4.13.14
One of my roommates from college named Morgan had planned a trip to come visit us for a little while in April. She lives out in California with her husband and her daughter, Emerson.
When I had gone through training for my new job last year, I had to travel to Los Angeles, which was only about an hour from Morgan's house. Over the weekends, I would go visit her and her family, which also once included a trip to Malibu and the beach that was amazing. Her family has always treated me like one of their own, and Morgan had a lot of "crunchy" advice for keeping your kiddo as healthy as possible (if you don't get what crunchy means- my sweet roommie is kind of a hippie at heart. She was able to do all homemade baby food when Emerson transitioned to food, and they never once turned on the TV while I was at their house one weekend).
When we lost Kaitlyn, Morgan had called me when Alex and I were on our way out to El Paso. I just remember that she probably expected me to be a complete mess (we were only a few weeks out at that point), but I was in an okay place that day and wasn't in the mood to cry, so I didn't.
Anyways, Morgan had planned to do a tour of the US since her sister lives on the East Coast and her husband was out for training for work. We picked them up from the airport on Sunday morning, and I have to tell you how much fun I had listening to Morgan's stories and sharing life with her. Emerson took some time to warm up to us, which was absolutely fine, but in the end she gave lots of hugs and kisses to both me and Alex when she left. Emerson is just about to turn 2 at this point, and she was so well behaved and sweet.
At one point, she decided to bond with Alex something terrible. Alex was grilling out for us and he was in the kitchen cleaning some veggies for the grill when Emerson got a piece of paper and a pen and went and plopped down right next to his leg in order to color. She sat on the ground and was coloring when Alex finally looked down and noticed her.
"Well hello!" he said happily. "Are you helping me get dinner ready?"
Emerson just looked at him and grinned, but I could tell that Emerson's love was as welcomed to Alex as it was to me. Just being around other people's kids sometimes helps (sometimes not, if all the parent can do is complain about their kids' behavior), and Emerson with her bright blue eyes and blonde hair was just what we needed to be around.
That Tuesday, Morgan and Emerson left for the next leg of their trip. After I dropped them off at the airport, I felt incredibly sad. I'm fairly sure I cried nearly the whole way home just taking in the emptiness of the car that had been so full of life a few hours earlier. Morgan had asked if we could borrow a carseat from someone so she wouldn't have to try to check theirs, and Alex and I had just gone and bought one (since we'll need one eventually anyways, right?). But that carseat with the smashed cheerios in it stayed in my car for a few days after they left. I wasn't ready to take it out. I know that probably sounds weird, but I really enjoyed having that little girl around the house. But eventually, I had to accept that I didn't need a carseat in my car... Not yet, anyways. And Alex put it up in the storage area for me.
Kaitlyn
Monday, May 26, 2014
Pregnancy after Loss
4.9.14
Pregnancy after loss is hard.
After 6 months of grieving, I finally took down the letters that were in Kaitlyn's nursery, spelling out her name on the wall.
Pregnancy after loss is hard.
After 6 months of grieving, I finally took down the letters that were in Kaitlyn's nursery, spelling out her name on the wall.
I carefully placed each of the letters in the red box that had all of the "Kaitlyn only" things in it- her memory box, leaving the K at the very top.
Every day, I miss my daughter. Not to the point that I can't function, but there is always this dull ache that wants to hold my baby. I want to feel the weight of her and feel her breathing. I want to hear her cry.
Alex told me I should go babysit one of my friend's kids, but its not the same. I want the brown-headed child that Alex and I made together, who was destined to change the world (she already has, really), and who was as stubborn as her momma.
Its such a weird sensation to be waiting again: I feel like there have always been these massive count-downs for me: count-down to Alex coming home, count-down to delivery, count-down to trying again. And now, count-down to getting to hold a screaming child.
People ask me what I'm hoping for (meaning the gender of this child): I want a loud birth. I want this kid to come out screaming at the top of his/her lungs. I want everyone in the room to clap when that happens. I don't want the heavy silence of our last birth as everyone waited for the doctor to sew me up so I could finally hold her.
I want the messes, and the late night sleeplessness. I want the joy of feeling a little hand grip mine so tightly before he or she falls asleep. I want the chaos that surrounds new life, and the quiet of our child sleeping on Alex's chest as he tries not to fall asleep.
I want the same things I wanted a year ago, but this time is so different. This time, Alex is home. There isn't the absence of him that makes me more in-tune with the personality of the life we created. Instead, there is a business as we both try to hurry time along until November. I spend the days at work and then try to do things around the house (which I am not the best at), he works and goes to the gym. Neither of us say it, but we are both so incredibly ready for this child to get here. We are ready for the life we started planning two years ago, and we are ready for the joy that will come with restoration of that dream.
"Delight yourself in the Lord and
He will give you the desires of your heart."
Psalm 37:4
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Reflecting back
**So those of you who are reading this live probably noticed that I didn't write for a few weeks. There is a reason for that, but I'm not ready to write about it just yet. In the meantime, I didn't take very good notes about what I wanted to include in the blog, so you'll have to excuse me if this doesn't flow as well as previous posts and that I'm about to backtrack some.
I was reflecting back on the conversation I had with Dr. Denison and there were two points that really stuck with me from our conversation. The first one has been a huge comfort to me since that day, and it was about Kaitlyn missing me.
"You understand, of course, that Kaitlyn doesn't miss you because there's no time in Heaven," he had started.
"What do you mean?" I asked, a little confused.
"Well, it's easy for us to think of God as transcending space and knowledge: He knows everything and He is everywhere all at once. But another thing about God is that with Him there is no time. So for Kaitlyn, you're not missing. She literally turns around and you're already with her," he continued. "So to her, you haven't been gone long enough for her to miss you. Our time here is so short- it's like the dot before the line of eternity."
That comforted me immensely. The Mom side of me is still trying to protect Kaitlyn from hurting, even though I know that there is no pain or hurt in Heaven.
"Do you think that our loved ones are allowed or able to visit us here on Earth?" I asked.
"No," he said a little shortly, but continued. "But there is a debate over that. Hebrews 12:1 says that we have a 'cloud of witnesses' to what we do, but I, personally, don't think that means our loved ones come back. I believe it is talking about the people who are still here and watching us live our lives. Plus, I don't see how someone could come back and see us here in the broken world and not be sad. So, no, I don't think that our loved ones come back. But I could be wrong," he laughed at the end.
To be honest, that last part made me a little sad. I've felt like Kaitlyn has visited us before because I could just sense her presence. I was hoping for him to tell me that they absolutely come back so I could not feel crazy.
After a little soul searching, I've decided that I disagree with Dr. Denison. Shocking, we can agree to disagree and in the end it really won't matter.
The biggest evidence I've found for the fact that some of our loved ones in Heaven do come back to see us is straight out of the mouth of a resurrected Jesus.
I was reflecting back on the conversation I had with Dr. Denison and there were two points that really stuck with me from our conversation. The first one has been a huge comfort to me since that day, and it was about Kaitlyn missing me.
"You understand, of course, that Kaitlyn doesn't miss you because there's no time in Heaven," he had started.
"What do you mean?" I asked, a little confused.
"Well, it's easy for us to think of God as transcending space and knowledge: He knows everything and He is everywhere all at once. But another thing about God is that with Him there is no time. So for Kaitlyn, you're not missing. She literally turns around and you're already with her," he continued. "So to her, you haven't been gone long enough for her to miss you. Our time here is so short- it's like the dot before the line of eternity."
That comforted me immensely. The Mom side of me is still trying to protect Kaitlyn from hurting, even though I know that there is no pain or hurt in Heaven.
"Do you think that our loved ones are allowed or able to visit us here on Earth?" I asked.
"No," he said a little shortly, but continued. "But there is a debate over that. Hebrews 12:1 says that we have a 'cloud of witnesses' to what we do, but I, personally, don't think that means our loved ones come back. I believe it is talking about the people who are still here and watching us live our lives. Plus, I don't see how someone could come back and see us here in the broken world and not be sad. So, no, I don't think that our loved ones come back. But I could be wrong," he laughed at the end.
To be honest, that last part made me a little sad. I've felt like Kaitlyn has visited us before because I could just sense her presence. I was hoping for him to tell me that they absolutely come back so I could not feel crazy.
After a little soul searching, I've decided that I disagree with Dr. Denison. Shocking, we can agree to disagree and in the end it really won't matter.
The biggest evidence I've found for the fact that some of our loved ones in Heaven do come back to see us is straight out of the mouth of a resurrected Jesus.
"Look at my hands and my feet. It's really me!
Touch me and see, for a ghost doesn't have flesh
and bones like you see I have."
Luke 24:39
Depending on which version of the Bible you have, "spirit" may be substituted for the word "ghost". Either way, why would Jesus waste his time saying that if ghosts/spirits didn't come back and see us? This implies to me that spirits do come back and sometimes they may appear as real as a person, which is why Jesus asked the disciples to touch His hands and feet to prove that He was physically resurrected.
Take that as you will, but when I read that scripture the first thing my mind went back to was the conversation with Dr. Denison and one day, maybe, I"ll point that scripture out to him and see what his thoughts are on it.
Letting it out
4.14.14
Sometime that week, I started telling people we were expecting again. I felt like I had finally gotten my anxiety under control and that I could address anyone's questions about that anxiety without completely losing it.
The first to know were the people that I work directly with at the hospitals. Some of them may have been suspicious anyways because I was hiding behind walls anytime an X-ray was engaged, but now I was actively telling some people that I had to seek out.
Some of those people were in the clinic where Kaitlyn worked.
I feel like I should address something first: Kaitlyn had reached out to me around November to tell me that I really hurt her when I wrote my post about jealousy. She said that I had personally and publically called her out, and she felt attacked. To be honest, she's right. I didn't ask her permission to write about her birth, or to re-post some of the things that she wrote on facebook, and I certainly used her name which is probably a violation of her privacy rights in some way.
But in my defense, this blog has been about me and my reaction to things, it was in no way about her. I know that she did not post the things she did to hurt me and that she wouldn't do that. However, the emotions that I went through (and still go through) in relation to being green with envy that her daughter lived and mine did not are real, and I have to be truthful to that otherwise I may as well just stop writing this blog all together. There are many moms that have been in our situation that have read my blog, and if I leave out those key ugly moments, the authenticity of this blog is lost. It becomes a facade for how well I am dealing with everything instead of the truth that to this day, losing Kaitlyn is hard. It still hurts. 6 months later it still hurts, and in 60 years (if I'm still around), it will still hurt. But working through those emotions in a public way has helped me cope, and I know that it has helped others.
There were a variety of different reactions that people had when I told them we were expecting: some were outwardly ecstatic, others were cautiously happy, and others had a reaction I wasn't really expecting.
"How far along are you?" one person asked.
"10 weeks."
"No offense, but I wouldn't be telling anyone yet."
That one caught me completely offguard. I get that you're not suppose to tell people that you're pregnant until 12 weeks, but I had seen the ultrasound and was confident that we would make it to the 12 week mark (and beyond).
Not only that, but even if we didn't make it that far, this child deserved to be celebrated. I wanted to tell people so that they could know that God is faithful, and that He was already redeeming His promises to us.
Not only that, but even if we didn't make it that far, this child deserved to be celebrated. I wanted to tell people so that they could know that God is faithful, and that He was already redeeming His promises to us.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Another email
When I had spoken to the women's ministry about doing a Hope Box gathering, I had always started with a short version of Kaitlyn's story and I would bring a stack of the blog cards I made for people that wanted to read more of our story to grab and take with them.
One day, I got an amazing email from on of the moms that was in a group I spoke to:
Hi Amy
You spoke to my Bible Study this morning! Thank you so much for sharing your story I know that must be difficult for you. Your strength to use your pain, experience and growth to minister to others is such an amazing gift!
I wanted to email you to encourage you in your ministry and tell you something that happened today.
When I got home from Bible study I pulled up your blog to read your story. My almost 5 year old son ask what I was reading. I told him I was reading about a baby. After several questions I told him that she was in heaven. This sparked the question in him " mom am I going to heaven?" I was able to talk to him about salvation and he ask Jesus to come into his heart! I wanted to tell you so you would know your daughters story is ministering in ways you could never imagine!
I am going to rally the troops and see what I can come up with in way of donations. Thanks again for sharing!
Blessings,
Bonnie
You spoke to my Bible Study this morning! Thank you so much for sharing your story I know that must be difficult for you. Your strength to use your pain, experience and growth to minister to others is such an amazing gift!
I wanted to email you to encourage you in your ministry and tell you something that happened today.
When I got home from Bible study I pulled up your blog to read your story. My almost 5 year old son ask what I was reading. I told him I was reading about a baby. After several questions I told him that she was in heaven. This sparked the question in him " mom am I going to heaven?" I was able to talk to him about salvation and he ask Jesus to come into his heart! I wanted to tell you so you would know your daughters story is ministering in ways you could never imagine!
I am going to rally the troops and see what I can come up with in way of donations. Thanks again for sharing!
Blessings,
Bonnie
I cried over this email. I promise you, I could have stopped writing at that exact moment because I remembered somewhere in the beginning I said that I would rejoice in the day that a stranger emailed me and told me that our story had lead them to Christ. And here it was. Better yet, it was a kiddo that was able to ask about Heaven and find out the glory of Jesus' sacrifice for him.
What an amazing day.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
The first OB appointment
4.7.14
When we had first found out I was pregnant, I had immediately called my OB office to figure out what they wanted to do with me. Dr. B had told me that she would tread me as a "high risk" patient even though there was nothing wrong with Kaitlyn when we did the autopsy (I still cringe at that word).
The office called me back and let me know that they would see me at 9 weeks pregnant, but if I was feeling anxious I could come have some bloodwork done early just to check and make sure my hormone levels were good. I really didn't feel the need for that, so I had waited until that 9 week appointment to go into the office.
Alex was running late that day, and I am not going to lie, I was nervous. I was ready to be sure that we really were pregnant, and that there wasn't something else going on with my body that it was just thinking I was pregnant when I really wasn't. As I waited in the room for Alex to get there, I was thinking about the last time I was here for this reason. It had been just before Alex deployed to Afghanistan, and it was a totally different feeling. There hadn't been the apprehension that I felt this time, and last time I didn't really have a problem going to the doctor's office by myself. But this time, it took all the courage I had that day to get out of the car and check in without Alex by my side.
Luckily, Alex chose that exact moment to come in. I was sitting there in my paper gown on the table just crying.
"What's wrong?" he said gently.
"It's just a lot... Too many emotions," I said. He gave me a big hug and told me it was okay, and right then Dr. B walked in. I think we startled her a little bit by me sitting there in a ball of mess.
She nodded her head and said, "Too many memories?"
I laughed and said, "Yeah. Just nervous."
Again, she nodded and said, "Well let's get to work."
It didn't take long for her to find our tiny peanut on the screen of the sonogram. And there, in the center of that tiny pea, was a flutter of a heartbeat. She measured it out, "160 beats per minute today, very healthy."
And finally, I could breathe.
When we had first found out I was pregnant, I had immediately called my OB office to figure out what they wanted to do with me. Dr. B had told me that she would tread me as a "high risk" patient even though there was nothing wrong with Kaitlyn when we did the autopsy (I still cringe at that word).
The office called me back and let me know that they would see me at 9 weeks pregnant, but if I was feeling anxious I could come have some bloodwork done early just to check and make sure my hormone levels were good. I really didn't feel the need for that, so I had waited until that 9 week appointment to go into the office.
Alex was running late that day, and I am not going to lie, I was nervous. I was ready to be sure that we really were pregnant, and that there wasn't something else going on with my body that it was just thinking I was pregnant when I really wasn't. As I waited in the room for Alex to get there, I was thinking about the last time I was here for this reason. It had been just before Alex deployed to Afghanistan, and it was a totally different feeling. There hadn't been the apprehension that I felt this time, and last time I didn't really have a problem going to the doctor's office by myself. But this time, it took all the courage I had that day to get out of the car and check in without Alex by my side.
Luckily, Alex chose that exact moment to come in. I was sitting there in my paper gown on the table just crying.
"What's wrong?" he said gently.
"It's just a lot... Too many emotions," I said. He gave me a big hug and told me it was okay, and right then Dr. B walked in. I think we startled her a little bit by me sitting there in a ball of mess.
She nodded her head and said, "Too many memories?"
I laughed and said, "Yeah. Just nervous."
Again, she nodded and said, "Well let's get to work."
It didn't take long for her to find our tiny peanut on the screen of the sonogram. And there, in the center of that tiny pea, was a flutter of a heartbeat. She measured it out, "160 beats per minute today, very healthy."
And finally, I could breathe.
Hope Box Gathering
4.1.14
It was time for the Hope Box Gatherings to happen at our church.
I had printed out some of the verses recommended by Hope Mommies to go in the boxes, and we asked all of the group to write out the verses on note cards to go in the boxes for us before we put all of the materials together. For those of you that are curious: a hope box contains a journal, a Bible, a book called The One Year Book of Hope by Nancy Guthrie, and usually some "love ya" gifts like a coffee mug and different flavors of teas, and sometimes some nice lotions for the momma. Each table had agreed to sponsor a hope box, so for every table we would have a complete box, totaling about 8 per session.
Michelle had asked to come and see how we ran the gathering, and I was happy to have another Hope Mom there that had been so vocal about loving her Hope Box and how much it had meant to her. Just another testament to the ministry.
As they finished up putting their boxes together, Michelle and I sat on the stage and kind of caught up about where we were with life and our grief. Once they were done, we gathered all the boxes on a center table, and the ladies circled around them and held hands as I lead the prayer over them. I'm not going to be modest, I cry anytime I think about someone losing a child like we did. I cried through the prayer as I asked God to open the hearts of the administrators and the hospitals we were going to target, and I asked that God would use these boxes to open doors to hearts of those that were far from Him. I asked for mercy for the families that would be receiving them, and I prayed that they would touch those mom's hearts to know that they were not alone.
When we finished, Michelle and I loaded up these absolutely gorgeous boxes (some of the ladies had gone completely overboard and brought all of their scrapbooking materials to make the outside of the boxes pretty), and we were both blown away by how pretty all of them ended up being. Maybe I'm a little biased because I know a lot of these ladies, but I still smile when I see some of the boxes that are sitting in our front room waiting to be delivered. Because they're beautiful, and I imagine the comfort that something so simple and so beautiful will bring to a grieving mother.
It was time for the Hope Box Gatherings to happen at our church.
I had printed out some of the verses recommended by Hope Mommies to go in the boxes, and we asked all of the group to write out the verses on note cards to go in the boxes for us before we put all of the materials together. For those of you that are curious: a hope box contains a journal, a Bible, a book called The One Year Book of Hope by Nancy Guthrie, and usually some "love ya" gifts like a coffee mug and different flavors of teas, and sometimes some nice lotions for the momma. Each table had agreed to sponsor a hope box, so for every table we would have a complete box, totaling about 8 per session.
Michelle had asked to come and see how we ran the gathering, and I was happy to have another Hope Mom there that had been so vocal about loving her Hope Box and how much it had meant to her. Just another testament to the ministry.
As they finished up putting their boxes together, Michelle and I sat on the stage and kind of caught up about where we were with life and our grief. Once they were done, we gathered all the boxes on a center table, and the ladies circled around them and held hands as I lead the prayer over them. I'm not going to be modest, I cry anytime I think about someone losing a child like we did. I cried through the prayer as I asked God to open the hearts of the administrators and the hospitals we were going to target, and I asked that God would use these boxes to open doors to hearts of those that were far from Him. I asked for mercy for the families that would be receiving them, and I prayed that they would touch those mom's hearts to know that they were not alone.
When we finished, Michelle and I loaded up these absolutely gorgeous boxes (some of the ladies had gone completely overboard and brought all of their scrapbooking materials to make the outside of the boxes pretty), and we were both blown away by how pretty all of them ended up being. Maybe I'm a little biased because I know a lot of these ladies, but I still smile when I see some of the boxes that are sitting in our front room waiting to be delivered. Because they're beautiful, and I imagine the comfort that something so simple and so beautiful will bring to a grieving mother.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Not Telling
The next few weeks were honestly a blur of waiting and going through all of the emotions I felt with being pregnant again in the same time frame that we were pregnant with Kaitlyn. Their due days were actually only about 6 weeks apart.
When we got pregnant with Kaitlyn, I'm fairly sure my entire workforce knew within about 48 hours. We were excited, and because of the nature of my job I have to work around a lot of radiation so when I started hiding behind walls and people, the nurses I see on a daily basis figured it out (it's not that hard).
This time was different. As excited as I was to be pregnant, I didn't feel ready to let everyone else know yet. There were a few people that I trusted to pray for us, so I told them, but in general it would be another couple of weeks before the majority of people at work would know. I justified my feelings by saying to myself that I was already anxious enough, and I didn't want to be around people that would (in a good way) be anxious for us because it would then just make me even more anxious. So I stayed quiet and didn't say anything for a while.
I had called my OB's office (she got married, so her name is now Dr. B instead of Dr. L), and they had wanted me to wait until week 9 to come in. This is the same amount of time they wanted me to wait with Kaitlyn, so I wasn't shocked but I was a little disappointed that they wouldn't see me earlier just to put my mind at ease. They offered for me to come in and do bloodwork, but I didn't really see the benefit in that.
So I waited. One day, one of the guys I work with asked me when I was going to the doctor because I had told him that we were expecting again, and I let him know it would be in a few weeks.
"Are you going back to the same OB?" he asked quietly.
"Yes."
"I can't believe you're doing that. I'm so mad at her," he said under his breath. I was really kind of surprised by his reaction.
"Why are you mad at her?"
"Because she knew Kaitlyn's cord was around her neck. She should have taken her that day. Its not okay that she knew her cord was there and she didn't do anything about it," he said quickly.
"Thomas, you can't be mad. First off, babies are born every day with cords around their neck. My cousin had her baby girl last year without a c-section and Brenna had her cord around her neck FOUR times, and she was just fine!" I tried to comfort him.
"Really?" he said, not really believing me.
"Yeah, they made my cousin stop pushing so they could unloop her cord from around her neck and they counted. The doctors can't tell if a cord around the neck is going to cause something completely tragic to happen. In fact, I remember that Dr. B told me that she had another patient just the week before with a baby sitting breech and the cord around the neck and everything was fine."
"Well... Okay. I guess that makes me feel better," he agreed reluctantly.
It was these kinds of conversations I dread (still), just because it is a rehash of everything that could have gone differently. Yes, Dr B could have taken Kaitlyn early, and maybe saved her, but we don't know that. There are moms that I have listened to tell their stories and sometimes their losses are within hours of seeing a normal heartbeat on the sonogram screen. Its that acceptance that this is what God planned for their lives and ours. Its trusting that we are truly not in control, but that He is.
"We know that God works all things together for good for the ones
who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose."
Romans 8:28
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