BETWEEN COFFEE & CHAOS: Choosing Joy Before Certainty:

Choosing Joy Before Certainty:
Does hiding joy actually protect us… or does it only make us grieve alone?

There is an old Latin saying, 
“Per aspera ad astra.”

Fear has a way of convincing us to postpone living until tomorrow.
Every life, every joy deserves to be celebrated no matter how fleeting our time is. 

We almost didn’t announce our pregnancy.
Not because we weren’t excited.
Because we were terrified.

By the time we became pregnant with Sawyer, pregnancy no longer felt simple. By then, I had already lived seven very different chapters of motherhood. We had celebrated healthy births, and mourned unexpected losses. There were miscarriages that broke my heart, a diagnosis that finally explained why they kept happening, pregnancies that demanded constant monitoring and blood thinners, the loss of one twin while still carrying a healthy baby, and even experiencing a miscarriage before we realized I was pregnant. Every pregnancy had written a different chapter, but they all left their mark. And those chapters? They taught me how fragile life can be. 

Even with a planned pregnancy, by the time those two pink lines appear again, excitement and fear become inseparable.

At eight weeks into our pregnancy I was truly afraid we were having another miscarriage. I went to the bathroom and there it was. The old brown blood color I had seen before. Not the bright red that screamed it was fresh but the rusty red. The red that in the past had told me my baby had been dead for a while and I just didn’t know.

We went to the hospital and waited for what seemed like forever for the ultrasound to confirm what I was sure I already knew.

But instead, 
there was a little heartbeat. 💛

But not only that, the ultrasound showed something I had never heard of: a subchorionic hematoma. We were told that it was common in the first trimester and usually absorbed on their own. 

I wasn’t convinced. 

I knew that they had checked my HCG so four days later after continued spotting I went back to the hospital and demanded a recheck of my HCG level for my potential miscarriage. Of course I wasn’t seen as an emergency so I sat, waited and worried some more. And surely enough it had nearly doubled. 

Exhale…

Maybe everything will be okay. But just to be safe we’ll keep this to ourselves and just ask for an unspoken prayer request.

Two weeks later the bleed was huge and after another visit to the emergency room we found out we had two SCH. One, causing a partial detachment, and we also found out we had a very low lining placenta with a partial previa. Every complication felt more catastrophic and scarier than the last.

We were so excited about our baby and wanted to tell people. We wanted to explain why I suddenly wasn’t joining my husband and girls at church on Sunday or why I was no show for the classroom parties. Every announcement felt like a risk. What if we had to call everyone back and tell them we had lost our baby? Every congratulations carried the possibility of becoming another heartbreaking conversation.

Our hesitation wasn’t just about the possibility of losing our baby. It was imagining having to explain that loss again and again. Especially to those who already questioned whether we should have tried for another baby.

To feel like we may have to justify our loss.
After everything we’d already been through.
That felt unbearable.

Why do we wait until 12 weeks?
Why do we wait until the anatomy scan?
Why do we wait until viability?

Is it because we’re trying to protect ourselves from the loss?
But… does hiding joy actually protect us?
Or does it just leave us lonely in our grief?

I realized something while texting my daddy one evening. That even if the worst happened tomorrow, pretending this baby never existed today wouldn’t lessen the grief. It would only steal the joy we still had. Every life deserves to be celebrated, no matter how fleeting our time together may be. We wanted to share it with our girls and loved ones. We wanted to be excited and celebrate that joy for as long as it was ours. So we decided to share our news in a Facebook post (email & text message).

💌 ~~~~~ 💌💛💌 ~~~~~ 💌

💌 “Life just got a little bit more exciting!

We are expecting the final addition to our family in April 2025!!

This pregnancy has not been easy thus far – we’ve had quite a few scares, and we are still not in the clear. While we have thought about hiding this pregnancy until we are “in the clear,” we don’t know when or that will be.

After a lot of consideration, I’ve thought to myself that I can not hide what is supposed to be a joyous time in our lives for fear of the unknown.

Every life deserves to be celebrated no matter how fleeting our time is. 

As of our latest appointment, our baby is healthy, and all complications are being monitored closely. We are taking all necessary precautions (and then some). We are taking this all one day at a time, making a conscious choice to be excited and praying for a healthy remainder of the pregnancy and the gift of meeting the final addition to our family.”

💌 ~~~~~ 💌💛💌 ~~~~~ 💌

We didn’t know what the ending of this story would be. We only knew we had today. So we celebrated today. We chose joy in one of our darkest, most unpredictable chapters of our lives because joy isn’t something we’re promised tomorrow.

It’s something we’re given today.

Fear has a way of convincing us to postpone living until tomorrow.
But tomorrow was never promised.
So we celebrated today.

Per aspera ad astra,
which translates:
✨ “through adversity to the stars.” ✨

Until next time…
Keep building a beautiful life between coffee & chaos,
💛 Tiffany

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