9.18.2015
I sit here, next to Alex, on the eve of what would have been Kaitlyn's second birthday. So much has happened in the last year, in the last two years, that it seems surreal.
Kiera is 11 months old today. I have been thinking for the last year that I had wished I had requested to wait just one additional hour when she was delivered so that the girls would have been exactly 13 months apart, but today I am grateful that I didn't. I'm grateful that today was Kiera's day, and tomorrow will be Kaitlyn's.
This year is so different from last year. Last year, all I was focused on was getting through Kaitlyn's birthday so that I could focus on my last month of pregnancy with Kiera. This year, I feel like time has slowed down and I can just breathe. Breathe into the loss, breathe into the grief.
I feel like, for the most part, I have done well separating the girls in my mind. By that, I mean that I don't mourn the loss of Kaitlyn every time Kiera hits a milestone. Then again, there are days that knock my breath away. It usually comes at the most unsuspecting time, but I can feel the air leave the room. Most of the time it's when I'm by myself, and I will just remember strange things, like the sound of the silence as she was lifted from my body, or the way that Alex helped me dry off after my first shower and how he lovingly patted my fresh wound dry.
We moved in May. God blessed us with the means to have a bigger home with room to expand our family again in the future. But today, I am reminded of our old house and how I cried over the nursery when we decided to leave. That was the only room, the only house, that will know the heart beats of both my babies. I remember watching Alex paint the accent wall in that room, and put together the rocker and the crib before he left to go to Afghanistan. I remember walking in on him after her we got home from the hospital, after all our family had taken everything from every other part of the house and put it in the nursery and shut the door so that we wouldn't have to see it the first thing as we walked in to our house baby-less. I remember so many days of sitting in that room and crying my heart out to God as I asked why, as I worked through so many issues and doubts and fears.
Grace has been a resounding theme over the last year. Every time someone asks me how many kids I have, or if Kiera is our first, I call on grace. It depends on the day how I answer. Sometimes, it is all I can do to not lash out at people who just don't understand that babies die. Life is fragile. Not too long ago, Kiera scared us by having some rapid breathing and we ended up in an ER down the street. In her explanation of what was going on, the doctor said, "Don't worry, your baby's not going to just stop breathing." It was all I could do not tell her that my first baby had died without warning, without reason. I had to breathe, and give grace.
Kaitlyn's urn still sits on my bedside. To be honest, I don't look at it often, and I think that is okay for me. I don't feel the need to stare at it everyday, or talk to it like she's here. Tomorrow will be different, but I know that my daughter is with Jesus and the remnants of her body are not her soul. I wrote once about how separation from God is essentially death, and how we are all born dead until we decide to walk with Jesus. I go back to that thought quite often and remind myself that Kaitlyn isn't gone, or even really dead in the sense of that word. "For the wages of sin is death..." The cost of our sin is death, separation from God. And if separation from God is death, than life is found in His presence.
And for this, as a closing thought, on the eve of my precious daughter's second birthday, I am again reminded of the glory of the Word and how it is a living, breathing thing. The Easter story means something completely different than it use to on the other side of infant death. In the story, when the women went to the tomb to dress Jesus' body in oils they found the stone rolls away and his body gone. It was then that the angels that had appeared at the tomb asked them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5)
That, my friends, is the freedom in Christ. Because through His grace and mercy, Kaitlyn truly lives.
Kaitlyn
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Afterward
I knew when I started writing this blog that it wasn't suppose to go on indefinitely, and I knew that once we had our second child my grief would change again (as it did). Very early on, I decided to stop writing this blog as it stands once we had a healthy child, but I had no idea that it would be one day short of 13 months to the day after we lost Kaitlyn.
There is a movie that I have loved for a very long time that came out in 2000 called Gladiator, starring Russel Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix. The story line is filled with lots of blood and intrigue, and if you rented it today you would probably call it a "dude" movie.
At the beginning of the movie, the main character is out fighting a battle and the corrupt Emperor of Rome has his wife and child killed (bear with me on this). Throughout the whole movie, you watch his character go through his grief in different stages and share his story with certain key people along his journey to free himself from the slavery of being a gladiator.
Spoiler alert: at the very end of the movie, the Gladiator dies. His death scene is one of the most amazing cinematic pictures that I think I have ever seen. As he lays bleeding out in the middle of an arena, his spirit is crossing over to the other side by walking slowly through a field of wheat that looks just like his home where his family was murdered. As he continues to walk to the fields, the wind blowing the grains to make waves on the hills in front of him, he finally reaches the end of a dirt pathway where his wife and child are waiting at the other end. His son starts sprinting towards his father in joyful recognition.
I know that is what Heaven will be like when we get there. I know that one day, when my parents die, and when Alex dies, and when I die, we will be greeted by the most beautiful girl to ever leave this planet early. I know that she will run to us in recognition, taking us by the hand anxious to show us around Heaven.
Because I put my faith in Jesus Christ, I know that I will be reunited with her. It is the promise of salvation.
The final scene in the movie Gladiator shows one of the key characters, a fellow gladiator and friend of Russell Crowe's, takes the small wooden figures of the Gladiator's family and creates a tiny grave for them to be buried in. As he placed the dirt over the figures, he looks to the sky and says with certainty, "I will see you again." A slow smile comes across his face as he continues, "But not yet..." and the final words of the movie are said in a whisper, "Not yet."
There is a movie that I have loved for a very long time that came out in 2000 called Gladiator, starring Russel Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix. The story line is filled with lots of blood and intrigue, and if you rented it today you would probably call it a "dude" movie.
At the beginning of the movie, the main character is out fighting a battle and the corrupt Emperor of Rome has his wife and child killed (bear with me on this). Throughout the whole movie, you watch his character go through his grief in different stages and share his story with certain key people along his journey to free himself from the slavery of being a gladiator.
Spoiler alert: at the very end of the movie, the Gladiator dies. His death scene is one of the most amazing cinematic pictures that I think I have ever seen. As he lays bleeding out in the middle of an arena, his spirit is crossing over to the other side by walking slowly through a field of wheat that looks just like his home where his family was murdered. As he continues to walk to the fields, the wind blowing the grains to make waves on the hills in front of him, he finally reaches the end of a dirt pathway where his wife and child are waiting at the other end. His son starts sprinting towards his father in joyful recognition.
I know that is what Heaven will be like when we get there. I know that one day, when my parents die, and when Alex dies, and when I die, we will be greeted by the most beautiful girl to ever leave this planet early. I know that she will run to us in recognition, taking us by the hand anxious to show us around Heaven.
Because I put my faith in Jesus Christ, I know that I will be reunited with her. It is the promise of salvation.
The final scene in the movie Gladiator shows one of the key characters, a fellow gladiator and friend of Russell Crowe's, takes the small wooden figures of the Gladiator's family and creates a tiny grave for them to be buried in. As he placed the dirt over the figures, he looks to the sky and says with certainty, "I will see you again." A slow smile comes across his face as he continues, "But not yet..." and the final words of the movie are said in a whisper, "Not yet."
Oct. 17th (Part III)
10.17.14
As we wheeled back to the OR, it was hard not to have flashbacks to when we had Kaitlyn. I'm fairly sure that we went into a different room, but the rooms are all set up nearly identically so it was hard to tell.
If there is one thing I regret about our birth, it is that I never asked Alex how he felt about delivering at the same hospital. I was so determined to have the same staff at the same hospital deliver us, I never stopped to consider that Alex might not want that. I watched him as we went into the suite, and I know he was fighting back the same memories that I was.
Luckily, we had a great team with us that kept us distracted from those memories.
Gail had put on scrubs and had volunteered to hold me while I got my epidural, the exact same way she had just over a year ago. This time, however, I was able to feel everything that the anesthesiologist was doing since I wasn't overcome with grief. I will admit that from the time they disconnected me from the monitor in pre-op I had to battle the fear that our baby girl would pass away from something. I just wanted her out and screaming, that's all I wanted.
As everyone was getting set up and I was being prepped for surgery, Alex worked with Larry to hook his phone up to the speaker to play music. He put it on the Disney Pandora station, and we were able to listen to some great Disney classics as well as some newer songs that were popular (quite a few from Frozen, actually).
Soon, it was time. The blue drape obscured my view from my stomach and I was staring at those same white lights I had been just over a year ago. I waited anxiously for the reflection on the lights to turn red, knowing that meant they had started cutting me to get our little girl out.
I tried my best not to be anxious. I listened to the music, I prayed, and I recited those verses that had kept me company for so many weeks before this day.
As Dr. D stepped up to her side of the table to start the delivery, an old but familiar song came on the radio.
As we wheeled back to the OR, it was hard not to have flashbacks to when we had Kaitlyn. I'm fairly sure that we went into a different room, but the rooms are all set up nearly identically so it was hard to tell.
If there is one thing I regret about our birth, it is that I never asked Alex how he felt about delivering at the same hospital. I was so determined to have the same staff at the same hospital deliver us, I never stopped to consider that Alex might not want that. I watched him as we went into the suite, and I know he was fighting back the same memories that I was.
Luckily, we had a great team with us that kept us distracted from those memories.
Gail had put on scrubs and had volunteered to hold me while I got my epidural, the exact same way she had just over a year ago. This time, however, I was able to feel everything that the anesthesiologist was doing since I wasn't overcome with grief. I will admit that from the time they disconnected me from the monitor in pre-op I had to battle the fear that our baby girl would pass away from something. I just wanted her out and screaming, that's all I wanted.
As everyone was getting set up and I was being prepped for surgery, Alex worked with Larry to hook his phone up to the speaker to play music. He put it on the Disney Pandora station, and we were able to listen to some great Disney classics as well as some newer songs that were popular (quite a few from Frozen, actually).
Soon, it was time. The blue drape obscured my view from my stomach and I was staring at those same white lights I had been just over a year ago. I waited anxiously for the reflection on the lights to turn red, knowing that meant they had started cutting me to get our little girl out.
I tried my best not to be anxious. I listened to the music, I prayed, and I recited those verses that had kept me company for so many weeks before this day.
As Dr. D stepped up to her side of the table to start the delivery, an old but familiar song came on the radio.
Naaaaaaaaaants ingonyama bagithi Baba
Sithi uhm ingonyama
ingonyama
Naaaaaaaaaaaaants ingonyama bagithi Baba
Sithi uhm ingonyama
ingonyama
Siyo nqoba
Ingonyama
Ingonyama nengw enambala
From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round
It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
In the path unwinding
In the circle
The circle of Life
Kiera Paige Munoz was born October 17, 2014, at 11:06 PM.
As the song played, we waited for our sweet little girl to come out. This was absolutely the hardest part for me- last time, I was almost numb to the idea of Kaitlyn being born. As awful as it sounds, I didn't care about when she came out because she was already gone. There was no anticipation last time, only dread.
This time, I was loaded with anticipation and apprehension. I just wanted them to get her out NOW because I knew she was okay and her heart was beating a short while ago.
Alex and Gail took pictures while we waited.
Soon, I heard them say that I was going to feel some pressure as they pulled her out. My heart started racing as I waited for that sound we had waited over a year to hear- our daughter's first cry.
Finally, we heard it, loud and clear.
The first time we met.
Our family.
My absolute favorite picture from that night.
Later, the Nanana would give me a frame that had this picture in it
with Kaitlyn's footprints faded in the background. I have it on my nightstand,
right next to Kaitlyn's urn.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Oct. 17th (Part II)
10.17.14
I have this tendency to not pay close attention to time when I am laying in a hospital bed listening to our baby girl's heart beat. I could lay there for hours just listening to the reassuring thus thus thub of a healthy heart rate.
"It's been an hour..." Alex said, kind of startling me out of my peaceful zone. "What are they thinking is going on?"
"I dunno," I shrugged, not really ready for them to come back and tell me that they were going to send me home because everything was fine. I pushed the call button to have the nurse come back and talk to us. Within about 5 minutes, she appeared.
"So, I've been on the phone with Dr D, showing her all of your strips, and we agree that this is true early labor," she paused. "And we are ready to deliver tonight if you guys are okay with that."
"Really?!" I said, shocked and excited and nervous. I looked at Alex and I could tell he felt the same way- we were finally going to meet our baby girl.
"Yes, really," the nurse giggled at us. "Are you okay with that?"
"Heck yes!" we both said enthusiastically.
"So, how long will it take for everyone to get here? I mean, how long will we need to wait until we actually deliver?" I asked anxiously.
"You'll have your baby in your arms before midnight," she said gleefully.
"So, how long will it take for everyone to get here? I mean, how long will we need to wait until we actually deliver?" I asked anxiously.
"You'll have your baby in your arms before midnight," she said gleefully.
We called my parents, who were shocked and excited that the time had come for the little one to make her appearance, but saddened that they wouldn't be there for the delivery. My grandmother was still hanging in there, but there was no way they could leave right that second and come to Dallas.
We called Gail, the nurse that had been with us during Kaitlyn's delivery, and she headed up to the hospital. So did Jenny, Kenney (the Nanana), and Becky and Charlie that had been with my parents while we delivered Kaitlyn. Our friends chatted with us while we waited for the staff to get set up.
We also texted Carol, the CRNA who had done my anesthesia for Kaitlyn.
Me: Hi Carol! This is Amy Munoz- we are going to have a c section tonight, would you happen tone available?
Carol: I'm so sorry. I have had an adult beverage. I could not come in. Amy, you will do fine. Larry (the anesthesiologist on call) will take excellent care of you. He has been there for 25 years. he brought me on. I am praying for you and your baby. God bless you.
Even though I was disappointed to not have Carol in the room with us, I laughed out loud at her response that she had an "adult beverage"!
The replacement anesthesiologist, Larry, came in to talk to us about the procedure. He could have come in and said, "Blah blah blah" as far as I was concerned because we were just ready to get this sweet one out into the world safely! He did tell us, though, that he always kept a speaker with him for his procedures so that we could listen to music.
"I have a set c-section playlist if you'd like that," he told us. "Or Dad over there can put his music on and we can listen to something you guys like." Alex got really excited about the idea of getting to chose the music that our little one was born to.
Soon, it was time for us to go back to the OR. Dr. D came skirting in right about the time they were wheeling me around the room (let me just say- I did my research on all of Dr. B's partners a LONG time before we even talked about having kids, so I was very comfortable with the idea of Dr. D delivering our baby) and I finally was able to put a face to the name. She was a little older than Dr. B, and shorter with dark brown hair instead of blonde.
"Are you ready to do this?" she asked us.
"Beyond ready!" I told her. And off we went to the OR suite.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
October 17th (part 1)
10.17.14
On Friday morning, after a very busy week with doctors appointments and balloon releases, I went in for my last NST before the weekend. I was really happy I had asked for the extra appointment because it just eased my mind that our baby girl was tolerating my irregular and weak contractions okay.
Twenty minutes after they hooked me up to the monitor, Dr D's medical assistant came in and took the strip back for analysis. Within about 5 minutes she came back and told me that everything looked good, just one semi-strong contraction but the baby's heart rate was just fine with it.
I went off to work and covered one of our afternoon cases locally. After my first bout with preterm labor, I discussed with my managers that I needed to stay closer to our hospital instead of driving my regular 30-45 minutes away to cover cases. They had been 100% supportive and it made it so much easier to make my biweekly (or in this case, triweekly) doctor visits.
The case that afternoon was a bit long, and I ended up finishing up at about 4:30. The nurses I worked with that day were the same group that had come to Kaitlyn's memorial service, and they had been nothing but sweet and supportive the entire pregnancy. This time, one of the male nurses asked me how I was doing with everything and I gave him the update on my most recent NST results.
"I'm so ready," I told him as I was packing up my stuff. "This baby could come tonight and I would be just fine with it. I'm tired of waiting and all these meds make me anxious."
"I bet!" he laughed a little bit at my boldness.
On the way home I called my mom, which is a typical drive home for me. As I was talking to her, I felt a contraction that was pretty strong.
"Did you drink enough water today?" she asked me.
"No, I probably didn't. I'll go home and down a big glass and get off my feet and all that jazz," I responded to try to ease her mind. Some people may not know this, but dehydration can actually jump start labor.
I asked my mom how my grandmother was doing and she let me know that she thought my grandmother probably wouldn't make it through the night.
My mom has a true gift (which she'll never admit to) with helping people pass away peacefully. Unfortunately, she's had a lot of practice with some really good friends. I remember when I was a senior in high school, one of her good friends had terminal cancer and my mom served almost in a hospice nurse capacity, spending hour after hour at her friend's bedside and helping with the housework. Weeks before Alex and I got married, another best friend lost her battle with cancer, and weeks before we lost Kaitlyn, my mom lost another friend in a freak accident.
As soon as I got home, I parked it on the couch with a big glass of water and waited. Ever since I had been put on the medication to make the contractions stop, I had kept a note on my phone so that I could track the break-through contractions to see if I needed to talk to Dr. B about increasing the dose at all.
While I sat and waited, I started to notice that my list of times for contractions was growing faster than it ever had before. When I first started tracking them that afternoon, they came every 15 minutes, but before it was 5:30, we were down to every 3 minutes. About that time, Alex got home from work. I had given him the short version of what was going on, and as usual he was playing it cool.
"So, do you want to go see a movie or something?" he asked, gauging my reaction to how serious the situation was.
"Yeah that's what I want to do..." I replied a little sarcastically. "Maybe some salted down popcorn will make these contractions stop."
"Hmm, what's the plan then?" he asked.
"They say that you have to have contractions for an hour before you call the doctor, and I'm 30 minutes in. So let's wait another 30 minutes and see if they go away. Otherwise I'll call the on-call doctor and see what we should do."
So we waited another 30 minutes, my notes on my phone growing with the times of contractions still 2-3 minutes apart. When my arbitrary deadline approached, I nervously called the number to reach the on-call physician. I left her a message, and was sure to mention Kaitlyn so she would know that I would be a nervous patient when she called me back.
After about 15 minutes or so, my phone finally rang. It was Dr D, the same doctor that had read my NST that same morning. I repeated what was going on and waited to see what her suggestion was.
"I'm still not convinced this is true labor, so let's wait another hour and if they don't go away call me back," she said kindly.
"Okay, no problem," I said, somewhat relieved to have a plan.
We sat on the couch and waited. Just like clockwork, the contractions kept coming every 3 minutes and I kept charting them on my phone as they came and went.
As the hour came to a close, Alex asked me what I wanted to do.
"I want to go to the hospital and make sure she's okay," I said firmly. "I feel her move after every contraction, but I just want to make sure she is tolerating the contractions okay."
"Okay," he agreed, and we hopped in the car to go to the hospital. I called Dr D and left her a somewhat short message telling her we were going to L&D just to make sure everything was okay, and she called back to let us know that she would meet us there.
It was about 8:00 when we checked in to L&D, and it felt like de ja vu from two weeks ago. I got hooked up to the monitor and watched and listened to the little one's heart rate, and sighed with relief that there didn't seem to be any fluctuations in her steady rhythm as the contractions continued on.
"Okay," the nurse said. "We're just going to keep watching you for a little while to see what is going on. I'll be back in about 10 minutes to check on you."
On Friday morning, after a very busy week with doctors appointments and balloon releases, I went in for my last NST before the weekend. I was really happy I had asked for the extra appointment because it just eased my mind that our baby girl was tolerating my irregular and weak contractions okay.
Twenty minutes after they hooked me up to the monitor, Dr D's medical assistant came in and took the strip back for analysis. Within about 5 minutes she came back and told me that everything looked good, just one semi-strong contraction but the baby's heart rate was just fine with it.
I went off to work and covered one of our afternoon cases locally. After my first bout with preterm labor, I discussed with my managers that I needed to stay closer to our hospital instead of driving my regular 30-45 minutes away to cover cases. They had been 100% supportive and it made it so much easier to make my biweekly (or in this case, triweekly) doctor visits.
The case that afternoon was a bit long, and I ended up finishing up at about 4:30. The nurses I worked with that day were the same group that had come to Kaitlyn's memorial service, and they had been nothing but sweet and supportive the entire pregnancy. This time, one of the male nurses asked me how I was doing with everything and I gave him the update on my most recent NST results.
"I'm so ready," I told him as I was packing up my stuff. "This baby could come tonight and I would be just fine with it. I'm tired of waiting and all these meds make me anxious."
"I bet!" he laughed a little bit at my boldness.
On the way home I called my mom, which is a typical drive home for me. As I was talking to her, I felt a contraction that was pretty strong.
"Did you drink enough water today?" she asked me.
"No, I probably didn't. I'll go home and down a big glass and get off my feet and all that jazz," I responded to try to ease her mind. Some people may not know this, but dehydration can actually jump start labor.
I asked my mom how my grandmother was doing and she let me know that she thought my grandmother probably wouldn't make it through the night.
My mom has a true gift (which she'll never admit to) with helping people pass away peacefully. Unfortunately, she's had a lot of practice with some really good friends. I remember when I was a senior in high school, one of her good friends had terminal cancer and my mom served almost in a hospice nurse capacity, spending hour after hour at her friend's bedside and helping with the housework. Weeks before Alex and I got married, another best friend lost her battle with cancer, and weeks before we lost Kaitlyn, my mom lost another friend in a freak accident.
As soon as I got home, I parked it on the couch with a big glass of water and waited. Ever since I had been put on the medication to make the contractions stop, I had kept a note on my phone so that I could track the break-through contractions to see if I needed to talk to Dr. B about increasing the dose at all.
While I sat and waited, I started to notice that my list of times for contractions was growing faster than it ever had before. When I first started tracking them that afternoon, they came every 15 minutes, but before it was 5:30, we were down to every 3 minutes. About that time, Alex got home from work. I had given him the short version of what was going on, and as usual he was playing it cool.
"So, do you want to go see a movie or something?" he asked, gauging my reaction to how serious the situation was.
"Yeah that's what I want to do..." I replied a little sarcastically. "Maybe some salted down popcorn will make these contractions stop."
"Hmm, what's the plan then?" he asked.
"They say that you have to have contractions for an hour before you call the doctor, and I'm 30 minutes in. So let's wait another 30 minutes and see if they go away. Otherwise I'll call the on-call doctor and see what we should do."
So we waited another 30 minutes, my notes on my phone growing with the times of contractions still 2-3 minutes apart. When my arbitrary deadline approached, I nervously called the number to reach the on-call physician. I left her a message, and was sure to mention Kaitlyn so she would know that I would be a nervous patient when she called me back.
After about 15 minutes or so, my phone finally rang. It was Dr D, the same doctor that had read my NST that same morning. I repeated what was going on and waited to see what her suggestion was.
"I'm still not convinced this is true labor, so let's wait another hour and if they don't go away call me back," she said kindly.
"Okay, no problem," I said, somewhat relieved to have a plan.
We sat on the couch and waited. Just like clockwork, the contractions kept coming every 3 minutes and I kept charting them on my phone as they came and went.
"I want to go to the hospital and make sure she's okay," I said firmly. "I feel her move after every contraction, but I just want to make sure she is tolerating the contractions okay."
"Okay," he agreed, and we hopped in the car to go to the hospital. I called Dr D and left her a somewhat short message telling her we were going to L&D just to make sure everything was okay, and she called back to let us know that she would meet us there.
It was about 8:00 when we checked in to L&D, and it felt like de ja vu from two weeks ago. I got hooked up to the monitor and watched and listened to the little one's heart rate, and sighed with relief that there didn't seem to be any fluctuations in her steady rhythm as the contractions continued on.
"Okay," the nurse said. "We're just going to keep watching you for a little while to see what is going on. I'll be back in about 10 minutes to check on you."
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Pregnancy, Stillbirth, and Infant loss awareness day
10.15.14
October 15th is pregnancy and infant loss awareness day. I didn't even know about this day last year, but had several of my friends participate in the Wave of Light in Kaitlyn's honor. The Wave of Light is where you light a candle from 7-8pm in your time zone so that the light travels the entire globe in memory of the babies lost. This year, Hope Mommies requested that Elyse and I organize a balloon release for the local area Hope Moms to come to in addition to the Wave of Light. We were excited to do so, and we had a pretty good turn out of moms in the area show up.
October 15th is pregnancy and infant loss awareness day. I didn't even know about this day last year, but had several of my friends participate in the Wave of Light in Kaitlyn's honor. The Wave of Light is where you light a candle from 7-8pm in your time zone so that the light travels the entire globe in memory of the babies lost. This year, Hope Mommies requested that Elyse and I organize a balloon release for the local area Hope Moms to come to in addition to the Wave of Light. We were excited to do so, and we had a pretty good turn out of moms in the area show up.
I filled in some of the extra balloons with names of my friends' babies.
The whole Hope Mommies group. My only sad thought of this picture is that the fabulous Mallie Ray took it- which is only sad because she should have been in it with us.
It was neat to see this group come together just because we all have different stories. Some of us only know each other through the Hope Mommies group, others have shared Mallie as a Now I lay Me Down to Sleep photographer, and still others have known each other through the Hope Mommies Bible study that Elyse and Michelle have both lead.
After the release, we all went down the street to a BBQ place to have a nice dinner and light our candles for the Wave of Light. Elyse had a friend that took the time to write all of our baby's names on the votives that held the candles.
Hope Mommies Candle
I left a candle for Alex at the house. I wasn't sure if he would use it or not, but he sent me a picture
of this candle lit during the 7-8pm hour.
Me and Elyse, both about 36 weeks pregnant.
The next weeks
10.6.14-10.15.14
The weekend seemed to creep by: I was trying my best not to worry or overdo it, but I found myself doing constant kick counts and counting down to the time when I would get to go to the doctor to see our little girl on the ultrasound screen.
Monday finally rolled around and we went in to the office to talk to Dr. B about "the plan". She still wanted us to try to wait until 38 weeks to deliver, which I was less than thrilled about. We decided to switch to biweekly checks, meaning that I would continue having full biophysical profiles including sonograms and an NST, and we added an extra NST each week. It definitely seemed to help my anxiety, and I continued taking the medicine every 6 hours, even setting an alarm on my phone every night for 2 AM to be sure I didn't miss a dose. I was a nervous wreck, and again the only thing I kept referring to were my notecards filled with scriptures.
Each time I went into have an NST, the story would be the same. Maybe a weak contraction or two, but nothing regular and nothing severe. Baby girl's heart rate was tolerating everything just fine, so we kept waiting, each day inching closer to our goal.
On the afternoon of the 15th, I had one of my usual biophysical profile appointments complete with a sonogram and some time with Dr. B. My next appointment wasn't until the following Monday, and I expressed to her that it made me a little uncomfortable to go that long without being checked out.
"I know everything is looking good, but it just feels like that is a really long time without having eyes on her at all. Would you be okay with me coming in for an NST on Friday?" I asked her in the exam room.
"If that's what you need, that's totally fine. I'm actually off on Friday, but I can see if one of my partners minds reading your test," she replied. "I'll let you know in just a minute who that will be."
After I gathered my things and opened the door to leave, Dr B let me know that her partner, Dr D, would be available to read my test on Friday. I was pretty relieved that I would be able to come back in without any hiccups.
The other thing that happened that morning was that my grandmother, who had been struggling with Alzheimers disease and congestive heart failure, had slipped out of her chair in the middle of the night (sleeping sitting straight up was the only way she was able to rest) and broke her hip. It was really hard on my Dad because her Alzheimers had gotten so bad that it would have done more harm than good to put her through a surgery to fix her hip. So instead, the doctors just did their best to make her comfortable. It was only a matter of time before she would leave us to go be with her husband and her Maker in Heaven.
Each time I went into have an NST, the story would be the same. Maybe a weak contraction or two, but nothing regular and nothing severe. Baby girl's heart rate was tolerating everything just fine, so we kept waiting, each day inching closer to our goal.
On the afternoon of the 15th, I had one of my usual biophysical profile appointments complete with a sonogram and some time with Dr. B. My next appointment wasn't until the following Monday, and I expressed to her that it made me a little uncomfortable to go that long without being checked out.
"I know everything is looking good, but it just feels like that is a really long time without having eyes on her at all. Would you be okay with me coming in for an NST on Friday?" I asked her in the exam room.
"If that's what you need, that's totally fine. I'm actually off on Friday, but I can see if one of my partners minds reading your test," she replied. "I'll let you know in just a minute who that will be."
After I gathered my things and opened the door to leave, Dr B let me know that her partner, Dr D, would be available to read my test on Friday. I was pretty relieved that I would be able to come back in without any hiccups.
The other thing that happened that morning was that my grandmother, who had been struggling with Alzheimers disease and congestive heart failure, had slipped out of her chair in the middle of the night (sleeping sitting straight up was the only way she was able to rest) and broke her hip. It was really hard on my Dad because her Alzheimers had gotten so bad that it would have done more harm than good to put her through a surgery to fix her hip. So instead, the doctors just did their best to make her comfortable. It was only a matter of time before she would leave us to go be with her husband and her Maker in Heaven.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Discharge
10.03.14
The next morning was another surprise visitor. One of my favorite nurses that I am so thankful for, Gail, came in to see us. She was just coming on shift and immediately took charge of my care (which makes me laugh even now!), writing her name on the board to replace the night nurse's name. She also gave me her cell phone number and told us that if something happened between now and Halloween (when we were scheduled and all of our previous nurses had scheduled themselves to work to be with us), to text or call her and let her know so she could swing by.
About 9 in the morning, Dr B came in and looked at the strips from overnight. They had started a medication at 10 pm that was to be taken every 8 hours, so she had a good chunk of time to see if the medication had worked to stop the contractions. Luckily, it had.
"So we'll go ahead and discharge you on this medication and I'll see you in the office on Monday," she told me as she picked up the long stretch of paper that had been printing off our contractions and heart rates over night.
Fear.
"If something happens over the weekend..." I said quietly.
"Don't hesitate. Come back in to L&D and we will hook you back up again."
"That scares me. I mean, you have plenty of time there where the contractions weren't affecting her heart rate? There's no reason for you to keep me longer?" I almost begged. I didn't want to go home and be responsible for deciding when it was "emergent" enough to come back to the hospital.
"Well, we can't monitor you like this indefinitely," she said gently. "This medication is really effective, and you'll be on it every 8 hours but if you start having breakthrough contractions at the 6-7 hour mark then you can move it up to every 6 hours."
"I'll just take it ever 6 hours then, I really don't want to mess around with this," I told her hesitantly.
"That's no problem. You'll probably still have a contraction every now and then, but nothing this regular for a long period of time. Our goal is still to get you to 38 weeks before we deliver."
Ugh. Four more weeks of this. I wasn't ready.
The rest of the day I pretty much tried to recover from the excitement of the hospital. Mom and Dad decided that they weren't needed and left to go to Austin, and Alex headed to work that afternoon to not miss too much of it.
And I went back to my notecards. Reminding myself every time I got scared that I wasn't in control, the baby's days were already written, and that our God is good.
The next morning was another surprise visitor. One of my favorite nurses that I am so thankful for, Gail, came in to see us. She was just coming on shift and immediately took charge of my care (which makes me laugh even now!), writing her name on the board to replace the night nurse's name. She also gave me her cell phone number and told us that if something happened between now and Halloween (when we were scheduled and all of our previous nurses had scheduled themselves to work to be with us), to text or call her and let her know so she could swing by.
About 9 in the morning, Dr B came in and looked at the strips from overnight. They had started a medication at 10 pm that was to be taken every 8 hours, so she had a good chunk of time to see if the medication had worked to stop the contractions. Luckily, it had.
"So we'll go ahead and discharge you on this medication and I'll see you in the office on Monday," she told me as she picked up the long stretch of paper that had been printing off our contractions and heart rates over night.
Fear.
"If something happens over the weekend..." I said quietly.
"Don't hesitate. Come back in to L&D and we will hook you back up again."
"That scares me. I mean, you have plenty of time there where the contractions weren't affecting her heart rate? There's no reason for you to keep me longer?" I almost begged. I didn't want to go home and be responsible for deciding when it was "emergent" enough to come back to the hospital.
"Well, we can't monitor you like this indefinitely," she said gently. "This medication is really effective, and you'll be on it every 8 hours but if you start having breakthrough contractions at the 6-7 hour mark then you can move it up to every 6 hours."
"I'll just take it ever 6 hours then, I really don't want to mess around with this," I told her hesitantly.
"That's no problem. You'll probably still have a contraction every now and then, but nothing this regular for a long period of time. Our goal is still to get you to 38 weeks before we deliver."
Ugh. Four more weeks of this. I wasn't ready.
The rest of the day I pretty much tried to recover from the excitement of the hospital. Mom and Dad decided that they weren't needed and left to go to Austin, and Alex headed to work that afternoon to not miss too much of it.
And I went back to my notecards. Reminding myself every time I got scared that I wasn't in control, the baby's days were already written, and that our God is good.
One night with The King
10.02.14
After a couple of hours of talking to different familiar faces and letting the nurses watch my contractions, it was decided that they needed to start me on a medication to make the contractions stop (hopefully). Alex settled in for a night on the couch next to me, and I tried to get comfortable in the hospital bed without moving the monitors too much.
The nurses had kind of "taught" me to read the monitors so that I was educated on what all was going on. Constantly in the background, the baby's steady heart beat was thumping along at around 150. When I would start to feel a contraction, I could look up at the monitor and see the climbing hill and peak of when the contraction maxed out followed by the slow decent back down to the baseline all while listening to the baby's heart rate. It was incredibly reassuring and scary at the same time because there were points where the baby's heart rate would drop down into the 120s. Not that 120 is scary, but any kind of rapid heart rate change made my pulse go up just because the slowing of the steady sound of 150 had become so familiar.
Once the decision had been made to move me to a room and keep me overnight, I called my parents to check in with them. They had decided to drive up from West Texas and be with us while I was in this premature labor, something that really made me uncomfortable because I felt that they were only coming because they were worried that we would deliver that night. Also, since my grandmother had been going downhill with her Alzheimer's disease, that week had been particularly rough on my parents with figuring out how to best care for her without wearing themselves down completely. It was my Dad who tried to comfort me a little on the issue.
"We just feel like we need to be there; we're not panicked or in a hurry, we just want to be there..." he said in his calm-but-tired voice.
"Yeah but what are you guys going to do when you get here? You're just going to sit up here and stare at me and there's really no use in that," I told him.
"Well that's okay, we just want to be there in case you need us."
"Dad, there isn't anything anyone can do right now. Alex can't do anything, y'all can't do anything, even I can't do anything. This is all up to God and if tonight is when we're suppose to deliver her then that's what's going to happen. This is just between me and God right now, and having everyone else's anxiety around me isn't going to help me calm down to try to help these contractions stop."
His end of the line was quiet for a minute.
"Okay. You're right. We are already on our way, but if you decide you don't need us this weekend we'll head on to Austin since we were headed there anyways. We just want to be close incase our granddaughter comes tonight."
"That's fair. I just don't want y'all to come up here and be worried around me," I reaffirmed.
I really wasn't trying to be a jerk, but it just felt overwhelming to have everyone rush in from out of town. First off, I didn't want my parents making the 5 hour drive in the middle of the night. My parents aren't old by any stretch of the imagination (number wise or acting wise), but in the back of my head that fear that I had been battling all week took a different turn. "What if your parents are killed on the highway? They would be on their way up here to be with you and if nothing even happens then they died for nothing. Your daughter wouldn't know her grandparents because you scared them into coming."
I had to start my verse-battles again. I started repeating the verses I had written on the back of those notecards that had lived in my purse for a week.
Eventually, our room quieted down. We turned off the TV and Alex fell asleep on the couch. Every few hours, the nurses would come in and ask me to roll over or shift my hips a little bit because the baby's heart rate didn't like the position I was in. After one of these episodes, I couldn't go back to sleep so I just laid there and stared at the ceiling.
Thub thub thub thub thub thub thub Baby girl's heart rate at 150.
Thub thub thub thub thub Baby girl's heart rate at 120.
Contractions come, contractions go.
Repeat.
Thub thub thub thub thub thub thub.
A girl could go crazy focusing on those heart beats.
Thub thub thub thub thub
Leave it to us to make another stubborn child that is making her own schedule.
Thub thub thub thub thub thub thub
Contraction starting
Thub thub thub thub thub
I wonder if this is what happened to Kaitlyn.
I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, the devil loves doubt and worry because it makes us question our Maker, but still the thought shocked me. When I had felt the wave of movement in the office I had been reminded of that same feeling I had towards the end of my pregnancy with Kaitlyn. I had always thought it was her shoulder or her arm making a movement across my stomach to get more comfortable, but now I know that it was really contractions and I just didn't realize it.
If this baby girl was having a hard time tolerating my contractions, why wouldn't Kaitlyn? This baby was head down and had been for a while, but if a baby is breech does it make it harder for them to tolerate labor? Her head was right under my rib cage and who knows where her cord was.
Did I have contractions before I felt her stop moving?
After a year of grief, it's hard to remember.
I laid there and stared at the ceiling and cried. I cried for my daughter that was gone. I cried for my daughter that was still here. The fear had taken a stronghold on me and it was hard for me to shake it in the dark room of the hospital.
And then something popped into my head- a conversation I had with Kate when I was seeing her again before Kaitlyn's birthday.
We had talked about fear and doubt, and she reminded me that every one of Kaitlyn's days were written long before I got pregnant with her. Every second of her life, every kick, turn, head butt, everything; was written in God's book before she was even a thought in our heads.
And the same went for this baby.
There was nothing I could do that would change the course of this baby's life because God had already written her story.
Such freedom. Such peace from the promises of God.
I breathed a little easier after that. The anxiety was still there, but it was now background music instead of concert-loud in the front of my mind.
All I needed to do was cling to Jesus and the promise that there was nothing going on in my body that He didn't already know about.
Peace.
After a couple of hours of talking to different familiar faces and letting the nurses watch my contractions, it was decided that they needed to start me on a medication to make the contractions stop (hopefully). Alex settled in for a night on the couch next to me, and I tried to get comfortable in the hospital bed without moving the monitors too much.
The nurses had kind of "taught" me to read the monitors so that I was educated on what all was going on. Constantly in the background, the baby's steady heart beat was thumping along at around 150. When I would start to feel a contraction, I could look up at the monitor and see the climbing hill and peak of when the contraction maxed out followed by the slow decent back down to the baseline all while listening to the baby's heart rate. It was incredibly reassuring and scary at the same time because there were points where the baby's heart rate would drop down into the 120s. Not that 120 is scary, but any kind of rapid heart rate change made my pulse go up just because the slowing of the steady sound of 150 had become so familiar.
Once the decision had been made to move me to a room and keep me overnight, I called my parents to check in with them. They had decided to drive up from West Texas and be with us while I was in this premature labor, something that really made me uncomfortable because I felt that they were only coming because they were worried that we would deliver that night. Also, since my grandmother had been going downhill with her Alzheimer's disease, that week had been particularly rough on my parents with figuring out how to best care for her without wearing themselves down completely. It was my Dad who tried to comfort me a little on the issue.
"We just feel like we need to be there; we're not panicked or in a hurry, we just want to be there..." he said in his calm-but-tired voice.
"Yeah but what are you guys going to do when you get here? You're just going to sit up here and stare at me and there's really no use in that," I told him.
"Well that's okay, we just want to be there in case you need us."
"Dad, there isn't anything anyone can do right now. Alex can't do anything, y'all can't do anything, even I can't do anything. This is all up to God and if tonight is when we're suppose to deliver her then that's what's going to happen. This is just between me and God right now, and having everyone else's anxiety around me isn't going to help me calm down to try to help these contractions stop."
His end of the line was quiet for a minute.
"Okay. You're right. We are already on our way, but if you decide you don't need us this weekend we'll head on to Austin since we were headed there anyways. We just want to be close incase our granddaughter comes tonight."
"That's fair. I just don't want y'all to come up here and be worried around me," I reaffirmed.
I really wasn't trying to be a jerk, but it just felt overwhelming to have everyone rush in from out of town. First off, I didn't want my parents making the 5 hour drive in the middle of the night. My parents aren't old by any stretch of the imagination (number wise or acting wise), but in the back of my head that fear that I had been battling all week took a different turn. "What if your parents are killed on the highway? They would be on their way up here to be with you and if nothing even happens then they died for nothing. Your daughter wouldn't know her grandparents because you scared them into coming."
I had to start my verse-battles again. I started repeating the verses I had written on the back of those notecards that had lived in my purse for a week.
Eventually, our room quieted down. We turned off the TV and Alex fell asleep on the couch. Every few hours, the nurses would come in and ask me to roll over or shift my hips a little bit because the baby's heart rate didn't like the position I was in. After one of these episodes, I couldn't go back to sleep so I just laid there and stared at the ceiling.
Thub thub thub thub thub thub thub Baby girl's heart rate at 150.
Thub thub thub thub thub Baby girl's heart rate at 120.
Contractions come, contractions go.
Repeat.
Thub thub thub thub thub thub thub.
A girl could go crazy focusing on those heart beats.
Thub thub thub thub thub
Leave it to us to make another stubborn child that is making her own schedule.
Thub thub thub thub thub thub thub
Contraction starting
Thub thub thub thub thub
I wonder if this is what happened to Kaitlyn.
I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, the devil loves doubt and worry because it makes us question our Maker, but still the thought shocked me. When I had felt the wave of movement in the office I had been reminded of that same feeling I had towards the end of my pregnancy with Kaitlyn. I had always thought it was her shoulder or her arm making a movement across my stomach to get more comfortable, but now I know that it was really contractions and I just didn't realize it.
If this baby girl was having a hard time tolerating my contractions, why wouldn't Kaitlyn? This baby was head down and had been for a while, but if a baby is breech does it make it harder for them to tolerate labor? Her head was right under my rib cage and who knows where her cord was.
Did I have contractions before I felt her stop moving?
After a year of grief, it's hard to remember.
I laid there and stared at the ceiling and cried. I cried for my daughter that was gone. I cried for my daughter that was still here. The fear had taken a stronghold on me and it was hard for me to shake it in the dark room of the hospital.
And then something popped into my head- a conversation I had with Kate when I was seeing her again before Kaitlyn's birthday.
We had talked about fear and doubt, and she reminded me that every one of Kaitlyn's days were written long before I got pregnant with her. Every second of her life, every kick, turn, head butt, everything; was written in God's book before she was even a thought in our heads.
And the same went for this baby.
There was nothing I could do that would change the course of this baby's life because God had already written her story.
"Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written,
every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them."
Psalm 139:16
I breathed a little easier after that. The anxiety was still there, but it was now background music instead of concert-loud in the front of my mind.
All I needed to do was cling to Jesus and the promise that there was nothing going on in my body that He didn't already know about.
Peace.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Week 34
10.02.14
On Thursday I had another appointment with Dr. B. We had switched to weekly visits at 32 weeks along and every visit now consisted of a full biophysical profile. What this means is that I got a sonogram and a non-stress test every time I went in to see her.
This day wasn't anything out of the ordinary: sonogram first and everything went great, then the non-stress test. The MA had asked before if I would mind doing the NST first since it takes 20 minutes, but I had to tell her I couldn't do that because I would have a panic attack if I thought it took her too long to find the baby's heart beat. She had been super sweet and understanding, even apologizing for not thinking that it could be more stressful to go in that order.
This time, as I was hooked up to the sensors for the NST and surfing the internet on the phone, a wave of movement crossed over my stomach. It felt like a huge roll, like the baby had decided to literally cross my entire abdomen to get more comfortable.
On the NST machine there are two numbers: one that reads out the baby's heart rate and the other reads out the percentage of contractility, or how strong a muscle contraction is. The second number got up to 96% when that wave went across my stomach, but since I could see the baby's heart rate I never really worried about it.
A few minutes later, the MA came back to check on me.
"I'm just going to run this strip over to Dr. B to see what she thinks..." she said.
"Yeah something ferocious happened a few minutes ago!" I laughed.
After a wait, the MA came back again to get me to go see the doctor.
"Your husband's not with you today?" she said as we walked down the hallway. It was really my first indicator that something was up.
I sat in the exam room waiting on Dr. B to come in and started feeling anxious. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew whatever they saw on the monitor wasn't what they were expecting.
Finally, Dr B came in and sat down on the rolling stool that is in all the exam rooms.
"So, you're having contractions. Have you been feeling these?" she asked.
"Is that what that was? I just thought it was the baby doing a big roll or something," I said, rather shocked.
"Yeah, they're contractions," she paused. "What I see on this strip isn't awful, but I think I want to watch you a little closer. So if it's okay, I'm going to have you go ahead and head over to Labor and Delivery and they'll be expecting you. They'll hook you up and we'll just watch this a little longer."
"Oh it's that serious?" I asked, definitely shocked now.
"Well they are pretty regular and on the one that you felt the baby's heart rate fluctuated just a little bit, and with your history I don't want to mess around so I would just feel better if we watch you for the next couple of hours. Two, at a minimum. It could be an overnight stay, depending on what we see. And if I say this out loud it won't happen, but there is a possibility that I would need to deliver you tonight."
"Okay," I agreed. Their office is attached to the hospital and there is a pedestrian bridge that connects the two. It had started raining pretty badly outside, and as I walked along the corridor I called Alex to tell him what was going on.
"Do I need to come over?" he asked.
I stopped walking and thought for a moment. I knew that I was just going to go over to the pre-op area of L&D and sit on the monitor for two hours. Honestly, I didn't feel anxious at all. I had been reciting my verses in my head all week and I knew that if this what how our delivery was suppose to go then it would be okay.
"No," I shook my head as I said it. "You're just down the street, 5 minutes away. I'll call you if I need you. Just be sure to keep your phone where you can get to it if I need you."
The next call was to my mom, and it went a little differently than my conversation with Alex.
"We need to come up there," she said, which it was a 5 hour drive from where they were to Dallas.
"No, we don't know anything yet, Mom," I said. "If something happens then, yeah, you can come up."
"Well... Okay," she said reluctantly.
I wasn't trying to play the hero, but my parents had had a rough week because my Dad's mom had really started going downhill with her Alzheimers. She had also developed congestive heart failure and I knew that my Mom had spent the majority of her week trying to help my Dad with caring for my grandmother. In my heart, I didn't think we would be delivering that night and I didn't really want my parents driving in the middle of the night to come all the way up here for nothing.
I asked when I got to the check-in desk if one of the nurses who had been with us with Kaitlyn named Nell was around. They told me that she had just scrubbed in on a c-section, but they would let her know that I was there when the procedure was over. The nurse who hooked me up had already been updated as far as our history with Kaitlyn, and she told me that she remembered the day we came in. It was a strange sensation, having someone tell you that they remember you even though you'd never met.
One of my coworkers was downstairs and I had texted her earlier to let her know that I might not be coming in to work tomorrow if I was admitted to the hospital. She had decided to pop up for a minute and check on me, and then she graciously went to get me some "smut" magazines to pass the time (you know, the celebrity gossip magazines that speculate about who's getting divorced and who has a love child with so-and-so). Kristy was a little excited that we could be welcoming our little one, and it was at that point that I let it slip.
"I don't have my hospital bag packed..." I said. "I don't even have an outfit for her. I'm terrible!"
With that, Kristy pounced.
"Its a girl!?" she said, excited.
"Haha, yes it is!" I said. "Don't tell anyone because we really don't need anything, but yes it's another girl!"
After about an hour, Dr B came in. Kristy was still there chatting with me because we like to talk and hadn't seen each other in a while.
Dr B pursed her lips a little as she looked at the strips. "Well, you're still having contractions," she said.
"Well, if I get to have a vote, I say please keep me overnight if you have any hesitation at all about what is going on," I said. "Otherwise I will just go home and worry about how her heart rate is doing."
"Done. You'll stay tonight and we'll see if we can't get these to stop. We're going to start a bag of fluid to see if maybe you're just dehydrated," she said. "They will get you moved into another room that has a couch for Alex to sleep on."
Kristy asked me if I wanted her to stay around until Alex got there, but I honestly still felt fine. I knew they were watching the contractions and doing everything they could to stop them.
Slowly, it started to get out that I was there. One of the first people in was Nell, fresh off a c-section in the back hallway of labor and delivery. She was shocked that I was there, but happy I had let her know to come see me. She asked all about how Alex was doing and how he had handled our second pregnancy. It was nothing but compassion and love.
Next came Morgan, the nurse who was in training with Gail when we first checked in with Kaitlyn. I had thought about Morgan a lot because I knew that we would have changed her course as a nurse because she saw one of the absolute worst case scenarios very early in her training. She was thrilled to see us, and wanted me to be sure to let her know when Alex got there. She excitedly told us that she had switched to the night shift and that she was loving it.
With Morgan came Robin, one of the nurses who had helped lead the grief group at the hospital. Eventually Carol came in, the CRNA who had done my epidural with Kaitlyn. She hurriedly wrote down her personal cell phone number on a paper towel so that I could text her directly if something were to happen and we needed to deliver. She told me that if she wasn't on call she would still come in and do my procedure.
As all these visitors and familiar faces came in and out of the room, my phone had somehow decided to go on silent. It laid right next to my leg, but since it never vibrated I never felt that Alex had called me 8 times.
It still hurts me that I did this to him. Understandably, he lost it. He thought something had happened and I wasn't okay or our second baby girl wasn't okay. When I finally saw the missed calls and immediately called him back, he wasn't ready to talk or come in to the hospital yet. Once he gathered himself, he came into the room and I apologized for the hundredth time for doing that to him.
"Everything is fine..." I said to him.
"Then why are you here?" he asked abruptly.
It was at that point I got shaken out of my denial. Everything wasn't really okay or I would have been at home already. I would have been sent home after a few more minutes in the labor and delivery holding area, not staying overnight. Everything wasn't okay.
It was scary.
It was unknown.
On Thursday I had another appointment with Dr. B. We had switched to weekly visits at 32 weeks along and every visit now consisted of a full biophysical profile. What this means is that I got a sonogram and a non-stress test every time I went in to see her.
This day wasn't anything out of the ordinary: sonogram first and everything went great, then the non-stress test. The MA had asked before if I would mind doing the NST first since it takes 20 minutes, but I had to tell her I couldn't do that because I would have a panic attack if I thought it took her too long to find the baby's heart beat. She had been super sweet and understanding, even apologizing for not thinking that it could be more stressful to go in that order.
This time, as I was hooked up to the sensors for the NST and surfing the internet on the phone, a wave of movement crossed over my stomach. It felt like a huge roll, like the baby had decided to literally cross my entire abdomen to get more comfortable.
On the NST machine there are two numbers: one that reads out the baby's heart rate and the other reads out the percentage of contractility, or how strong a muscle contraction is. The second number got up to 96% when that wave went across my stomach, but since I could see the baby's heart rate I never really worried about it.
A few minutes later, the MA came back to check on me.
"I'm just going to run this strip over to Dr. B to see what she thinks..." she said.
"Yeah something ferocious happened a few minutes ago!" I laughed.
After a wait, the MA came back again to get me to go see the doctor.
"Your husband's not with you today?" she said as we walked down the hallway. It was really my first indicator that something was up.
I sat in the exam room waiting on Dr. B to come in and started feeling anxious. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew whatever they saw on the monitor wasn't what they were expecting.
Finally, Dr B came in and sat down on the rolling stool that is in all the exam rooms.
"So, you're having contractions. Have you been feeling these?" she asked.
"Is that what that was? I just thought it was the baby doing a big roll or something," I said, rather shocked.
"Yeah, they're contractions," she paused. "What I see on this strip isn't awful, but I think I want to watch you a little closer. So if it's okay, I'm going to have you go ahead and head over to Labor and Delivery and they'll be expecting you. They'll hook you up and we'll just watch this a little longer."
"Oh it's that serious?" I asked, definitely shocked now.
"Well they are pretty regular and on the one that you felt the baby's heart rate fluctuated just a little bit, and with your history I don't want to mess around so I would just feel better if we watch you for the next couple of hours. Two, at a minimum. It could be an overnight stay, depending on what we see. And if I say this out loud it won't happen, but there is a possibility that I would need to deliver you tonight."
"Okay," I agreed. Their office is attached to the hospital and there is a pedestrian bridge that connects the two. It had started raining pretty badly outside, and as I walked along the corridor I called Alex to tell him what was going on.
"Do I need to come over?" he asked.
I stopped walking and thought for a moment. I knew that I was just going to go over to the pre-op area of L&D and sit on the monitor for two hours. Honestly, I didn't feel anxious at all. I had been reciting my verses in my head all week and I knew that if this what how our delivery was suppose to go then it would be okay.
"No," I shook my head as I said it. "You're just down the street, 5 minutes away. I'll call you if I need you. Just be sure to keep your phone where you can get to it if I need you."
The next call was to my mom, and it went a little differently than my conversation with Alex.
"We need to come up there," she said, which it was a 5 hour drive from where they were to Dallas.
"No, we don't know anything yet, Mom," I said. "If something happens then, yeah, you can come up."
"Well... Okay," she said reluctantly.
I wasn't trying to play the hero, but my parents had had a rough week because my Dad's mom had really started going downhill with her Alzheimers. She had also developed congestive heart failure and I knew that my Mom had spent the majority of her week trying to help my Dad with caring for my grandmother. In my heart, I didn't think we would be delivering that night and I didn't really want my parents driving in the middle of the night to come all the way up here for nothing.
I asked when I got to the check-in desk if one of the nurses who had been with us with Kaitlyn named Nell was around. They told me that she had just scrubbed in on a c-section, but they would let her know that I was there when the procedure was over. The nurse who hooked me up had already been updated as far as our history with Kaitlyn, and she told me that she remembered the day we came in. It was a strange sensation, having someone tell you that they remember you even though you'd never met.
One of my coworkers was downstairs and I had texted her earlier to let her know that I might not be coming in to work tomorrow if I was admitted to the hospital. She had decided to pop up for a minute and check on me, and then she graciously went to get me some "smut" magazines to pass the time (you know, the celebrity gossip magazines that speculate about who's getting divorced and who has a love child with so-and-so). Kristy was a little excited that we could be welcoming our little one, and it was at that point that I let it slip.
"I don't have my hospital bag packed..." I said. "I don't even have an outfit for her. I'm terrible!"
With that, Kristy pounced.
"Its a girl!?" she said, excited.
"Haha, yes it is!" I said. "Don't tell anyone because we really don't need anything, but yes it's another girl!"
After about an hour, Dr B came in. Kristy was still there chatting with me because we like to talk and hadn't seen each other in a while.
Dr B pursed her lips a little as she looked at the strips. "Well, you're still having contractions," she said.
"Well, if I get to have a vote, I say please keep me overnight if you have any hesitation at all about what is going on," I said. "Otherwise I will just go home and worry about how her heart rate is doing."
"Done. You'll stay tonight and we'll see if we can't get these to stop. We're going to start a bag of fluid to see if maybe you're just dehydrated," she said. "They will get you moved into another room that has a couch for Alex to sleep on."
Kristy asked me if I wanted her to stay around until Alex got there, but I honestly still felt fine. I knew they were watching the contractions and doing everything they could to stop them.
Slowly, it started to get out that I was there. One of the first people in was Nell, fresh off a c-section in the back hallway of labor and delivery. She was shocked that I was there, but happy I had let her know to come see me. She asked all about how Alex was doing and how he had handled our second pregnancy. It was nothing but compassion and love.
Next came Morgan, the nurse who was in training with Gail when we first checked in with Kaitlyn. I had thought about Morgan a lot because I knew that we would have changed her course as a nurse because she saw one of the absolute worst case scenarios very early in her training. She was thrilled to see us, and wanted me to be sure to let her know when Alex got there. She excitedly told us that she had switched to the night shift and that she was loving it.
With Morgan came Robin, one of the nurses who had helped lead the grief group at the hospital. Eventually Carol came in, the CRNA who had done my epidural with Kaitlyn. She hurriedly wrote down her personal cell phone number on a paper towel so that I could text her directly if something were to happen and we needed to deliver. She told me that if she wasn't on call she would still come in and do my procedure.
As all these visitors and familiar faces came in and out of the room, my phone had somehow decided to go on silent. It laid right next to my leg, but since it never vibrated I never felt that Alex had called me 8 times.
It still hurts me that I did this to him. Understandably, he lost it. He thought something had happened and I wasn't okay or our second baby girl wasn't okay. When I finally saw the missed calls and immediately called him back, he wasn't ready to talk or come in to the hospital yet. Once he gathered himself, he came into the room and I apologized for the hundredth time for doing that to him.
"Everything is fine..." I said to him.
"Then why are you here?" he asked abruptly.
It was at that point I got shaken out of my denial. Everything wasn't really okay or I would have been at home already. I would have been sent home after a few more minutes in the labor and delivery holding area, not staying overnight. Everything wasn't okay.
It was scary.
It was unknown.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Fear.
9.27.14-9.29.14
That Saturday, we had a dinner party to celebrate our newest addition. We had invited all of our friends from the area: people from the hospitals I worked at, some local Hope Mommies, and some of our couple friends from church.
It wasn't until Monday that it hit: fear. Almost crippling fear.
Maybe I had focused so much on Kaitlyn's birthday and just getting through that important day that I didn't realize that I was scared to death of the birth that was looming ahead. Dr. B had recommended a second c-section because I had a vertical tear off of my incision from where she pulled Kaitlyn out, and we had scheduled it for Halloween morning. I had tried to make light of it, saying that I wanted to dress up for Halloween which would include me painting my stomach like a pumpkin. I even considered writing "cut here" across my scar to make the nurses laugh.
But after we got through Kaitlyn's birthday, everything became real. That Sunday night, I had a near panic attack while I was sitting on the couch. The thing to do starting after about 28 weeks is to start monitoring the baby's movement by doing kick-counts. Basically, you sit very still and count how long it takes the baby to move 10 times and if it takes more than about 40 minutes you have reason for concern. Our little one was so active that I always tended to hit the 10 count mark at about 5 minutes. On a bad day, it was 10 minutes.
Sunday night, after a long day where I had been preoccupied, it took 20 minutes. I panicked. Completely panicked. Was that a significant change? Enough to warrant a trip to the ER for a sonogram?? How was I suppose to know what to do?
I panicked to Alex and he told me to breathe. We reviewed the different protocols for kick counts (one includes where you re-start the 40 minute timer to make sure it wasn't a fluke), and ultimately he told me to go take a bath and try to relax a little. Thankfully, when I got in the bathtub and relaxed our normal 5 minute kick count happened. I still had a hard time sleeping that night, even though I tried to reassure myself that everything was fine and that they baby's movement hadn't slowed down or stopped.
During August, I had participated in a book study at church called Crash the Chatterbox by Steven Furtik. The book talked about spiritual warfare in the form of negative "chatter" heard in our heads. One of the exercises we did at the very beginning of the class was to take notecards and write lies on one side and Biblical truths on the other. My cards looked like this:
Lie 1: What you are doing is worthless
Truths 1: 1 Corinthians 9:24 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run so that you may obtain it."
Galatians 6:9 "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up."
Lie 2: You will never be good enough
Truth 2: Luke 12:7 "Why, even the hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows."
Lie 3: This (loosing Kaitlyn) will happen again
Truth 3: Hebrews 10:23 "Let's hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, because the One who made the promises is reliable."
That Monday when fear hit me, I decided to that I needed more notecards. I asked one of the other Hope moms that had also lost a full term baby and had gone on to have a healthy child to send me her list of verses that helped her cope during the last month of pregnancy.
That Saturday, we had a dinner party to celebrate our newest addition. We had invited all of our friends from the area: people from the hospitals I worked at, some local Hope Mommies, and some of our couple friends from church.
It wasn't until Monday that it hit: fear. Almost crippling fear.
Maybe I had focused so much on Kaitlyn's birthday and just getting through that important day that I didn't realize that I was scared to death of the birth that was looming ahead. Dr. B had recommended a second c-section because I had a vertical tear off of my incision from where she pulled Kaitlyn out, and we had scheduled it for Halloween morning. I had tried to make light of it, saying that I wanted to dress up for Halloween which would include me painting my stomach like a pumpkin. I even considered writing "cut here" across my scar to make the nurses laugh.
But after we got through Kaitlyn's birthday, everything became real. That Sunday night, I had a near panic attack while I was sitting on the couch. The thing to do starting after about 28 weeks is to start monitoring the baby's movement by doing kick-counts. Basically, you sit very still and count how long it takes the baby to move 10 times and if it takes more than about 40 minutes you have reason for concern. Our little one was so active that I always tended to hit the 10 count mark at about 5 minutes. On a bad day, it was 10 minutes.
Sunday night, after a long day where I had been preoccupied, it took 20 minutes. I panicked. Completely panicked. Was that a significant change? Enough to warrant a trip to the ER for a sonogram?? How was I suppose to know what to do?
I panicked to Alex and he told me to breathe. We reviewed the different protocols for kick counts (one includes where you re-start the 40 minute timer to make sure it wasn't a fluke), and ultimately he told me to go take a bath and try to relax a little. Thankfully, when I got in the bathtub and relaxed our normal 5 minute kick count happened. I still had a hard time sleeping that night, even though I tried to reassure myself that everything was fine and that they baby's movement hadn't slowed down or stopped.
During August, I had participated in a book study at church called Crash the Chatterbox by Steven Furtik. The book talked about spiritual warfare in the form of negative "chatter" heard in our heads. One of the exercises we did at the very beginning of the class was to take notecards and write lies on one side and Biblical truths on the other. My cards looked like this:
Lie 1: What you are doing is worthless
Truths 1: 1 Corinthians 9:24 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run so that you may obtain it."
Galatians 6:9 "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up."
Lie 2: You will never be good enough
Truth 2: Luke 12:7 "Why, even the hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows."
Lie 3: This (loosing Kaitlyn) will happen again
Truth 3: Hebrews 10:23 "Let's hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, because the One who made the promises is reliable."
That Monday when fear hit me, I decided to that I needed more notecards. I asked one of the other Hope moms that had also lost a full term baby and had gone on to have a healthy child to send me her list of verses that helped her cope during the last month of pregnancy.
"I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions,
and all over the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you."
Luke 10:19
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fears.
For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears
has not been perfected in love."
1 John 4:18
"I sought the Lord, and He answers me and delivers me
from all my fears."
Psalm 34:4
"Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them,
for it is the Lord your God who goes with you.
He will not leave you or forsake you."
Deuteronomy 31:6
"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life...
Look at the birds of the air; they neither sew nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his lifespan?"
Matthew 6:25-34
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as
the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled
and do not be afraid."
John 14:27
"Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east and
gather you from the west."
Isaiah 43:5
"But now, this is what the Lord says- He who created you, Jacob [Amy],
He who formed you, Israel: 'Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine."
Isaiah 43:1
If the last verse sounds familiar, its because it comes from the same book in the Bible that we picked Kaitlyn's verse out of:
"Look at the sky and consider:
Who created these?
The one who brings out their attendants one by one,
summoning each of them by name.
Because of His might and power,
not one is missing."
Isaiah 40:26
I tucked these notecards in my work bag and anytime I started to feel the creep of fear coming into my mind I would pull them out and read through them. It didn't matter to me if I stopped in the parking lot of where I was headed or if I needed to pause in the hallway on the way back to the lab. I stopped dead in my tracks and read the promises of God. Honestly, I don't think anything else this world has to offer would have combatted that fear as well as scripture.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Relief and change
9.19.14-9.23.14
Once Kaitlyn's birthday had passed, I felt relief. I felt like I could finally get excited about our current pregnancy and I had given myself "permission" to look forward to our upcoming addition without hesitation.
The only thing that held me back from completely looking forward was the nursery. I hadn't moved anything in the nursery with the exception of taking Kaitlyn's name off the wall. Everything else was exactly as it had been the day we came home from the hospital empty handed; it waited expectantly for use in still silence.
That week, Alex decided it was time to go through everything and redecorate. I fought him hard on it because I honestly dreaded having to go through everything. Plus, I figured we would have plenty of time because the baby wasn't due for another two months. So I procrastinated, but Alex would have none of that.
What that meant is that we started pulling out all of the baby things and genuinely deciding whether or not they needed to stay. Alex is a minimalist, but I tend to lean towards the "if one is good, two is better" type of preparedness. It wasn't until we got to the third pack-n-play that I broke down.
"I was so ready," I said as I let tears run down my face. "I was going to be a really good mom."
"You are a great mom," Alex said.
I nodded, but it didn't do much to console me. Going through all of the things that I had bought for our girl was so bittersweet. It reminded me of so many outings where I had over-bought or bought duplicates of things that I really would never use just because I was excited. It reminded me of all of our friends that had celebrated with us and showered us with gifts.
It reminded me that we were a year behind.
The things that we had bought last had sat unused for a year. It hurt to be reminded, even though we had just past the one year mark. It hurt to think of the showers and the random gifts that had come in the mail, even after we got home from the hospital empty handed.
Baby gifts and condolence gifts had come at the same time. They had sat in the front room until they were opened, and some baby gifts were acknowledged with cards from the funeral home saying "thank you" for honoring Kaitlyn. It was so painful to be reminded of the absence of our daughter.
As we looked around the changed nursery we felt reassured at our decision to not have a baby shower. We had talked about it earlier in the pregnancy and decided that we wouldn't tell anyone the gender until the birth just to keep people (in their sweet, well-meaning ways) from buying us presents that we really didn't need. It was hard for people to understand that, but it was what was best for us until the baby got here safely.
Once Kaitlyn's birthday had passed, I felt relief. I felt like I could finally get excited about our current pregnancy and I had given myself "permission" to look forward to our upcoming addition without hesitation.
The only thing that held me back from completely looking forward was the nursery. I hadn't moved anything in the nursery with the exception of taking Kaitlyn's name off the wall. Everything else was exactly as it had been the day we came home from the hospital empty handed; it waited expectantly for use in still silence.
That week, Alex decided it was time to go through everything and redecorate. I fought him hard on it because I honestly dreaded having to go through everything. Plus, I figured we would have plenty of time because the baby wasn't due for another two months. So I procrastinated, but Alex would have none of that.
What that meant is that we started pulling out all of the baby things and genuinely deciding whether or not they needed to stay. Alex is a minimalist, but I tend to lean towards the "if one is good, two is better" type of preparedness. It wasn't until we got to the third pack-n-play that I broke down.
"I was so ready," I said as I let tears run down my face. "I was going to be a really good mom."
"You are a great mom," Alex said.
I nodded, but it didn't do much to console me. Going through all of the things that I had bought for our girl was so bittersweet. It reminded me of so many outings where I had over-bought or bought duplicates of things that I really would never use just because I was excited. It reminded me of all of our friends that had celebrated with us and showered us with gifts.
It reminded me that we were a year behind.
The things that we had bought last had sat unused for a year. It hurt to be reminded, even though we had just past the one year mark. It hurt to think of the showers and the random gifts that had come in the mail, even after we got home from the hospital empty handed.
Baby gifts and condolence gifts had come at the same time. They had sat in the front room until they were opened, and some baby gifts were acknowledged with cards from the funeral home saying "thank you" for honoring Kaitlyn. It was so painful to be reminded of the absence of our daughter.
As we looked around the changed nursery we felt reassured at our decision to not have a baby shower. We had talked about it earlier in the pregnancy and decided that we wouldn't tell anyone the gender until the birth just to keep people (in their sweet, well-meaning ways) from buying us presents that we really didn't need. It was hard for people to understand that, but it was what was best for us until the baby got here safely.
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Kaitlyn's Birthday
9.18.14
I opened my eyes and the sun was whispering through the blinds in our bedroom. Alex was already up and in the living room, and had kindly shut the door on his way out that morning.
Nearly the second I opened my eyes, I started crying. At first, it was a quiet cry. The kind that nobody knows is happening, but then it started to build.
I didn't mean to be loud, but somehow Alex heard me in the living room through a shut door. I cried and cried and cried as I looked at the urn that had sat on my nightstand for the past year. Alex came in and didn't say a word, but laid down with me and circled his body around mine. We just laid there for 20 minutes as I cried and couldn't say anything.
It hurt. It hurt to think about where we were a year ago. It hurt to think about how excited we had been that morning on our way to the hospital and how all I kept saying was how excited I was to meet her. How thankful I had been that Alex had made it home from Afghanistan. It hurt to have the images of her still heart flash in my mind without any prompting.
It hurt.
Alex laid with me for a while longer before he eventually got up and started putting on his scrubs to go to work.
"Are you going to be okay?" he asked me before he left.
"Yeah, it just is what it is," I told him. I had planned to spend the day writing and drinking decaf coffee at our dining table.
Little did I know that not 5 minutes after Alex had left, I would get a text from him.
"I didn't even make it to the first light before I started crying," he said.
The problem was, my phone was on silent from the night before and I didn't get the text. After a few minutes of me not answering, he ended up calling my work phone which was not on silent. I was little irked that somebody was calling me, but I went to look and see who it was.
When I answered, Alex asked me in his calm-but-upset voice, "Of all the day to not answer your phone, can we please communicate better today?"
At that point, I finally read his text.
"You don't have to go to work, Alex," I had assured him. Luckily, Alex works for an office where everyone knew us when we lost Kaitlyn, so there was no explanation needed. They would understand if he just didn't show up, and they would give us both the grace we needed to mourn our daughter.
"Just don't go," I urged him. "Come back home, we can go do things that will make the day pass."
"I just need to drive around," he told me. And that's what he did. For the next hour, Alex just drove.
After some time, I sent him a text just to check on him and make sure he was okay. He told me he was fine, but that he wanted to go get a haircut and he wanted to know if I would go with him. I met him in the front yard with no makeup and a sweatshirt on.
I watched at the barber shop as they cut his hair and the dark pieces fell on the floor. His hair is jet black and very thick, and as I stared absently at the pieces on the floor I was reminded of Kaitlyn's dark hair that the nurses had cut locks of and pasted on a piece of paper for us. They had done it with a glue stick and at some point the pieces had started to fall off. I had eventually dropped some mod podge over the ends so that it would stay on the paper better.
Sometimes when I was sad, I would get the paper out and run my fingers over that hair. Jet black and thick strands, stuck just below a stamp of her footprints. There was some poem on it that I didn't really care enough to memorize, and the nurses had made three copies of it with locks of hair on each of them.
They could have taken all of her hair and given it to me, and it wouldn't have been enough. She could have left the hospital with a buzz cut and it wouldn't have bothered me one bit. Because that's part of her story. Her hair was such a huge part of her story because I knew that she would come out practically with pigtails because of the heartburn I had suffered.
We didn't do much the rest of the afternoon. We just stayed with each other and didn't talk about it.
The one thing I had wanted to do was for Alex and I to take these Chinese lanterns I had found online out and send them off after it got dark. We had scoped out this park just up from our house that had a nice little pond on it, and in my head I envisioned the two of us lighting the lanterns and watching them float up above the water and their reflections fading over the water as they rose in the night.
Real life rarely happens the way you expect it to, so of course it was a bit windy that night and we struggled to get (and keep) the lanterns lit long enough to get them to rise. But the good news is that we got so tickled at the wind that we ended up laughing quite a bit as we attempted to release the lanterns.
We sent off two lanterns that night, one hot pink (of course) and one white.
The summer I had been pregnant with Kaitlyn, I listened to the radio quite a bit while I was driving around for work. There was one song that kept coming on that was by the band Phillip Phillips, and at first I hated it. I thought it was morbid. But like most things that I try to resist, after I had heard it about 15 times I decided that I really liked the beat and the lyrics weren't awful. So I use to sing it to Kaitlyn while we would drive around, and as the part where "like a drum" would play, I would pat on my belly to help her feel the beat (which was almost always recognized with a good hard rub on my rib cage by the top of her head).
As we watched the lanterns float off in the darkness, I couldn't help but have that song play in my head.
I opened my eyes and the sun was whispering through the blinds in our bedroom. Alex was already up and in the living room, and had kindly shut the door on his way out that morning.
Nearly the second I opened my eyes, I started crying. At first, it was a quiet cry. The kind that nobody knows is happening, but then it started to build.
I didn't mean to be loud, but somehow Alex heard me in the living room through a shut door. I cried and cried and cried as I looked at the urn that had sat on my nightstand for the past year. Alex came in and didn't say a word, but laid down with me and circled his body around mine. We just laid there for 20 minutes as I cried and couldn't say anything.
It hurt. It hurt to think about where we were a year ago. It hurt to think about how excited we had been that morning on our way to the hospital and how all I kept saying was how excited I was to meet her. How thankful I had been that Alex had made it home from Afghanistan. It hurt to have the images of her still heart flash in my mind without any prompting.
It hurt.
Alex laid with me for a while longer before he eventually got up and started putting on his scrubs to go to work.
"Are you going to be okay?" he asked me before he left.
"Yeah, it just is what it is," I told him. I had planned to spend the day writing and drinking decaf coffee at our dining table.
Little did I know that not 5 minutes after Alex had left, I would get a text from him.
"I didn't even make it to the first light before I started crying," he said.
The problem was, my phone was on silent from the night before and I didn't get the text. After a few minutes of me not answering, he ended up calling my work phone which was not on silent. I was little irked that somebody was calling me, but I went to look and see who it was.
When I answered, Alex asked me in his calm-but-upset voice, "Of all the day to not answer your phone, can we please communicate better today?"
At that point, I finally read his text.
"You don't have to go to work, Alex," I had assured him. Luckily, Alex works for an office where everyone knew us when we lost Kaitlyn, so there was no explanation needed. They would understand if he just didn't show up, and they would give us both the grace we needed to mourn our daughter.
"Just don't go," I urged him. "Come back home, we can go do things that will make the day pass."
"I just need to drive around," he told me. And that's what he did. For the next hour, Alex just drove.
After some time, I sent him a text just to check on him and make sure he was okay. He told me he was fine, but that he wanted to go get a haircut and he wanted to know if I would go with him. I met him in the front yard with no makeup and a sweatshirt on.
I watched at the barber shop as they cut his hair and the dark pieces fell on the floor. His hair is jet black and very thick, and as I stared absently at the pieces on the floor I was reminded of Kaitlyn's dark hair that the nurses had cut locks of and pasted on a piece of paper for us. They had done it with a glue stick and at some point the pieces had started to fall off. I had eventually dropped some mod podge over the ends so that it would stay on the paper better.
Sometimes when I was sad, I would get the paper out and run my fingers over that hair. Jet black and thick strands, stuck just below a stamp of her footprints. There was some poem on it that I didn't really care enough to memorize, and the nurses had made three copies of it with locks of hair on each of them.
They could have taken all of her hair and given it to me, and it wouldn't have been enough. She could have left the hospital with a buzz cut and it wouldn't have bothered me one bit. Because that's part of her story. Her hair was such a huge part of her story because I knew that she would come out practically with pigtails because of the heartburn I had suffered.
We didn't do much the rest of the afternoon. We just stayed with each other and didn't talk about it.
The one thing I had wanted to do was for Alex and I to take these Chinese lanterns I had found online out and send them off after it got dark. We had scoped out this park just up from our house that had a nice little pond on it, and in my head I envisioned the two of us lighting the lanterns and watching them float up above the water and their reflections fading over the water as they rose in the night.
Real life rarely happens the way you expect it to, so of course it was a bit windy that night and we struggled to get (and keep) the lanterns lit long enough to get them to rise. But the good news is that we got so tickled at the wind that we ended up laughing quite a bit as we attempted to release the lanterns.
The summer I had been pregnant with Kaitlyn, I listened to the radio quite a bit while I was driving around for work. There was one song that kept coming on that was by the band Phillip Phillips, and at first I hated it. I thought it was morbid. But like most things that I try to resist, after I had heard it about 15 times I decided that I really liked the beat and the lyrics weren't awful. So I use to sing it to Kaitlyn while we would drive around, and as the part where "like a drum" would play, I would pat on my belly to help her feel the beat (which was almost always recognized with a good hard rub on my rib cage by the top of her head).
As we watched the lanterns float off in the darkness, I couldn't help but have that song play in my head.
Gone, Gone, Gone
by Phillip Phillips
When life leaves you high and dry
I'll be at your door tonight
if you need help
if you need help
I'll shut down the city lights
I'll lie, cheat, I'll beg and bribe
to make you well
to make you well
When enemies are at your door
I'll carry you away from war
if you need help
if you need help
Your hope dangling by a string
I'll share in your suffering
to make you well
to make you well
Give me reason to believe
that you would do the same for me
And I would do it for you, for you
Baby, I'm not moving on
I'll love you long after you're gone
For you, for you
You will never sleep alone
I'll love you long after you go
And long after you're gone, gone, gone
When you fall like a statue
I'm gon' be there to catch
put you on your feet
you on your feet
And if your well is empty
not a thing will prevent me
tell me what you need,
what do you need?
I surrender honestly
You've always done the same for me
And I would do it for you, for you
Baby, I'm not moving on
I'll love you long after you're gone
for you, for you
You will never sleep alone
I'll love you long after you go
And long after you're gone, gone, gone
You're my backbone
You're my cornerstone
You're my crutch when my legs stop moving
You're my head start
You're my rugged heart
You're the pulse that I've always needed.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating
Like a drum, my heart never stops beating
For you, for you
Baby, I'm not moving on
I'll love you long after you're gone
for you, for you
You will never sleep alone
I'll love you long after you go.
And long after you're gone, gone, gone
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating
Like a drum, my heart never stops beating for you.
And long after you're gone, gone, gone
I'll love you long after you're gone
gone
gone...
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
The Day before
9.17.14
The grief was palpable. I had made an appointment with Kate for the morning before Kaitlyn's birthday. I didn't know what the actual day would bring, and I didn't want to force myself to get out of the house if I needed to just lay in bed all day. So the morning before, I headed out to Kate's office.
On the way, I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I didn't actually cry on the way, but as soon as I went up the stairs and found myself on that familiar couch, I couldn't hold them back anymore.
"I don't want it to have been a year," I told her through the tears falling down my face. "Its too long. It seems like forever, but at the same time all of the memories are back and strong and I can't make them quit replaying in my head. How do I make them stop?" I begged her for relief.
Kate slowly shook her head, "You have to feel this one. You have to let your grief be what it needs to be right now."
"I feel selfish. I should be happy that I'm pregnant. I should be able to celebrate the life that I am carrying right now."
"Even when you have two living children, you'll find that there are times when one child needs more attention than the other one," Kate said. "This is the time that Kaitlyn needs more attention that this baby, and that's okay. It's not favoring one child over the other, it's just giving each one what they need in the time that they need it."
"I'm miserable," I continued to confess.
"This was the first year that I didn't stop functioning completely on Piper's birthday," Kate told me. "Every year up until now I have needed to just stop. To grieve well and to grieve hard and privately."
"How long did it take you to get there?" I asked.
"Three years," she said quietly. "It has been three years this year."\
Almost two year ago, we had heard the testimony of a man at our church who had lost his wife and three kids in a horrific car accident. Little did we know that Mike's story of loss would help us in our own grief, and in the few weeks after losing Kaitlyn we happen to run into him at church when I was picking up a book for a Bible study I had decided to do.
In that conversation, Mike warned us about what the anniversary would bring this year. He told us that everyone in his family and his wife's family grieved differently, and that we needed to be understanding of the different facets of grief.
"Some people want to work the day of," he had told us in the lobby of the church. "Other people need to take a few days off and remember. For me, I wanted to work through it and it was always the build up of the day that was worse than the actual day. After it was over, I could do a big sigh of relief. Other people, they wanted to have some kind of 'official' mourning thing and I just couldn't do it. So just remember that in a year."
"Alex is working tomorrow," I told Kate. "I don't know how I feel about it, to be honest."
"Let him work through his own stuff. He compartmentalizes a lot of things because that is his training as a soldier. That's okay. Just give him grace and let his grief look the way it needs to," she advised.
Our session came to a close. I started crying again and told Kate thank you for everything she had helped me with. Honestly, I don't know how my grief would have looked without her help.
"It has been a joy," she said with passion. "You are doing so well, even though you don't feel like it right now."
"I feel awful," I laughed through the tears again. "I so appreciate you sharing Piper with me, and allowing me to just sit and listen to your story that first day. It helped me more than you will ever realize."
"It helps me," she said quietly. "It helps me with my own grief."
It was then I realized, I was following in Kate's footsteps in my own way. All of the grief education and Hope Boxes that I had done over the last year, it was my grief and my honoring Kaitlyn. Kate's calling to honor Piper was to help others by sharing her story as well as listening to theirs.
I left Kate's office feeling better, but also feeling heavy. I dreaded the next day. I ran a few errands and then went to the house to enjoy the quite for a little while.
That night, I cried myself to sleep knowing what the next day would bring.
The grief was palpable. I had made an appointment with Kate for the morning before Kaitlyn's birthday. I didn't know what the actual day would bring, and I didn't want to force myself to get out of the house if I needed to just lay in bed all day. So the morning before, I headed out to Kate's office.
On the way, I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I didn't actually cry on the way, but as soon as I went up the stairs and found myself on that familiar couch, I couldn't hold them back anymore.
"I don't want it to have been a year," I told her through the tears falling down my face. "Its too long. It seems like forever, but at the same time all of the memories are back and strong and I can't make them quit replaying in my head. How do I make them stop?" I begged her for relief.
Kate slowly shook her head, "You have to feel this one. You have to let your grief be what it needs to be right now."
"I feel selfish. I should be happy that I'm pregnant. I should be able to celebrate the life that I am carrying right now."
"Even when you have two living children, you'll find that there are times when one child needs more attention than the other one," Kate said. "This is the time that Kaitlyn needs more attention that this baby, and that's okay. It's not favoring one child over the other, it's just giving each one what they need in the time that they need it."
"I'm miserable," I continued to confess.
"This was the first year that I didn't stop functioning completely on Piper's birthday," Kate told me. "Every year up until now I have needed to just stop. To grieve well and to grieve hard and privately."
"How long did it take you to get there?" I asked.
"Three years," she said quietly. "It has been three years this year."\
Almost two year ago, we had heard the testimony of a man at our church who had lost his wife and three kids in a horrific car accident. Little did we know that Mike's story of loss would help us in our own grief, and in the few weeks after losing Kaitlyn we happen to run into him at church when I was picking up a book for a Bible study I had decided to do.
In that conversation, Mike warned us about what the anniversary would bring this year. He told us that everyone in his family and his wife's family grieved differently, and that we needed to be understanding of the different facets of grief.
"Some people want to work the day of," he had told us in the lobby of the church. "Other people need to take a few days off and remember. For me, I wanted to work through it and it was always the build up of the day that was worse than the actual day. After it was over, I could do a big sigh of relief. Other people, they wanted to have some kind of 'official' mourning thing and I just couldn't do it. So just remember that in a year."
"Alex is working tomorrow," I told Kate. "I don't know how I feel about it, to be honest."
"Let him work through his own stuff. He compartmentalizes a lot of things because that is his training as a soldier. That's okay. Just give him grace and let his grief look the way it needs to," she advised.
Our session came to a close. I started crying again and told Kate thank you for everything she had helped me with. Honestly, I don't know how my grief would have looked without her help.
"It has been a joy," she said with passion. "You are doing so well, even though you don't feel like it right now."
"I feel awful," I laughed through the tears again. "I so appreciate you sharing Piper with me, and allowing me to just sit and listen to your story that first day. It helped me more than you will ever realize."
"It helps me," she said quietly. "It helps me with my own grief."
It was then I realized, I was following in Kate's footsteps in my own way. All of the grief education and Hope Boxes that I had done over the last year, it was my grief and my honoring Kaitlyn. Kate's calling to honor Piper was to help others by sharing her story as well as listening to theirs.
I left Kate's office feeling better, but also feeling heavy. I dreaded the next day. I ran a few errands and then went to the house to enjoy the quite for a little while.
That night, I cried myself to sleep knowing what the next day would bring.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
The suspense
9.14.14-9.15.14
The next few days were unbearable. I could see the train coming and there was literally nothing I could do about it but dread its arrival.
I had decided a long time ago that I wouldn't be working on Kaitlyn's birthday for a few years (at least). Since it fell on a Thursday this year, I knew I would want off the day before because I would be anticipating the day and then it seemed silly to take off Wednesday and Thursday without taking Friday off, so I took that off too.
On Monday, I went to work at one of my accounts and told them that I would be out the second half of the week.
"Oh that's nice! I hope you have something fun planned!" said one person.
Not exactly, and I didn't bother correcting them to tell them why I was off in the first place.
Monday night, Elyse had planned our monthly Hope Mommies dinner in Richardson and I was glad to have the distraction to go. There were 10 girls that showed up that night, and 4 of them were new to the group.
We usually start off with going around the table and telling our stories. Its such a great way for us to honor our babies and talk about them, but to also remind each other that we know there is hope for us to see them again.
As we wait for people to arrive, we tell shortened, clipped versions of our stories. As I mentioned Kaitlyn's name, one of the new mom's stopped me and said, "OH! You're Kaitlyn's mom? I got one of your boxes."
That was one of the best things anyone could have said to me that week- that I am Kaitlyn's mom. Yes, I am Kaitlyn's mom. And this baby's mom.
I started off by telling Kaitlyn's story. I warned them that I would probably cry telling it because it was so close to our one year anniversary, but as I let the familiar words pour out of my mouth it just became storytelling again. Sometimes, I feel like the whole experience was just a dream and none of it really happened. I only stopped once as my voice caught in my throat, but then I continued to tell the story as I always had.
We went around the table and I soon discovered that Elyse and I were the "senior" Hope Moms at this dinner. We were both approaching our one year anniversary, and everyone else was less than a year from their loss. Some of the moms were as recent as 6 weeks.
After we finished dinner, I was thankful that I had met this group of ladies and we had committed to meeting together once a month. I was glad for the excuse to get out of the house, and I was glad that I was able to share Kaitlyn's story again with women who understood so well the pain of that loss.
I was glad that I was surrounded by four women that night who had all received Hope Boxes that I had either shipped to them or left at hospitals. I was thankful that at the beginning of the hardest week this year, God had used them to remind me that there was still purpose to be seen.
The next few days were unbearable. I could see the train coming and there was literally nothing I could do about it but dread its arrival.
I had decided a long time ago that I wouldn't be working on Kaitlyn's birthday for a few years (at least). Since it fell on a Thursday this year, I knew I would want off the day before because I would be anticipating the day and then it seemed silly to take off Wednesday and Thursday without taking Friday off, so I took that off too.
On Monday, I went to work at one of my accounts and told them that I would be out the second half of the week.
"Oh that's nice! I hope you have something fun planned!" said one person.
Not exactly, and I didn't bother correcting them to tell them why I was off in the first place.
Monday night, Elyse had planned our monthly Hope Mommies dinner in Richardson and I was glad to have the distraction to go. There were 10 girls that showed up that night, and 4 of them were new to the group.
We usually start off with going around the table and telling our stories. Its such a great way for us to honor our babies and talk about them, but to also remind each other that we know there is hope for us to see them again.
As we wait for people to arrive, we tell shortened, clipped versions of our stories. As I mentioned Kaitlyn's name, one of the new mom's stopped me and said, "OH! You're Kaitlyn's mom? I got one of your boxes."
That was one of the best things anyone could have said to me that week- that I am Kaitlyn's mom. Yes, I am Kaitlyn's mom. And this baby's mom.
I started off by telling Kaitlyn's story. I warned them that I would probably cry telling it because it was so close to our one year anniversary, but as I let the familiar words pour out of my mouth it just became storytelling again. Sometimes, I feel like the whole experience was just a dream and none of it really happened. I only stopped once as my voice caught in my throat, but then I continued to tell the story as I always had.
We went around the table and I soon discovered that Elyse and I were the "senior" Hope Moms at this dinner. We were both approaching our one year anniversary, and everyone else was less than a year from their loss. Some of the moms were as recent as 6 weeks.
After we finished dinner, I was thankful that I had met this group of ladies and we had committed to meeting together once a month. I was glad for the excuse to get out of the house, and I was glad that I was able to share Kaitlyn's story again with women who understood so well the pain of that loss.
I was glad that I was surrounded by four women that night who had all received Hope Boxes that I had either shipped to them or left at hospitals. I was thankful that at the beginning of the hardest week this year, God had used them to remind me that there was still purpose to be seen.
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