Nathaniel's Birth Story: Trying to Conceive

Why does my son's birth story start here? I believe that when God creates life, its from the moment his biological mother and father's cells are joined to create a zygote. Nathaniel was really created by God 39 weeks before his birthday and to leave out all that I can remember from the moment God made him till the moment I birthed him is not something I want to do out of conviction from the Holy Spirit. This part of the story is important too. 

I have always wanted to get better at journaling. When I was little I must have tried to start more than 20 diaries. I would begin writing, imagining all the memories I would leave behind to reminisce over or leave to my children, and then a week would go by. Next thing I knew it would be over a year later and I would feel like if I wanted to continue I would need a "fresh start". As pathetic as it may sound, I knew keeping a journal of my pregnancy wouldn't last and because I knew it would end up in the same way all my other journals have, I didn't even bother to try. Also: I began my pregnancy in the middle of teacher's college where I didn't have much of a life outside of lesson planning.

Here is what I can remember (because I know someday I'll regret not writing any of this down):

It was in January that Matt and I began talking about the possibility of having a baby. I was always apprehensive to talk about having kids because the concept felt so risky. I felt that wanting kids was for some reason selfish and because of the life stage we were in (not finished school yet and no careers on the horizon), it would be "foolish" - especially by the world's standards. As we prayed over it for a few weeks I thought about the Lord's sovereignty on life in general. We've had a number of family members and friends pass within the last year to understand that we cannot control the beginning or end of life. If God saw to give us the blessing of parenthood by beginning a new life then He would. As we prayed over this concept I thought about how fragile a desire like this was; if God gave us a child through conception there had to be complete trust in Him on how long our baby would live.
I meditated and prayed long and hard over Job 1:21 -
and he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord".
I tried to prepare myself for all possibilities I could think of including months of trying to conceive, miscarriages, etc. To be honest, I don't believe there is a way to prepare yourself for those things anymore. I can't imagine the reality of those circumstances no matter how hard I thought I could try. I know that my heart breaks for those that struggle and suffer with any type of grief over a child and I would want to show Christ's love to them only by His grace not mine.

After weeks of prayer, we felt confident in "not trying not to get pregnant". I have no idea why, and I hesitate to even question it, but it only took one try. With both Matt and I having different schooling placement schedules, and endless nights of sleep deprivation from studying and lesson planning there weren't many opportunities for us to be together. In February 2013 I told Matt that we should take a pregnancy test, just for sakes. On Valentines Day we made tacos for dinner, while discussing the possibility of being parents and how scary and fun it could be. I quickly went to take the pregnancy test we bought that day as soon as we were finished eating.

Waiting for the results felt like the longest few minutes of my life. The first pink line came up and I got excited and as soon as the second one (for some reason is much more faint) began to appear Matt just smiled like crazy. "We're gunna have a baby!" The rest of the evening was a complete blur to me. From that moment on we were parents!

As a little girl I never thought that I would be married and almost done university at 21, let alone pregnant!

Happy Today

Nathaniel seems to be in quite the good mood! Amazing what a midday nap can do :)


So does Benjamin the bunny.

Another blog?

Yes! As if there isn't more than enough blogs out there - ones that nobody reads or cares about and I'm sure this could be just another one of them. I've read enough blogs (especially mommy ones) in the last year to know that the concept is pretty overdone. So what is this? I'm creating this space for mostly myself, my family and anyone who wants to keep up with our family. 

We are the Cottons. I (Tina) had a childhood very much like my husband's (Matthew). Both of us were born in the GTA and come from non-christian families. My parents split up around the time I was 2 1/2 and Matt's did just before his preteen years. We had the average childhood experience going to public school, celebrating the usual holidays (without knowing or honouring the meanings behind them) and being told that we should strive to do what was in our hearts and make ourselves happy.

We met in 2005 through Myspace - that story is a little more complicated and not as important as the rest of our stories. Becoming fast friends through MSN chat (which already sounds old), we quickly began dating within a few months. As lovely as some of our dating memories are, there are many regrets and moments that make me cringe. If I had the chance to go back I would probably slap teenage Tina silly for the things she expected, thought and wanted in those years.

Praise God that He was working in Matt's heart from early in our relationship. Through pushback and stubbornness on both our parts, God made a change in our lives to claim us as His own. Saved by His grace from the sinful lives we were living, Jesus Christ made a change in ours lives from that point on. As first generation christians, there are so many things God has to teach us through His people. From our difficult dating years, to our quick and short engagement and now in our marriage - there are many things that the Lord has brought us through and we continue to overcome by His grace for His glory.

Fast forward to today:
Matt has completed his primary care paramedic program and is eagerly applying for a position in a local(ish) region;
I have completed my concurrent teaching degree and am now stay-at-home mom to our very adorable son Nathaniel Harvey.

It sometimes feels like not much has changed but God is bringing me to new understanding of His plans for our lives all the time.

For now on we are going to ask God to make His will for our lives clear to us and have us obey. This is extremely frustrating and stupid for those that don't worship the God of the bible to understand.
I've given a lot of thought to what it means to be a christian and will comment on the details of what God has revealed to me through His word over future posts.

For us:
it means I accepted the role of motherhood when God saw fit to give us a child, Matt accepted the role of breadwinner for our family as convicted through his study of scripture and we are committed to doing life differently as the Lord pleases.
Much of how we live our daily life and the things we consider of value are different from how we were raised, the culture we live in and it should show. God calls us to be "light of the world" in Matthew 5:14. For us this means that how we live our life differently should shine on others not to expose our uniqueness or creativity but His glory.
God and His word changes people. What is the point of calling yourself a christian if you don't let the God of the bible change your life?

This rant could go on but instead of writing about the past - this blog is going to be about the present. I want to record moments in our lives that we can look back on and praise God for. 

Matt knows better than anyone else on the earth - I suck at keeping a diary or any type of journal so we can't be sure how successful this will be. Best to pray about it and leave it to God.