Thomas Rhett‘s wife, Lauren Akins, just released her memoir, Live in Love: Growing Together Through Life’s Changes. The book covers much of the behind-the-scenes lives of both her and her husband, including the powerful moment Lauren found out that Willa Gray, the little girl she fell in love with while working at an orphanage in Uganda, would be theirs.
“I had not cried like that in my entire life,” Lauren shared in the book (via The Tennessean). “I couldn’t even speak. … My mom, like me, is not really an outwardly emotional person, but she started crying, too. All she could do was just put her hand on my back as I bent over, just weeping with relief and thankfulness. I clung on to Willa Gray and held her so tight to me. ‘You’re our baby, Willa Gray,’ I whispered. ‘You’re our baby!'”
It was Lauren’s work in the orphanage in Uganda, with Love One International, that she says in many ways saved her life. After going to school to be a nurse, Lauren put her dreams of working in the medical field on hold, to support Thomas as his career was taking off.
“A little bit of my light would just dim a little more each day,” Lauren admitted to The Tennessean. “I got to a point where I realized I don’t recognize myself anymore.”
“It was like, if I can’t do this, I think I’ll die,” she added. “That’s what my heart needed was to be able to travel and love on those kids.”
Thomas and Lauren were within months of being able to bring Willa Gray home when she found out she was pregnant with Ada James. Although grateful for both additions to their family, Lauren admits it took a toll on their marriage. The couple ended up at Onsite, a therapy retreat center in Nashville that she now says was one of the best decisions they ever made.
“I think everybody can feel like, I’m exhausted and I feel like we’re just missing each other,” she admitted. “We were not communicating correctly and we’re not communicating clearly. That really started to hurt us after a while. I think we do better now, much better.”
Lauren hopes that by reading Live in Love, others will realize that her marriage and family isn’t that much different than anybody else’s.
“There’s a lot of pressure to portray that you have a perfect life, and family, and marriage, especially on social media and in the public eye,” Lauren told People. “I think the quicker that I’m able to just get on the table that, ‘Hey, we struggle just like every other married couple, we struggle just like every other parent, we struggle just like every other human,’ it takes that pressure and weight off our shoulders to have to be a certain way. It gives the green light to be us.”
“My hope is that people can find themselves in the pages, and they’ll be able to realize that deep down, every human heart has the same wants and feelings,” she addded. “We want to be known, we want to be loved [and] we want to have people to love. I hope that those walls will be pulled down.”
Live in Love: Growing Together Through Life’s Changes is available for purchase at LaurenAkins.com.