Five days after Lindsey and Ben Brown got married, the Pennsylvania couple moved to Alaska, where Ben was stationed for the army. It didn't take long for the newlyweds to start thinking about having a baby, and seven months later, Lindsey found out that she was pregnant. However, their journey to parenthood wouldn't be that easy.
When Lindsey was nine weeks pregnant with their first baby, she suffered a devastating miscarriage.
But that wasn't the only difficult news. Lindsey shared with Love What Matters that right around the time she miscarried, the pair also found out that Ben was going to be deployed to Afghanistan for nine months to a year.
Despite their hopes, the pair didn't think they had enough time to conceive again before Ben's deployment.
"Knowing he would be gone a lot for pre-deployment training between April and when he left in September, we didn't think it was likely I would get pregnant again before he left, and figured we'd have to wait another year to even start trying for a baby again," she wrote. "We were completely devastated."
Because of everything they'd been through, she wasn't optimistic. "As the deployment got closer, and each month passed with another negative test, we figured God was telling us now wasn't our time to be parents," she wrote.
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Then, three days before Ben left, Lindsey took a pregnancy test that revealed she was expecting.
Lindsey was thrilled to find out that she was carrying their rainbow baby and wanted to tell Ben in a special way. They were already planning on doing a photo shoot before Ben's deployment, and Lindsey decided this would be the perfect time to surprise him with the pregnancy news.
After finding out that she was pregnant, Lindsey immediately emailed MJL AK Photography to plan the ultimate way to tell Ben he was going to be a dad. "I actually saw the idea online and I knew I wanted to tell him in a big way," Lindsey tells CafeMom. "I thought it would be so awesome to be able to have the moment captured!"
Their photographer asked them to each write three things they love about each other.
During the shoot, they were each asked to write what they loved about each other standing back-to-back so nobody could peek. Ben obliged, but Lindsey got a bit creative with her answer. "We told Ben that the photographer did this with all of her couples photo shoots so he wouldn't be suspicious," she tells us. "I was so nervous right before and my hands were shaking as I was writing it on the board."
And Ben definitely wasn't expected what she had written: "We are having a baby!"
According to Lindsey, the moment was perfect and Ben was both completely shocked and thrilled. "When we turned around, his jaw dropped!" she says. "He was speechless, then just hugged me."
But Lindsey wasn't the only one nervous during the big reveal.
“I was pretty nervous about missing his first reaction, but I just kept taking as many pictures as I could,” Melissa Lawrence of MJL AK Photography tells CafeMom. "I was so thankful they turned out good and to be a part of their special moment — they are such a sweet couple!"
Without a doubt, Ben's sheer joy is easy to see.
Lindsey wants the heartwarming photos of Ben's pure surprise to help inspire other couples struggling to conceive. "I hope others gain from this to just never give up hope," she says. "We really learned that this wasn't in our timing, it was in God's hands completely."
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But reality quickly set in that Lindsey was going to spend the rest of her pregnancy without Ben.
Despite their excitement, Lindsey explained that the reality of being pregnant with Ben leaving quickly began to sink in. "We decided it would be best if I moved home to Pittsburgh to be surrounded by family during the deployment instead of staying in Alaska by myself," she wrote for Love What Matters.
But they are still cherishing every moment possible as a couple -- thanks to FaceTime.
Luckily, Ben has been able to be involved in Lindsey's pregnancy and has managed to FaceTime for almost every one of her doctor appointments. They even found out together that they are expecting a baby girl on May 3. "Ben will be back a week or two before my due date!" Lindsey tells us. "It's definitely been hard without him here, but it's been great being home with family."
