Josie

good morning Paula, hope you are having a great week so far and recovering from such a fun and full weekend! I know Simon and Levi had the best time with you and Steve and Chris and I so appreciate your willingness to watch them for us on Saturday night so that we could be at Church early for worship!! You are such a gift to us all!

I wanted to post this story about your newest Grandchild, Josie here today. I posted on my personal blog last night but knew that you would want me to share boldly what God has done in my heart here too. You are an inspiration to me in asking Jesus to be an intimate part of our story and to fulfill desires and longings of our heart and I know that you and Steve and this big extended family is another way that the Lord has fulfilled my prayers for a strong loving family! I love you and am honored to be called one of your daughters and now I am so honored to be bringing another daughter into this Gough clan!

A few years ago when I gave birth to my second son, Levi I had a scheduled cesarean at 39 weeks. I won’t go into the details, but the surgery revealed that I was lucky to be alive and so was my son. My doctor strongly warned me to wait at least two full years before considering carrying a third child and even at that to wait until my heart was so full of longing for a missing member of the family that going through a third pregnancy would be worth it.

About a year after Levi was born I was out shopping alone. A rare afternoon to myself I ended up at the U-Village. I was headed back to the car when I saw a Mom with an adorable baby girl who looked at me and gave me a little smile. I cannot explain to you what happened in that moment but my heart swelled and I burst into tears and heard a small voice inside that said, “There is a little girl who needs you Rebekah” I hurried to the car in total sobs and drove immediately to Chris’ office. He came out to the car to find me in hysterics blubbering away about how we needed a little girl, how I needed a daughter. We were missing a member of our family.

“God told me so. I think we should consider adopting because Lord knows having one of our own seems highly unlikely with this families track record of boys”

Chris sweetly listened and held me and said, “ok, lets just pray about it”

Another year passed and Levi turned two. It was at our Halloween party when I had a conversation with a friend about whether or not we were going to try for a third baby. The deep longing in my heart for a girl had not diminished and in fact had grown but my heart sunk when I thought about the chances of us conceiving a girl in a family where strong boy genes are the heritage. I am honored to be a Mother to my boys and carry on that tradition but realistically it seemed unlikely to carry a girl. I had read all the studies on percentage of chance for a
girl after having two boys and things looked slim. I kept my chin up that we might adopt a daughter one day and was growing excited about a third and final pregnancy.

Secretly I was in research mode. I downloaded everything I could find on the topic of gender swaying. The idea that you can time when you get pregnant, greatly increasing the chances for a certain gender. I know a few women who have successfully done it and was determined to try for a girl myself, but only secretly because I didn’t want anyone to know just how badly the longing in my heart had grown.

After Levi’s second birthday we started trying for baby number three. I was charting my temperature and continued to read anything I could about the subject of trying for a girl. I was becoming obsessed.

November passed

And then December

Then January and I was still not pregnant

In the mean time I had switched to a new doctor who ordered some special testing including blood work, ultrasound and MRI because of my rare uterine abnormality and she was continually shocked that I even had two healthy children and was pretty negative about the chances of me even conceiving again.

At this time my heart could no longer hold back the fear and frustration I was feeling. I cried out to God

One night I had a vision, Jesus was holding out his arms to me, asking me to come to him. To tell him my hearts desire and to allow him to be Lord over my body and the timing of another pregnancy. He asked me to trust him as the giver of life and really convicted me to stop with the gender swaying, to lay it at his feet and to do what any normal couple would do to become pregnant.

I shook my fist at him, and cried; I said, “No if I do it your way I am sure to get another son and Lord I want to have a daughter”

I was so frustrated though about my weird condition and becoming weary and so I made God a deal to take one month off and to let down my control and just relax and go for it. No timing.

February I found out I was pregnant.

A night or two before I officially took a pregnancy test I was up late. Chris was gone speaking at a retreat and I was doing my nightly blog rounds. Admiring a certain photographer I stopped to see who was behind the beautiful work. This mans name was Jose but in my deliriously tired state I read his name Josie in my head.

The name just sort of sat differently in that moment. I thought “hmm that is a spunky little name for a girl, especially one with two older brothers I wonder what it means”

Chris and I had never ever agreed on a girls name before we always have several boy names up our sleeve but never a single girl name that we both liked. We have chosen two Hebrew names for our boys very specifically. Simon, meaning: “harkening to God” and Levi, meaning: “joined in harmony” I have always wished for a special girl name to pop up but nothing had

I googled Josie

It is Hebrew and means: “Jehovah will increase or Jesus will add”

My jaw hit the floor and I felt in that moment that this was the name God was giving me for my girl.

The next morning I took a test and indeed found out I was pregnant. Chris was shocked and laughed because he knew we had not done any of the timing I was so hard pressed to do…"maybe the Lord wants to give us another boy" he said "and that is why he asked you to stop all that craziness".

I was so happy to be pregnant but fearing that he was right, I also told him about the girl name I had found and he agreed it was pretty perfect even pointing out that the name Josie derives from Joseph a name also a part of the twelve tribes of Israel, as are Simon and Levi…

I hoped and prayed. I confided in Claire and she began to pray. I cried and cried that God would show me favor and somehow give me the girl my heart was longing for even though scientifically it should be another boy.

Two weeks ago I had an ultrasound and Chris and I had agreed not to find out the gender. I think I thought is was my act of worship in ultimately trusting the Lord. We asked the tech to put the gender information in a sealed envelope in case we changed our minds but we weren’t planning on it. We did that with Simon and never opened the envelope, to this day. But during the ultrasound I thought I saw something and left so brokenhearted and sad.

“I know I saw it Chris, it’s a boy for sure “

I was in the worst mood.

That night I sobbed so hard Chris had to hold me while I shook. I cried out to God “how could you not show me favor, why do you not love me enough” I was so angry.

The next morning Chris was at work and I could not shake my bad mood or stop the tears from coming. I sat with the sealed envelope and again shook my fist at God.

“just open it” came a still small voice

I turned the envelope over and picked at the corner and saw something that shocked me. A few tiny pink feet lining the top of a card. I figured it was a pink and blue patterned card so I picked at the other corner but could only see more pink feet.

I began to shake and just ripped it open and pulled out the card and there it was.

ALL PINK FEET

The card read: “congratulations your ultrasound looks like you will probably be having a girl”

I just about fainted

I was and still am absolutely shocked that God has answered my prayers and has shown me favor. I am so honored to announce that our daughter Josie will be joining us Lord willing this fall!!!

This story might seem small to some but to me it has and still does represent such a deep lesson in faith for me to trust my God with something so intimate and close to my heart. I have realized in retrospect that God was the one who originally put the desire on my heart for a daughter but it
was the act of asking him to fulfill it that has truly blown wide my faith and love in a creator who so deeply longs to be a part of our lives.

My God has indeed increased my faith, my trust and my hope in His love.

So there you have it, I am going to be a Mother to a little girl soon and I can not wait to meet her.

a few weeks ago Paula, the Lord reminded me of a dream you had when I was pregnant with Simon. We didn't know at that time if he would be a girl or a boy and you told me that you had dreamed that you were dancing with a little girl with curly hair, spinning around and laughing with her at a wedding feast. You had wondered if it was a vision of my daughter. The Lord reminded me after all these years that he does truly know our hearts and often sweetly shares details of his story with us so that we might know his intimate love!

Thank you for being such a wonderful Mom to us all!!

Love,

Rebekah