The Pregnant Pause.
After experiencing the tragedy of a miscarriage last summer, as most of you may have heard on #TheRibLifeJourney Podcast, I found out I was pregnant three months to the date of me starting to miscarry.
I was stunned to say the least.
I’ll give the Cliff Notes version of the first trimester and say grief, mixed in with postpartum (because yes, you still experience some kind of postpartum after a miscarriage), and the rollercoaster of ALL DAY sickness made for quite a hard three months.
As with my first pregnancy, my first trimester this third time around was roooooough.
But it was nothing compared to what my mind experienced during the third trimester.
Around the middle of my pregnancy, my daughter started measuring bigger, and our care team gave us a heads up that she might come earlier than expected. We were due mid-June; by the time April came around, I couldn’t see my feet. I was ALL belly–literally. Then, by the middle of May, I started having slight contractions. My last week of work, I remember driving home one night and my contractions were so strong, I called my husband because I swore I might’ve been going into labor.
They eventually subsided, but I just knew she was coming soon. I swore up and down that baby girl was going to be born the last week of May–and I told everyone who asked my prediction.
But I was so wrong. SO. SO. Wrong.
I continued feeling contractions daily…for SIX MORE WEEKS.
And after what felt like a thousand false starts, y’all the waiting–The Pregnant Pause as I called it–began to get to me.
For whatever dumb reason (yes, I just called my thoughts dumb), I started feeling like a failure. By not having my baby when I thought I would, I felt like a liar–as if I could control when this child decided she was going to come.
But I really felt like a fraud, and I felt like I was letting people down.
(DUMB)
I remember getting flooded with text after text once June came. One day, I was so overwhelmed by the texts that I turned my phone on “Do Not Disturb” for the entire day, and it sent my friends into a panic. Two of my good girlfriends from work started freaking out so much that they were about to call Neil on Instagram Facetime to check in on me. One of them started thinking the worst and actually started to grieve my life. Now I know death during child birth is a real thing, but y’all I could not help but to laugh and cry at the same time because of how dramatic, but so supportive and caring my friends are.
My due date came two weeks after the “Do Not Disturb” scare–June 13th. And like any true New York native, I was praying that if my child were going to come in June that she would come on the night the New York Knicks won the 2026 NBA Finals. It would’ve been so sentimental! My father was a big Knicks fan–even through their rough years during the 90’s; so is my father-in-law. None of us thought this day would come, but then it did. Knicks in Five…but the baby did not come the night of game five.
Womp.
Going to bed that night, I felt nothing–well, obviously I felt excitement that my home team won and that my beloved city was going up. But I felt no contractions. Not a single one. And while I was excited for the Knicks, I felt defeated.
Around the last month of my pregnancy, I started journaling about the waiting and writing letters to both myself and GOD about what the waiting felt like.
By the night of game five, I started to feel an old friend creep back in: hopelessness…or so I thought–I’ll explain in a bit.
But I started feeling hopeless–hopeless that I would never meet my baby and that this was all for nothing.
Maybe it was grief that led to this hopelessness, maybe it was anxiety, too.
Whatever it was, it made the final three days leading up to my actual delivery date really long and sometimes dark.
It sucked.
The Monday before I gave birth, I stayed in bed all day. Not because I was tired or because my ligaments were hurting–which they were because this child had dropped as low as low could go and my entire body was literally sitting on my hips. The truth is I stayed in bed because it felt better to just sleep the day away. If I slept the day away, I wouldn’t feel the disappointment of still being pregnant. If I slept the day away, I wouldn’t feel the weight of hopelessness over the idea that I may not meet this child that was supposed to be my redemption after my miscarriage.
If I slept the day away, I didn’t have to face GOD.
Nic, what does that mean?
What I mean is if I slept the day away, it meant that I didn’t have to bring to GOD in prayer what I was carrying, expecting Him to fix it right away–knowing He wouldn’t.
At some point during The Pregnant Pause, I started reading the book of Lamentations.
Girl, why?!
Because I am dramatic, friend! I truly thought I was in a season of lament. DRAMATIC.
If you’ve never read the book of Lamentations, it’s a book believed to be written by the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Israel. The people for the umpteenth time have rebelled against GOD and judgement has devastated their land through the fall to Babylon. Jeremiah is in deep despair watching what has happened to his beloved homeland and his people, and in the first two chapters there isn’t much hope to be found in the text; it’s Jeremiah describing what has happened to Israel after the Babylonian invasion.
But then something happens in chapter three—there’s a shift.
In Lamentations 3:21-23, the prophet writes, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Another translation for compassions is mercies. The text goes on to say, “I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.”
Now, I wish I could say after reading chapter three that something shifted in me, too.
But it didn’t.
Actually, up to the morning that I went into labor, I was still battling and still fighting to hold onto hope.
But I held onto that part in verse 23 where it says His mercies are made new every morning–because yesterday’s manna won't work today. The mercies that got me through the day before were for that day; they weren’t assigned to today. The Word of GOD says that we have DAILY bread–new bread, new manna, new provision for today.
My dilemma: impatience and relying on yesterday’s manna–like many of us so often do. But GOD says in the book of Isaiah to “BEHOLD”–that means to witness, to see, to notice–“I am doing a new thing; will you not be aware of it?” (Isaiah 43:19)
So quickly, before this turns into a dissertation, let me tell you what I learned about The Pregnant Pause:
1.Wait…yep, that’s it. Wait.
Now Nicole…
I know, I know–easier said than done. But what I don’t want you to do while waiting for GOD to show up is to conjure up a solution. Remember Abraham and Haggar (Genesis 22)? GOD promised Abraham and his wife Sarah that they would have a son–even in their old age. Years go by and it still hasn’t happened; they get older. In their impatience, Abraham and Sarah conjure up a plan for Abraham to sleep with her maidservant Haggar. Haggar gives birth to a son, Ishmael, who, yes, is Abraham’s son, but the promise that GOD made to Abraham and Sarah was not on Ishmael. It was on the son GOD said would be born through Sarah. Conjuring is outside of GOD’s will–need I say it’s a form of witchcraft (yes, I said it). There are consequences to conjuring. GOD does not honor idolatry in any form.
Sis, is it that deep?
Why, yes! Babes, when we conjure, we’re not just being disobedient to our Father, but we’re also putting a desire above our honor of the Father. Sometimes we think idolatry is us worshipping another GOD or bowing down to a statue, but it’s oftentimes us allowing something to take the throne in our hearts. We don’t conjure–nor do we manifest…but let me leave that alone).
Instead, we wait.
2.Occupy your hands.
One of the most dangerous things you can do in the waiting is sit idle. Sitting idle is how you start losing a grip on your mind. What you do in the pause matters; you have a choice to either work in faith or sit idly while you wait. I also had a choice! AND CAN I KEEP IT A BUCK?
Well, duh…
Sister friend, I did not wait as well as I should have before this baby arrived. Was I in my Word daily, yes. Was I journaling and talking to GOD daily, yes. Was I watching encouraging sermons and messages while I waited, yes. And even in doing all of that, I STILL WHINED THE WHOLE TIME. Literally up until the morning of my delivery date not even knowing my miracle was just a few hours away. What I should’ve done was pray and speak GOD’s truth over my life. What I really should’ve done was take captive every negative thought that protruded its way into my mind. What I really should’ve done was fight back.
But I didn’t. I laid down.
Until my husband came into our room and his Caribbean-American self said in an accent (he was born in the States by the way), “Don’t let the day rule ya.” Neil encouraged me to get out of the bed and go for a walk. I didn’t want to, but I chose to obey my husband. I would then go downstairs where my mother was sitting at my dining room table; she told me to sit for a minute so we could talk. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her I didn’t want to cry so just let me be. She grabbed me and said, “You need to let it out.” And so I did. I cried. I cried out–not to my mother, but to GOD and before Him. And as I did so, my mother began to sing over me, “No depression formed against you shall prosper.”
My mother has recently begun to understand how depression and anxiety have previously crippled me. And while my mom has a lot of empathy for my journey, she refuses to let me stay there. My mama is a G in the Spirit, and she does not play with anything not aligned with the Holy Spirit. She believes in therapy and prayer, medication and some anointing oil.
What my mom was doing and what my husband was encouraging me to do was what I should have been doing all along–
Occupying my hands.
3.Protect the promise.
If we don’t wait and we conjure, we present the possibility of forfeiting the promise. And if we don’t occupy our hands and fall into idleness, we present the possibility of giving up on the promise prematurely. And I want all that GOD has for me–for us.
So how do we protect the promise, Nic?
Well, you don’t just wait and occupy your hands; you pursue your Father.
Girl…what?! Alluhdis for that?
Yeah…because the safest place for the promise to be is in the hands of the Father. A lot of times, we think, as believers, that we can obtain things absent of GOD. The truth is you can, but it won’t go well. What GOD gives, He prepares you to sustain. How can you keep what you cannot steward? How can you learn how to steward something well if you do not learn from the one who gave it to you?
The promise absent from GOD is not a gift; it’s a curse.
Friend, don’t forfeit the promise because of your impatience–which was really the breeding ground for my hopelessness. Wait on the Lord and trust that He will renew your strength while you wait. Your promise is heading to you.
Always praying GOD’s love & light your way,
xo, Nic.
