictures and updates on. I don't want to blow up everyone's news-feed on Facebook and Instagram so most of them will be uploaded on here. Feel free to check out this blog anytime! I am so excited to be a mother, for it is all that I've ever wanted to be. Only 15 days until the due date, so expect baby Noah anytime now!

Here are pictures from Noah's 4D Sonogram. I can't wait to see what he looks like in person!

Thank you for reading and listening to my heart, 

Lauren