My husband and I got married in 2013. Although we wanted children, we decided to wait. Our marriage immediately was hard due to depression and illness. This lasted for several years. I had a job when we married, but due to illness I could no longer work.

In 2018 I finally started to feel myself again, but for months I bled. Eventually it turned out that I was pregnant. We were very happy, but my fear was that it wasn’t ok. Our first ultrasound was beautiful and I enjoyed my pregnancy for 5 days but then I started bleeding a lot. The heartbeat was still there but very slow; our little one was dying. After 2 weeks, she was born. The name we gave her means: ‘God is my light’, and buried her.

During my grieving process, I came across Moms in the Making on Instagram. And their content was so positive and full of hope that I started following them. It also gave me hope and peace that other women in such difficult times, could still be hopeful. In the summer of 2019, I had signed up for the online support group of Moms in the Making in the UK. This support group was really what I needed in my time of waiting.

During the support group evenings of MITM God was saying: the Netherlands needs this too. After a while there was a notification for new group leader applications. It didn’t matter where you lived and I knew right away: God is wanting me to do this. I signed up and was super busy to set this up here in the Netherlands, when suddenly God said to me: you have to take a pregnancy test. I laughed and thought: “I have taken tests so many times over the years, why should it be any different now?” But every day God said this to me. On December 29th 2020 I took a test and it was positive! I knew; this was His blessing for us!

On 3 September 2021, our daughter Olivia Sara Elora was born. Elora means: God is my light. Because He is still my light in everything! God is really blessing Moms in the Making here in the Netherlands and I can’t wait to see how He will bless it even more. God has done it for us and will do it again!

Marloes Altelaar – Netherlands