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.
Kaitlyn
Sunday, December 14, 2014
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.
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