About Me — Amanda Baker
A mom of four who has been forever changed by a real life miracle
A Story Marked By An Unexpected Miracle
Everyone has a story. By story, I mean an event or series of events that unexplainably happen to you. A moment or season that flips you upside down and makes you think ‘this can’t be real life’. Maybe it changes you for the better and maybe it takes your life on a course of confusion. Maybe you find joy in the middle of it or maybe you have a hard time ever finding your center again. Maybe it strengthens your trust in our Creator or maybe you find yourself more distant from your faith than you have ever been.
I am coming out of my story and continuing to heal from many parts of it. I am learning to find joy in the changes that have been made through me. I am discovering truths that were revealed to me in completely transforming ways. I don’t think that I will ever fully grasp the heart stopping freeze in time as a season changes as quickly as a drop of blood falling to the ground.
My Story
I am a 37 year old mom of 4. Having four kids ages 8, 5, 3, and 11 months old is never boring around here. I have been married to my best friend for 13 years and I never thought my love for him could go any further until I watched him support and hold our family together during this season of our lives. We live in sunny South Florida and I am always wishing for less humid days.
I try to be as intentional as I can to put God into the center of my everyday life but I am far from perfect at it. Before I became a stay at home mom, I was a teacher for 10 years. I loved working with kids and teaching but the pull of wanting more time with my kids became stronger and stronger with each year. So I decided to stay home with them and have loved every moment since.
I love being a mom even in the middle of the ups and downs of motherhood. My days never look the same and they can flow between sweet, stressful, loud, and the ever present mom guilt that I work hard to keep at bay.
When I do get the small amounts of alone time that being a mom of 4 allows, I love to read, drink a good comforting cup of coffee, and do anything active. I love to workout and feel like it releases a lot of stress and emotions that I carry as a mom. For me, taking care of my physical and mental health is a huge part of staying sane in motherhood.
I knew I always wanted four children so when we found out we were pregnant with our fourth baby, I felt so much peace. This was the final piece of our family and I was deteremined to make sure I soaked in every single part of this last pregnancy. I knew I didn’t want to be overwhelmed with the ending of my child bearing stage of life, so I made sure to take note of every symptom and belly growth. I preplanned feeling every single kick with love and wanted to take all of the cute belly bump picures to remember this last feeling of carrying one of my babies. I never expected that this last pregnancy would be anything but normal. And I wasn’t prepared for my story — the story that would change my life forever — to happen this way.
On the anticipated day that the gender of our last baby was revealed, my water broke and our lives took a completely different shift. I was 19 weeks preganant with our baby boy.
19 weeks.
My water broke at 19 weeks. Even writing it now still feels surreal. I mean that can’t be right. You are supposed to carry your baby for 40 weeks. This is not the way it is supposed to go. This wasn’t what I planned.
This was the beginning of the most terrifying, heart breaking, and traumatic season of our lives. I spent 60 days in the hospital away from my husband and kids not knowing if our baby boy was going to make it. He wasn’t supposed to make it. That is what I kept hearing from everyone. Each long day that passed he continued to stay stable and I was told many times that he most likely would not have the lung development to survive outside the womb. The days filled with fears, worries, and thoughts no mother should ever have to entertain. I am almost a year out from everything that has happened and many days I still do not fully understand how or why it all happened the way it did. I am going to be using this platform to write out my story in pieces. To share the details of the scary moments and to try to fully explain the miraulous ones.
Why Am I Writing?
In the midst of these five months, I documented, through my instagram, my emotions and ways in which God was revealing His truth. These were snippets of understandings in the moments of chaos as they were happening. But as I look back and continue to heal from everything, I realize there are so many moments of surrender, community, truth, miracles, lessons, and God’s presence that transformed me as a mom and a woman of faith. I feel called to write about these moments for different reasons.
I want to share how God moved in my season of chaos and confusion. There may be another mom or woman who needs to see what it looks like to trust God even when you have no idea what His plans are for your life. I want to put real life stories and moments to God’s character to illustrate how personal and present He is all the time.
I, also, would love to find community with other women who may have walked through a similar season. I get chills when I hear from other moms who have had difficult pregnancies or share their stories of fear and anxiety through traumatic times of motherhood and how their strength changed their lives.
But most of all, I want to write my story so I can get all the tangled details and miraculous moments out of my head. Written out. And hopefully make some sense of all that happened. Maybe to find some organization in it all. Some days, I feel terrified that I will forget the smallest of moments that changed me forever. That I will lose the awe of what really transpired. I fear the trials of life will try and trick my memory into thinking it wasn’t the miracle that it really was. I was able to get a front row seat and to witness a miracle. I never want the awesomeness of that to diminish or disappear. I need writing my story to be a part of my healing. A form of therapy to help me confront the pain of it all and to find joy in the moments that I still have a hard time believing are real.
God In The Center Of It All
I felt the presence of God and watched an absolute miracle take place during this transforming season of motherhood. So as I write out my story in pieces going forward, there will always be a strong center of faith and what God taught me through these traumatic moments. I would love to have you along for my journey of pulling my story together. If you would like to see more of my story in the moments, follow my instagram page @faithfulmamahood. I also share different ways that I place God in the center of motherhood daily in the midst of the chaos of raising 4 kids. I am hoping you find hope and raw moments of struggle that pressured and strengthened me. And ultimately directed me back to my place of peace: Jesus.
I cannot wait to start sharing my story and find my people!
