Granite and Graduation

~~~Flashback Post~~~
Granite and Graduation (May 20, 2015)

Somehow I managed to continue to live over the following weeks.  I had cake orders I had to fill. I had a graduation I needed to plan and prep for.  After two short weeks off, I was back at my desk at work.  I was answering the phones and greeting the public, still trying to figure out how to live in the aftermath of our nightmare.  I didn't want to be there, the general public didn't know what to say to me.  Some said things wonderful things, some said completely inappropriate things, most said nothing at all.

Physically speaking, two weeks was not enough time.  Mentally speaking, two weeks was not enough time.  Spiritually speaking, two weeks was not enough time.  But I was given two weeks of "maternity leave" and after two weeks, I returned to work... at a church... and I sat in that sacred and holy place harboring a great and growing bitterness, anger, and guilt-filled resentment towards God.

The day of our oldest sons long awaited Baccalaureate Graduation Ceremony was a sunny and warm day.  Truth-be-told, it was not a day filled with many smiles, it was not an overly great day.  The graduate was not wanting to even attend his Baccalaureate ceremony, and we as parents were completely caught between an angry, fist shaking urge to demand with a "you have no choice" approach, mixed with an empathetic, heartbroken - "I totally get it" understanding.  But for the most part, I didn't get it.... I didn't get it at all.  This was a big thing, a big deal - at least for me, and I couldn't understand why it suddenly wasn't for him.  Suddenly we were at the end of his High School career, the moment of finale, and there we were ~ more in a civil war than a grand celebration.

After an emotional roller coaster day of texts, calls, ignored calls, and attempted irrational reasoning, our Senior did finally enter the doors of the facility and join his class up front.  He however did not join us at his celebration supper afterwards.  We were left hosting close family in his absence, and my heart ached in both absolute pride of his accomplishment and utter disappointment in the emotions and actions of the day.  And my heart ached for whatever demons were internally attacking him.

As we walked out of the restaurant that night, the sun was setting, the wind was just a whisper, and I knew in my heart, it was time to drive by the cemetery.  We had not been given an exact date when they would be setting Faith's headstone, and part of me prayed it hadn't been delivered that day and it would still be that small little silver marker in the ground when we drove by, like it had been the day before, and the day before that... But as we slowly approached that evening, we saw several new large stones now on display, and then in her perfect sized smallness, there it was.

There it was, a beautiful delicate piece of perfect, polished, black granite, freshly etched with her name... our names... her birth date. The roses, the cross, the perfect angel wings on back.  Smooth and reflective on the face and back, rough around the edges, black, strong, a glorious mix of marbling... exactly like us, a perfect visual representation of our family.  We stood there holding hands as the sun set that night, heaving teardrops falling into the freshly packed dirt.

My heart was so hurt and so raw by the events and emotions of the day, the utter fatigue of the season at hand.  The arrival of her headstone really was the last thing that was left, the final chapter, of her life.  It was the permanent marker and symbol of her short life.  I looked and looked at that date.  March 27, 2015, and I was reminded of one of my favorite sayings...

"Your life is made up of two dates and a dash.  Make the most of your dash."

Her birth date had no dash following it.  Our Faith MaryJo did not get the joy of getting to live wild and free within the dash that we all get to enjoy between the dates of our birth and the dates of our death.

She would never cry, never laugh, never love, never grow, never graduate...  and that was such a bittersweet reality on that day for me as a mom.  Of all the days ~ the day of our oldest's final chapter of Grade School, Middle School, High School... would also be the same day as our youngest's, his baby sister's, final chapter through the setting of her memorial stone at the cemetery.  Two milestones completed, two chapters closed, both in the same day.

I stood there knowing both my youngest and my oldest had now flown from our nest.  One was still alive and soon to be embarking on life's new adventures of adulthood, hopefully to continue to make the most of his dash... and one was already embarking on Heaven's eternal and great adventure, never even granted the earthly privilege and dreams of her dash.

{"Bitter vs Better" blog post HERE }
{ previous journal entry, "The Days That Followed" HERE }
{ missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith? click HERE to start }
{ next blog post, "Season of Blessed" HERE }

The Days That Followed

{Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story?  start HERE }

~~~Flashback Post~~~
April 10, 2016 (The Days That Followed)

The days that followed the funeral were a blur.

I was dealing with the normal physical aftermath of a natural and vaginal child birth ~ the heavy bleeding, the uterine contracting, shrinking, and healing, the standard hormone imbalance and fluctuation with all its postpartum depression issues.  I had dealt with postpartum depression with my firstborn eighteen years earlier.  I had dealt with post adoption depression for over a year with my second child six years earlier. My milk had come in, as my body was responding how every other mother's does.  It was creating nutrients to provide for a baby's essential bonding, growth, and most basic of needs after it was done incubating that little life within me. My chest hurt so bad.  They were swollen, full, hard, tingling, letting down, and constantly leaking all over.  There was nothing inside to stop natures natural course of reproduction.  The reality and next step from within was no longer needed from the outside, and there was nothing properly coordinating with those natural responses. There was no baby, I had nothing to comfort or feed except my own sorrow, self pity, depression, and near desperation.

I was dealing with the incredible emotional aspects and coping mechanisms of a mother in the first steps of grieving the loss of a child, a long prayed for child after seventeen years of infertility at that...   I was home on an awkward and far too short two week "maternity leave." My body, soul, and mind an absolute mess, with no baby to love and care for. The only middle of the night crying was my own. 

And I was dealing with an enormous spiritual war in my anger towards God for causing all this, my guilt and shame over that anger towards God, and my battle to simply continue to find the will to go on living.  And yet, God kept continuing to wake me up every morning.  I knew He apparently wasn't done with me yet, but I sure was ready to be done with Him.

Cards continued to come in the mail.  My husband would bring in the mail and we would quietly sit side-by-side on the couch with a box of tissues. We would spend the next hour opening, reading, commenting, passing them back and forth, and crying our already swollen eyes out.   That first week the story was continuing to get out and several people were reaching out with love and support, praying over us, and trying to walk well beside us.  There were a few meals and not many phone calls.  After that we continued to get an occasional card or two, but very quickly the immediate outpouring of support trickled to an end.

People had no idea what to say to us, so most said nothing at all.

We were all cycling through the overtaking moments of utter grief and loss.  Rarely were we all a mess at the same time.  As it had been during the delivery, funeral planning and funeral itself, we all continued to just ebb and flow, taking turns through the downs and absolute rock bottoms (there were NO ups in any of that period of our lives...) of our pain and sorrow. We were trying to blindly navigate how to grapple with all our own inner demons, we were trying to help pick up the pieces of the others when they fell apart, we were trying to figure out how to be parents that now had children on earth and a child in Heaven.

My husband went on a spending spree as he tried to spread salve on his wounds.  Our teenager got even more quiet, secluded, and withdrawn than he had been before.  Our unpredictable, moody, adopted six year old, who knew he had not come from within the same womb that his big brother had, the same place his sister had just passed away in, rebelled and fought us tooth and nail through meltdowns and anger as his little confused mind attempted, but absolutely could not comprehend or process all of the intricacies of biological / adoption / grief / loss / life / death...

We all desperately needed to give each other grace, love, and support... But when you yourself are in the midst of their same darkest of dark places, giving grace, love, and support is amazingly hard, if not impossible.

I remember the sun shining and the promise of spring during the rare moments when I left the house.  I mostly remember the dark, curtain drawn shadows of our bedroom and those four bleak walls continuing to surrounding me as I lay in bed for hours and hours, day after day.

All of me - mind, body, and soul was an utter train wreck in dire need of healing, strength, and hope.  Never in all my life had I hurt so badly.  Every cell of my body ached in the pain of our loss and sorrow.

{ click HERE to our next journal entry, "Granite and Graduation" }
{ click HERE for our previous journal entry, "The Funeral" }

The Funeral

{ Missed the previous posts to our Journey to Faith story? start HERE }

~~~Flashback Post~~~

The Funeral (March 31, 2015)

The morning of the funeral was sunny, calm, and an unseasonably warm 77º. An absolute rarity for a spring day in Iowa. An unbelievable gift from God ~ the most beautiful day of the year thus far, on the what was by far the hardest day of our lives thus far.

I had stood at the door of my closet that morning, staring blankly at the sea of colors and clothes in front of me. I had no idea what to wear. I had no idea what would even fit. I had been hiding behind bulky hoodies and sparkly scarves desperately trying to hide my growing waistline, while battling an inner sickness and mania, for five months. I was only days out (double digit hours really) after sending my body into the shock and recovery of childbirth and delivery. I knew my body was quickly shedding pounds, but I had no idea how much I had actually lost.

I kept thinking over and over, what in the world does a mother wear to bury her child?

I finally went with an old black short sleeve shirt, covered with a dark grey, open knit, short sleeve sweater wrap, and my favorite black dress slacks. Slacks that had hung unworn in my closet for the last several years, because they were too small. These were thee slacks that had always been my "skinny pants" goal. Well, I could get them on that morning, so I wore them. It was a small consolation prize.

We drove in silence to the cemetery, where we joined the small group of friends and family we had personally invited to join us. Family, close friends, and our co-workers. A few steps out of the van, my mom came over and hugged me. Holding me long and hard and crying huge hiccuping tears into my ears. I clung to her with all the strength that was in me. My sister-in-law, mother-in-law, and father joined the circle around me and the rest of my family. Hugs, support, tears and so much pain. 

I knew others were hurting, but part of me struggled to realize the depth of everyone else's pain and loss beyond the walls of our home and within my own mind.  I was aware, but did not fully comprehend that we were not the only ones solely hurting from this loss, and that was often hard for me to fully acknowledge.  I was so self absorbed in my pain and focused on myself, my husband and my sons that I was blinded from clearly seeing beyond that.  She wasn't just our daughter and sister. She was a granddaughter, she was a niece, she was a cousin, she was their friends and co-workers child, the thing that God has caused the people they loved to have to hurt and endure and suffer through and from... Everyone there loved us, everyone there hurt for us, everyone there was also hurting and grieving her heavenly departure from earth..

We slowly crossed the grass that was slowly greening, yet still matted and dirty from the winter blanket of snow that had recently melted. The sky was a vivid blue, and we made our way to the small crowd of people watching us and standing behind the four chairs waiting in the front row. The chairs were draped with the old, royal blue, funeral home chair slips. There was a matching blue cloth over a small table, with the tiny white, fabric covered, casket resting on top. A tiny rectangular hole was carefully dug into the freshly thawed earth next to the table.

A single light pink rose with babies breath sat on the top of the closed white lid. It’s color, fragrance, and texture emitting life and hope, while at the same time ultimately representing death and sorrow.

Inside, a tiny, diseased filled, earthly body was resting in one of the two pink and white scalloped blankets my husband and I had picked out together a few weeks earlier, in preparation for this very moment. The second matching blanket was waiting and carefully folded on a table next to the pink photo frame displaying her little ultrasound picture back at the church.

That moment in time will forever be etched into my mind. The sun, the spring warmth, the gentle, gentle breeze through my hair and open stitching of my sweater, the hard metal chair beneath me, the strong arm and support of my husband directly to my left. The sniffs and tears of those standing behind us. Our teenager held hands and cried with his girlfriend, who had also buried an infant brother several years earlier, and to whom I was so incredibly grateful for, as she was able to provide the support and comfort that I emotionally was just not capable of. Our youngest sat on my husbands lap. He did not cry once. He looked back and forth with wide eyes, looking deep into our wet eyes and emotionally spent souls. While he knew some of what was going on, I know he really did not grasp the absolute magnitude of it at all. There was no way he could fully comprehend the details and reality of that life and death moment. It left me feeling an incredible amount of guilt and regret for not telling him sooner and attempting to help him understand, grasp, and process the enormity of it all.

The text was on Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the confidence in what we hope for, and the assurance in what we do not see.” The exact verse and meaning she was named after. And then Pastor Jon went on to talk about her middle name. MaryJo. A combination of her grandmother’s names… and then I heard him talk about Jesus’s parent, Mary and Joseph ~ which also could be blended into the full meaning of MaryJo as well. I remember how profoundly that statement struck me in that moment.

And then suddenly, we were praying, and the small service was over. Another long moment that slipped by and had ended entirely too fast ~ another perfect and exact representation of her life. We were standing again, we were hugging, we were crying with those behind us. Soon everyone was walking to their vehicles, heading off to church for the small lunch and receiving line. My husband and I were the last two to leave, minus the funeral directors. I remember how hard it was to pick up that tiny pink rose and will myself to just walk away from her tiny casket, knowing it was soon going to be lowered into the dark and damp earth. Soon to be surrounded, hidden, stained, and fully covered by the black earth.

{ click HERE for our next journal entry, "The Days That Followed" }
{ click HERE for our previous journal entry, "Going Public" }

Going Public

{ Missed the previous posts to our Journey To Faith story?  Start HERE. }

~~~Flashback Post~~~
Going Public (March 28, 2015)

We left the funeral home absolutely exhausted, completely emotionally spent, but we had one more ginormous task to still hurdle.  We had to tell our six year old son.

We drove out to my parents house to pick up him up.  He thought we were still off on an anniversary vacation, although I'm sure he knew something was going on because my parents had to have been distraught and understandably upset as they grieved for both our pain and the loss of their only granddaughter as the details and information came in from us from the hospital.

The details of having to try explain a hidden pregnancy (a biological pregnancy at that), a life, and a loss of a sister to a six year old little boy, who had been adopted, and whose little life had started and grown in the womb of another woman, is beyond imagination.  There are no words to have to describe that reality.  I'm sure we said and did all the wrong things, I'm sure he will end up in therapy for years to come, but at the time, we did what we felt was right.  We said what we felt was appropriate for the delicate and intense state of his little life and inner-workings.

We later arrived home, and received word from the funeral home that the obituary was going to be published on their website shortly.

It was time.  It was time to finally open our hearts, and our pain, and publically share the present reality of our story. We knew there are people that visit the funeral home website daily, just to be nosey and see who has recently died, and we knew we wanted to be the first one to share about her.  We didn't want some random funeral home website stalker to be the first to see, to ask us, to comment, to share...

But... the internet was down!  We had been having all sorts of issues with the local internet provider the last several months, and of all the days, and all the times, there we were ~ unable to connect, unable to email the necessary details to our friends and family, unable to log on to social media and publicly share.  I was already dangerously teetering on the edge, and that just about sent me over the edge of all rational sanity.   In time, we would finally get on, and posted the following on social media:

       ~~~~~~~~

"On Friday, March 27, our precious little daughter, Faith MaryJo, was born. She was 18 weeks and had been diagnosed earlier in the pregnancy with Trisomy 18, a rare chromosomal condition. Our little miracle was born sleeping and already safe and healed in the arms of Jesus. It has been an incredibly long journey that has been entirely far too short at the same time. We grieve this loss with an intensity I've not felt before, and take great comfort in the promise of eternity in Heaven. Our families thank you for your prayers and understanding as we mourn and heal.  Brian and Sara Crane"

And then we linked her obituary.

Obituary for Faith Crane

Faith MaryJo Crane, daughter of Brian Russell and Sara Lee (Oldenkamp) Crane, of Orange City, was stillborn on Friday, March 27, 2015, at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

There will be a family graveside service on Tuesday, March 31, at the West Lawn Cemetery in Orange City. The Rev. Jonathan Opgenorth will officiate. Arrangements are with the Oolman Funeral Home in Orange City.

In addition to her parents, she is survived by two brothers, Bailey Goebel and Isaiah Crane, both at home; grandparents, Kenneth and Mary Oldenkamp, of Alton; Jolene Crane, of Rock Rapids; and Steve and Debbie Crane, of Rock Rapids; uncles, aunts, and cousins, Derek and Karalee Oldenkamp, with son Kennick, of Glasgow, Kentucky; and Rachel Crane, with daughter Jordyn, of Sioux Falls.

       ~~~~~~~~

The next morning in church, it would be announced from the pulpit.  We watched and cried along with them via the livestream of it from our home.  The thought of venturing into public still unbearable and unthinkable.  There was so much to share, so much to say, and yet all we wanted to do was be alone, to sleep, to hide, to hurt privately...  But that's what we had already been doing the entire time... Now it was time to figure out what to say, and what to do, and bravely figure out how to look the public in the eye and grieve and mourn openly.

{ click HERE for our next journal entry"The Funeral" } 
{ click HERE for our previous journal entry "Funeral Details" }

Funeral Details

Missed the previous posts to our Journey To Faith Story?
Start HERE.

~~~Flashback post~~~
Funeral Details (March 28, 2015)

I think one of the hardest things in this whole journey and loss, was trying to figure out and justify the "appropriateness" of what is both "socially acceptable" and what we felt deep within us was the right thing, and the right way, to give us the closer we needed and celebrate this little life that never even got the chance to really even live.

We were also now faced with the reality of how would we publicly share about something so hard, so sad, and ultimately ~ so secret.  At that exact moment the majority of the world still had no idea what our little family had just gone through.

We had had the option to leave her at the hospital, where we were told she would be appropriately laid next to other lost babies from the hospital, which of course was not an option for us.  So the funeral home was notified, and a few hours after we were released from the hospital, after we had walked down that horribly hard and incredibly sad never-ending maternity floor hallway, we parked our vehicle in front of the funeral home, on the busiest and main road running through our little town, my name and business logo completely visible on the side windows.

We slowly walked in that late Saturday afternoon, hand in hand.  This time we were not there to meet any other family or friends and give them our sympathies.  This time we were "the family" that was there to do "the planning".  And I personally was greatly wrestling with what to do.  Should we do any kind of public visitation?  Should we do any kind of public funeral?  Should we do any kind of reception and lunch following?

I did not want to not celebrate her, I didn't want to overlook and under appreciate the reality of her life and the magnitude and enormity of this loss, but I had no idea what was the appropriate manner in which to accomplish this.

All along, we had known that this moment could not be fully pre-planned, because it really would look different depending on the date and way in which we would finally lose her.  The details of this funeral planning would be different than the funeral plans we would have made had she been born full term, after a full and publicly visible second-half of the pregnancy.

Seriously, I cannot begin to describe the amount of emotions all this brought me, on top of everything else we had just gone through.  We had known all along this was going to happen, we had talked and shared our thoughts for our hopes for this moment, and Lord knows I had mulled the millions of options over and over and over in my head over the weeks prior.  And yet, honestly, nothing can possibly prepare any parent to be able to fully comprehend what it will feel like knowing you have an appointment at the funeral home, to make final arrangements for your child.

But... it was the next step, the next thing we knew we needed to do.  The next part of the journey we had to bravely just get through.

The funeral director met us inside the door and we all sat down at a table in a small area around the corner.  He had our folder started, there was paperwork to begin.  And I will never forget the sorrow and emotions that overtook my husband at that moment.

It was one of those similar moments like so many had been with the two of us throughout this journey.  Thankfully, God rarely seemed to allow both of us to completely fall apart at the same time.  He would give one of us just a little more strength during those moments when the other was crashing to rock bottom.  And suddenly, mid-sentence, my husband put his head down and just sobbed.  Huge emotional sobs coming from the depths of his broken heart and shattered dreams.  I sat quietly next to him, rubbing his back, holding tightly to his strong arm, just letting him cry.  I may have had a few tears pool into his, but I distinctly remember not being overcome and having the odd strength to just somehow hold myself together in that moment.

We chose a tiny white casket, covered in white embroidered fabric, and we handed over the soft pink and white scalloped blanket we had so emotionally chosen earlier.  We chose a single light pink rose for the flower on top.  We decided to not have any kind of visitation.  We went ahead with our initial plan of having a small grave-side service, that we would personally invite about fifty close family and friends to attend with us.  We would have a receiving line after the service at our church, followed by a small lunch.  We would serve heavily buttered funeral ham buns, potato salad, chips, fruit, and volunteer donated variety of cakes.  We chose a list of songs we would have quietly playing during the lunch.

It was intimate, small, and yet just large enough to still hopefully be the perfect farewell and special closure all of us needed.

The reality never left my mind that nearly a year earlier I had taken over the job responsibilities to be the "Funeral Coordinator" at our church.  No one would have ever guessed that the very next funeral in our church would be for my very own family, my very own child.  It broke my heart knowing my church family and my fellow co-workers were going to be the next ones getting the call to organize and plan for all this from the church's end.

And then we worked on the obituary.  The beautiful words we would finally publicly share about the life and loss of our precious little girl...

{ click HERE for our next journal entry, "Going Public" }
{ click HERE for our previous journal entry, "Labor and Delivery" }

Labor and Delivery

{ Missed the previous posts to our Journey to Faith Story? click HERE }

~~~Flackback Post~~~

Labor and Delivery (March 27, 2015)

After the initial news and ingestion of what was about to have to happen, the rest of the day is both a bit of a blur, and an absolutely vivid, slow moving movie of crisp details, smells, feelings, sights, sounds, and emotions that I will never ever forget.  I had lived with an absolute manic fear of this exact moment that was now upon us, that long lived fear of dying myself in the midst of it all.

I could spend hours sharing these details, but I'm quite certain there is no one out there remotely interested in what it's really like in the inner room, in the birthing wing, on the maternity floor of a specialty hospital, when the only reason you are there is to induce labor to ultimately deliver a baby that is no longer alive.  I also believe in protecting the sacredness of that moment between my husband and I.  I realize "sacred" is perhaps and odd word to use to describe the worst day of our lives, and yet - it is in the monumental moments like these in our lives, and in our marriages, that fuse the bond and strength of ones relationship.  

We traveled hand in hand, heart to heart, dragging each other through the worst nightmare of our life thus far.  We stood by each other during our ugliest, our hardest, our darkest moments.

We were embraced by the most amazing nurses who lovingly sat us down and walked us through what was about to happen, the why, the when, the reason for what was all going to be happening.  We had been scheduled to find all of this out in just a few days, but we had not made it that far.  We had not mentally been able to start processing this leg of the journey, and it was the one that we knew was going to be the hardest. And yet there we were, plowing forward full speed, ready or not.

Within a matter of hours of hearing those fateful words, "there's no heartbeat..." I was checked in at a hospital in another state, gowned, iv'd, and had been given the medicines to start contractions.  A doctor whom I had never met before came in around 5:00 p.m. and stood at the end of my bed and quietly told us that this typically was something that did not go quickly.  We would not delver that night, more than likely we would not deliver the following day either, his assumption was we would deliver early Sunday morning. Wow, that was a sobering blow to us... We were in for a long haul.  I had unsuccessfully labored and delivered for two and a half days with my oldest, I'm not sure why I had hoped this time it would be different.

In the hours that followed we would laugh, we would cry and we would cry some more.  We attempted to remain as real and upbeat as we could.  I found out labor and delivery for a stillborn premie at the age of 40, was just as intense and hard as the labor and delivery of full term at the age of 22.  For some reason I had let my mind convince me with an odd logic that since the baby would be small and not full term, that the labor and contractions would also be small and not as bad.  This was absolutely not the case.  But I had no option to change, stop, or back out.

Labor was heavy, my water broke minutes after my husband had left to get something to eat, and everything quickly started falling apart.  She was breach and she was coming much sooner than anyone had imagined.  My husband finally rushed back in, the new doctor who was now on call arrived, and only a few short hours after our arrival, at 7:37 p.m. on Friday, March 27th, Faith MaryJo was born. She did not get to greet the world with a cry, but I did.

Details with the delivery had not gone as they had hoped, and quickly we realized there was going to be further complications with the remainder of the delivery and the next several hours were crazy, intense, stressful, and long.  Since everything had gone so quickly I did not receive any pain medicine until the very end, it was short lived relief, and we were down to the wire for time.  They brought in the surgery paperwork and I had everything signed and ready.  And this made me so angry.

I did NOT want a spinal.  I had lived through two of them; the emergency c-section after two days failed labor and delivery with my oldest, and hemorrhaging after my miscarriage a year later.  In my opinion, the six to twelve hours of my body coming out of a spinal was one of the top worst things I've gone through... and to suddenly go from stillbirth labor and delivery to signing paperwork for another spinal and surgery left me emotionally livid at God. If I was going to have to end up still having surgery, why in the world did God make me go through labor and delivery as well?!?  I hadn't basically eaten or been able to drink anything (even water) all day, which was not helping the matter.  Finally there was one last "natural" procedure to try before I would be whisked off to surgery.  There were nurses and the doctor and my husband beside me... and my body finally gave up its fight, and all things once in, were now all things finally out.

I vividly remember there was an immediate bright light coming down on me, on my left side, filling the area of my hospital bed from above.  Maybe it was the lights in the room, but I believe it was God choosing to spare my life.

Done.  Delivered.  Alive.  I was still alive.  There was a momentary initial ten ton weight lifted from me.  It was late.  It was dark.  It was done.

They closely monitored me for the next several hours, knowing my history.  After midnight I was finally given the ok to order something to eat and drink.  We ordered off a menu and it was delivered to the room.  We sat silent and numb, in utter exhaustion as we attempted to eat the food in front of us.

It was over - all of it was finally over, and all of it actually was just a different kind of beginning. 

I cried the entire night while my husband snored loudly on the couch next to my bed.  I had always been the one on the couch, the supportive healthy one.  It had been 16 years since I had been a patient in the hospital.  I had had a miscarriage, followed by unexpected hemorrhaging.  And I had gone home without a baby that time as well.

The next morning the funeral home quietly slipped in and out, and later we would pack our bags and were slowly escorted down the long maternity floor hallway.  The walls were lined with enlargements of babies and smiling families.  The doors to the rooms were open and filled with tiny little newborns wrapped up tight, surrounded by the buzz of visiting family.  Balloons, flowers, excitement.  So many babies.

It was the hardest, longest walk of my life.  No carseat, no balloons, no flowers, no gifts.  No baby.  Just tears, so very, very many tears.  My heart broke into a million pieces over and over with every step we took.

{ click HERE for our next journal entry, "Funeral Details" }
{ click HERE for our previous journal entry, "Already In The Arms of Jesus" }

Already In The Arms of Jesus

~~~Flashback Post~~~
Already In The Arms of Jesus (March 27, 2015)

"The following morning I called the local clinic and was able to secure a 10:30a.m. appointment.  We were scheduled to still leave at noon for Illinois, and I had somehow managed to get myself, our six-year-old, and our dog all packed and ready for various locations while we were gone.

I went to work that morning, still feeling off and almost irritably nervous.  I had originally planned to leave work around 11:30am, but explained I felt a little off and that I was going to go in to the doctor before we left town.  I finished up all my work, double checked everything was taken care of and covered since I was going to be out for several days, and headed to the clinic.

When I arrived, I simply stated that we were leaving town and I just really wanted the assurance of hearing her heartbeat before we left.  My local doctor assured me this was just fine and he was able to do that for me.  I was soon lying down on the exam table, shirt lifted up, listening to a machine project all the inner sounds from within.  He moved the instrument around and around.  Soon I did hear a heartbeat, but it was much slower than the heartbeat we had heard on the earlier ultrasounds.

And then he had his fingers on my wrist, checking my pulse.  My pulse was the same speed as the pulse being projected, and I slowly willed myself to continue to just lie there and breathe.  In... Out... In... Out...  My eyes were closed and I felt him let go of my wrist and heard him say that he was going to bring in the portable ultrasound machine.

I lay there for a few minutes alone.  Alone, afraid, and pretty sure I knew what was about to happen.

And yet nothing really could prepare me for the moments that followed.  The door was opened and a lady wheeled in a large machine.  She turned down the lights and immediately went to work.  She apologized because the jelly wasn't warmed and was going to be cold.  I'm quite certain I wouldn't have noticed had it been either as cold as ice or as hot as fire.

And then she quietly said the words "Oh honey, I am so sorry... but there is no heartbeat..."  She went on to say that her entire body was quite full of fluid.  More than just the large pocket that had been on the back of her head earlier.

I laid there looking at her, a mix of really slow moving emotions.
"It's ok, it's ok...  She is sick, and we knew this was going to happen... It's ok..."

It was like a really huge weight was lifted, while at the same time a ten-ton train was slamming into me head-on.  Relief and the very first prick of extreme sorrow all at the same time.

She helped me sit up, and she quietly slipped back out of the room, and I sat there in the silence, completely alone.

Done.  All the waiting and wondering was over.
Gone.  She was already gone.

She was already gone, but she was also already healed, whole, and in the arms of Jesus.  I could picture her in His arms.  He was already holding her - cradling her, loving her, looking deep into her eyes.  Her disease and all her earthly imperfections were no more.  The tears and sorrow and full reality overtook me at that exact moment and I put my head in my hands and just sobbed.

Suddenly, it became a blur of calls and conversations and plans, and change in plans. We were packed, but we would not be heading east to Chicago.  We would head west to Sioux Falls, where they would be waiting for our arrival at the hospital.  We were told we needed to get packed and be on our way within the hour, or they would send me there in an ambulance.

And even though I had thought about it daily, obsessed over it hourly... we were completely and totally unprepared for the labor and delivery that still had to happen..."

{ click HERE for our next journal entry "Delivery" }
{ click HERE for our previous journal entry "The Start of Our Goodbyes" }

{ Missed the previous posts to our Journey to Faith story?  start HERE }

The Start To Our Goodbyes

I didn't know the full extent of this reality yet, but this was the day we officially started our goodbyes to our little Faith.

{ Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story?  start HERE }

~~~Flashback post~~~
The Start To Our Goodbyes (March 26, 2015)

"Tomorrow at noon we are scheduled to leave for our hiking trip to the Starved Rock State Park in Illinois.  We booked this trip right after our 10th Anniversary, a little over a year ago.  A grand celebration of my 40th birthday and our 11th Anniversary, twelve months in the making.

We were fairly certain with everything going on, and the fact I am basically on bed rest with this pregnancy, as we live and wait for her to pass away, that we would not be going on this trip.  But at our last appointment the doctor continued to be surprised by her growth and strength and did not feel we would need to cancel.  In fact, he said it might be the best thing for us, to just get away for a while.

I personally have no idea how I'm going to be able to actually do any hiking, and I'm already nervous of the disappointment this will bring Brian.

Next Tuesday when we return home, we will have our next doctor appointment in Sioux Falls.  We are scheduled to walk through where we will deliver.  We will meet our palliative care team and discuss the various options we are wanting, depending on the how and when of when she will be born. There will be a still birth plan and there will be a live birth plan.  We also have an appointment at the funeral home after the doctor appointment.  I called them on the phone to make the appointment and talked briefly with them.  We will arrange as much as we can ahead of time there as well.

I'm typically all over pre-packing and lists and checking and double checking everything in preparation and excitement for our trips.  But not this time.  I do not have the focus or energy to force myself to think long enough and clearly enough.  And I won't lie, I am filled with fear.

Granted, I have been filled with fear since the moment I went in for my pelvic ultrasound.  The day I thought they were going to find cancer, but instead found a tiny heartbeat.  At that moment I was instantly slammed with the force of my overwhelming fear of miscarrying, of hemorrhaging, of my own death in the midst of it.  I am most fearful of the unknown timeline in front of me.  I am caught in a vortex of insanity and wait.  I want control, I want to know the date, the time, the circumstances in how we will lose her.  But God again and again is proving He is the one and only one in control of all of this.

I am angry, I am scared, I am emotional, I am exhausted.

While at work today I had this odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Not an ache or hunger, but a slight twinge of "something" causing my heart to beat just a little faster and my mind to slow ever so slightly as I tried to reason and overlook it.  But it stayed.  Deep deep within I know something is off.

After supper I sat down in the chair and looked over at Brian.  He is so excited to go on this trip, and I had no idea how to tell him I just really have a bad feeling about it.  He looked at me oddly and finally asked me what was the matter, and I simply replied..

"You are not going to hate me are you if we don't end up going on this trip are you?!?"

I went on to explain that something wasn't right, something felt off, and I had decided I was going to call the local clinic in the morning to see if my regular doctor had any appointments available.  I just feel the need to hear her heartbeat before we get in the car and headed out of town.

If there was still a strong heartbeat, and everything appeared to still be ok, I would agree to go on the trip.  I'm not quite sure what I will do if there aren't any appointments available..."

{ Click HERE for our next journal entry, "Already In the Arms Of Jesus" }
{ Click HERE for our previous journal entry, "The Second Confirmation" }

The Second Confirmation

{Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story? start HERE}

~~~ Flashback Post ~~~
The Second Confirmation (March 23, 2015)

Well, after two weeks and one day, the phone call with our amnio test results finally came. After being attached to my phone that entire time, I still somehow managed to miss the call while I driving Friday afternoon. I listened to the voice mail and was a little surprised to hear the test results just in a quick message. But it wasn’t anything new, just the confirmation of Trisomy 18 that we had originally gotten on our blood test. I did call our genetic counselor back, leaving her a return message, and later did have a person-to-person conversation with her.

I was actually relieved to get the second confirmation. Not that we expected it to come back different, but there was a tiny part of me that wondered if it just might, that tiny little hope in an extended second miracle. But when I heard the confirmation I was actually relieved. Nothing new to process, nothing new to consider, just a full confirmation to indeed continue on in the journey we’re already well embarked on.

We also found out it was not genetic or hereditary. “If” we were to get pregnant again (which for some reason always makes me laugh), we would probably not need to worry about re-occurrence. (However at my age, we would have a whole different myriad of things to worry about including Trisomy 21 [down syndrome] IF in fact this “miracle” were to in fact happen again.) I’m quite certain that while from a "genetic" standpoint I may not be rushing in to get my tubes tied, from a “we can’t survive doing this twice” standpoint ~ it still might be highly considered, which is both sad and crazy to even be thinking about after the lifetime I've spent in fertility treatments.

I hung up with no tears. But about a half an hour later, with thoughts of funeral home appointments, headstones, and tiny pink caskets, I found the tears quickly starting to fall down my cheeks again.

I sent an email update to our current prayer warriors. The email list is still quite small. And I can’t help but starting to think more and more about the upcoming “going public” date. Next weekend. After another long day of specialty clinic and funeral home appointments we have scheduled next week, the time will have come.

Phew. A whole new chapter to the journey, one I’m not quite sure I’m ready for, or ever will be ready for. How do you gracefully deal with and tell the general public ~ those close to you, and those who are complete strangers, that at the age of 40 I am pregnant and we don't need congratulations because Jesus has already claimed this child as His and will be whisking her off to Heaven before we will be able to raise her at home? How do you guard your heart as you share the facts, while having compassion for those receiving the news? A hardness within to keep myself together, delicately laced with a compassion and tenderness to soften the blow for those outside….

Why in the world did God choose me, choose us, to walk this road… live this tale, share this journey? I do not want this responsibility and I do not want this reality.

I had this great conversation a few days ago with our pastor’s wife, a wonderful and amazing women whom I love. We talked in a whispered voice in church lobby during the start of our second service, her husband up front welcoming and captivating the crowd with the Good news.

We laughed and talked about fun stuff, about antiquing and thrift store shopping, and then she asked how I was doing, how I was really doing… And I was able to talk, to share, to be honest and real for just a few moments. I told her it was hard having hardly anyone know, but I knew it was going to be a whole different kind of hard once people start finding out. I told her there are good days, days when I don’t hardly cry, and there are days, and unexpected moments in each day when I’m overtaken by sadness, grief, and emotions and how I felt it was so hard trying to not completely fall apart all the time.

She looked at me a little oddly, and compassionately with teary eyes, and she asked why in the world I thought I felt I couldn’t fall apart? I told her that our youngest doesn’t know, that we have a teenager in the house I’m trying to protect from watching me hurt on an extreme level. I’ve watched my husband cry and fall apart so many times and feel I needed to be strong for him, to not fall apart on him, to not let him see me falling apart, to not make him worry more about how to deal with me or be annoyed by me with all my tears and emotions. I talked about how I knew people are going to be watching me go through this. Watching how I handle myself, handle the grief, handle the situation, how I handle all of it. While I’m not famous by any means, I do realize that through both my cake business, and my church staff position, I am a person of high visibility and perceived strength. Knowing people are going to follow our journey, watching me, maybe even judging me, and knowing that I want my faith to always be evident, it makes me fearful of walking through this all, through the watchful eyes of the public.

She gave me such a wonderful answer by encouraging me to not worry about what others thought, that I was absolutely allowed to be sad, to grieve, to be emotional, to be real, to be vulnerable, and to not have it all together.

It's ok to not be ok.

And I was again reminded of my life’s motto… to live life fully, with intentionality and authenticity. It’s that trait about me that have left people loving me, or feeling far too uncomfortable around me and hating me. {insert smiley face emoji}

Yes, this season of living authentically will not be easy, I will need to be public, and share, and be seen. I will need to let others in, while knowing when to keep them out. I will need to be true to the work and weavings I clearly see God doing through this journey, while being honest in the doubts, fears, and anger I also experience through it all. I have to trust that through the good and the bad, through the happy and the sad, that how I live ~ what I do, what I don’t do, what I say, what I don’t say, will in fact carry me from today to tomorrow and on to the day after that and beyond, in a true spirit of myself, my family, and my faith. 

I've found that when I'm overcome by those moments of tears and emotions, I just allow it. I'm allowed to be sad, it's ok ~ this situation sucks, and I dare you to find one person who will disagree with me. I cry, I sob, I let it out. And then I take a deep breath, wipe my eyes, reapply my mascara, stand back up, and try look for the sunshine again...

One day at a time, one moment at a time, one hour at a time.

{ Click HERE for our next journal entry "The Start To Our Goodbyes" }
{ Click HERE for our previous journal entry "Can't Find The Words" }

Can't Find The Words

{Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story? start HERE}

~~~ Flashback Post ~~~
Can't Find The Words (March 22, 2015)

While I have so many words to write, stories to share, memories I want to attempt to preserve (even though the hurting part within is secretly wanting to just quickly forget each and every passing day right now)… I have found my initial resolve to carefully journal and document this journey quickly waning, and I am quickly falling behind. Days are passing, but my fingers are not keeping up.

There are several reasons I’m pegging this to… the main and basic is that it’s just hard. It’s hard to write the words to share the reality we’re living right now. Often, I just can’t find any words, even though my mind is a continued swirling mess of thoughts.

I’m busy… I’m busy just trying to figure out how to live while waiting for the dying. I’ve spent days and weekends confined to the four walls of our bedroom as I laid in bed, failing to sleep, mindlessly flipping channels and nearly going crazy. I cannot function this way… it’s just easier to get out and do something… anything really… in hopes to help pass a few more hours.

I’m a mom of a teenager, who’s getting ready to graduate high school in a few weeks. A teenager who has struggled and worked his butt off his entire school career, and is getting ready to walk across that platform and receive a “job well done” diploma. I’m needing to plan a party for 250 people to celebrate this amazing milestone. I’m needed to help him plan his future and fill out paperwork, college forms, financial forms. He’s going to prom and needs a tux. He’s going to have an 18th birthday shortly and will need to celebrate with fullness and happiness. I’m in my homeward stretch of having those last few moments of him under our roof receiving my last instructions before he’ll be off into the great big world of almost adulthood.

I have a six year old who needs to do spelling words, and reading counts books, and so much guidance and watchful perseverance just to get through each day. He has never been an easy child. He’s energetic, a rollercoaster of emotions, predictably unpredictable, and very high maintaince with sleep and eating and most social skills. We love him to bits, but he needs to be poured into each and every day, most days requiring more than I fear I have available. And he doesn’t know… So we’re living as “normal” a life within our family walls, and life is far from normal.

I’ve turned forty and we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary all within the last week. We did not want to party and celebrate it up, but others did, and we knew we should…so we let a small amount of busy happen to be blessed upon in very small scale.

I’m planning graduation parties, renting tuxes, doing flashcards, working full time, trying to plan an unplannable summer… and planning a funeral for an unborn little girl slowly growing and slowly dying within me. A baby we have so prayed and wished and hoped for. This is not how my life entering the big 4-0 was supposed to be like.

And one other thing that has led me to just not want to type, not want to share… Is that it’s already been shared. It’s already been typed. It’s already been, or being lived and shared by others out there. I’ve had blog links emailed to me, I’ve had book titles shared with me. We are not the first and only people walking through this reality. I carefully choose to read some of the words, the beginnings of their stories… and it’s so the same. So close to ours… Why take the time to muddle through finding words to express our pain? Someone else has already said it so much better, already written the book, updated their blog journey… While it’s a small comfort knowing we aren’t alone, this is not the only time this has happened, I also find it incredibly heartbreaking at the same time. And really ~ who will want to even read about this. It’s horrible. It’s sad. It’s unjust, not right, and downright not fun.

And yet, I can so clearly see God’s hand woven through all of it. That is something I need to keep looking for, keep hanging on to… and that I feel I must share, must journal and try preserve. I’ve said from day one, if all things are for the good… this is not a “good” for me or my family, so I must somehow figure out how to share it well, because the “good” in our story must surely be just to be “good” to someone else, probably someone I’ll never even know about or meet. Somehow the "blessings" in this journey will bless and touch someone else, because these "blessings" are painful, hard, emotional, and surely the Lord is not smiling down upon us as He “showers us” with them right now. 


Previous blog post (Planning the Unplannable) HERE

Next blog post (The Second Confirmation) HERE

Planning the Unplannable

Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story? start HERE}

~~~ Flashback Post ~~~
Planning the Unplannable (March 17, 2015)

I am a planner, a do-er, a type A “get-it-done” type person.

I’ve struggled all my life with impatience and carry around a perfection complex, both within myself and for those around me. Ugh.

So here we are… out-of-control and completely out of our element. This is foreign territory all the way around, and I am not impressed with the empty timeline wagging it’s finger in front of me.

I want to start filling in all the dates, making the plans, ensuring the future months, as I always do this time of year. I fill my cake calendar as full as I can with a plethora of orders, monopolizing on this cake-crazy season of graduation and first communions and padding our finances to help get us through the summer getaways. This year I have allowed myself to pencil in only three orders per weekend through June, and am skirting around replying to those requesting summer reservations. I, in all honestly, want to take the entire summer off from cakes. But I kind of feel like I can’t justify that unless I know for sure how much longer all “this” will go. Ridiculous really. I need to allow myself to be closed, and be ok with it, and trust in the provision I know God is capable of providing. I just think it will be easier (and a whole lot harder) if I can give the general public and honest answer as to “why…” You know, play “the family health issues card” using the excuse of the current hand God has dealt us as the excuse and scapegoat.

I want to know our weekends will be filled with camping, that there will be sunsets and sunrises over peaceful bodies of water in my future this summer. Photos taken to fill photo albums with nature and fun family activities. I want to start my vacation packing lists and designate a box or two downstairs to start gathering a few weekly grocery purchases in as to soften the financial blow the week before we are schedule to depart for two weeks away, like we do every year.

But this year is not like every year. This summer is on hold, and unplannable. But that doesn’t take away the hoping and the longing for all those favorites and things we’ve grown to hold near and dear to us. And we know we’re going to need to heal. At some point this will be over and we will need to escape and heal, as individuals, and as a family. And for our family, the Lord has always given those lake and nature getaways a special place of rest and rebirth to each of our souls.

We also have a desire to escape the walls of our house right now, and we have a summer weekend reality that is also different due to my change in job responsibility over the winter. I transitioned from part time to full time work at a church, and while I’m sure I can miss a few Sunday’s, I won’t be able to take three full months of weekends off like I’ve done in the past. And that’s ok, I want to be able to come back, to help, and worship and share Sunday’s mornings through the summer.

Combine all the above with unseasonable summer-like temperatures in the middle of March, and we were itching to start planning.

We actually pounced on a social media swap post last weekend, and on total whim we went and looked at a small 1979, fully redone, fully furnished trailer house that was for sale at lake nearby.  As we drove away, we both commented that if we went for it, we’d never regret it and would use the heck out of it… But there were enough negatives and hesitations, that we also wouldn’t cry in our cheerios over the lost opportunity. Interestingly enough, we didn’t even decide to put in an offer or call the bank. I did pray about it, because I was quite unsettled about it ~ torn between the tug of taking the next step to our lake house dreams, and taking on a financial burden I knew we really shouldn’t even be considering.

And then my husband had taken another avenue with an idea we’d also talked about, and had found another opportunity. A possibility of a permanent campsite, at a lake I had never been at, about an hour away. And it came with the opportunity to reserve the spot again the following summer if you’d choose. The thought of not having to pack, hook up, pull, park, set up, pack up, hook up, haul home, re-part, and unpack weekend after weekend just sounded glorious. It would open up opportunity to come and go separately with little burden upon the other spouse. It would give us freedom to have all holiday’s reserved, no checkout times, and a chance to grow in a set community of other campers around us. And the price was actually already within our budget plan.

A few days later we piled in the van after work and headed north. The standard cool temperatures of March had returned as we bundled up to walk around and get the tour. The ice was just coming off the lake, and we were quickly sold and excited. We picked a spot that looked to be the best of the few still available, and after much casual and fun conversation with the owner showing us around, we left our deposit and drove off excited about the new opportunity.

While I fully realize this summer might still be an absolute nightmare, and that we have no idea any timeframe or outcome of anything, and we still haven’t made any final decisions on our big two week yearly vacation to the cabin… I take great comfort in this one little set plan, even if it doesn’t end up panning out as perfectly as I hope. Even if this year we don’t get full use of the spot and the camper, I know we can rebook at the end of September and plan all winter to do it again next summer. Not that we have any idea what might be going on by then, having the plan in place brings me peace, and a tiny bit of hope for a somewhat “normal” summer.

And the fact there’s a hospital roughly ten miles away, probably brings me the most comfort of all right now. 

Click HERE for our next journal entry.

This Could Have Been So Much Fun

{Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story? start HERE}

~~~ Flashback Post ~~~
This Could Have Been So Much Fun (March 16, 2015)

You know what, this whole thing could have been so much fun! I mean really, after eons of years of infertility, at the ripe old age of forty, the miracle and amazingness of all this could just have been so fun.
 
But… it’s not.
 
I’m hiding out behind hoodie sweatshirts, praying no one will notice or comment on my thickening waistline. We’re waiting in agony days and days on end for test results, phone calls, and follow-up appointments. I physically feel horrible almost all the time and feel like I need to apologize to my husband every few hours about it because he seems to be quickly losing his patience with me when every other sentence is about how I am not feeling well. I should be climbing in bed exhausted and fast asleep within moments, instead of mapping out the time frame of my nightly sleeping pills to get me from sun down back to sun up the following day.
 
Instead of fun conversations into the night about decorating a nursery and fun ways to announce this craziness in some fun and cleaver way over social media, we’re talking about the heaviness of my spotting, wondering the cost of cemetery plots, worrying over who to share what information with before it’s “public” and wondering how our family and teenager is processing all this, as they are a few steps behind us in our mental grasp of this reality.

We should be frantically calling around trying to get on someone’s fall daycare waiting list, we should be flipping magazine pages and the “What to Expect While You’re Expecting” week by week chapters together, while we sit in bed watching my belly grow, talking in awe at the changes and growth going on inside me. But we’ve basically gotten no general “Welcome to Pregnancy” information, the one pregnancy book from the only nurse who’s congratulated me, is tucked far away in the bathroom closet and has hasn’t been opened. There should be doctors and friends soon telling my husband that everything I’m feeling and whatever discomforts I’m having, is all completely normal, and to spoil me a little, and just enjoy this time before there’s a new baby crying through the night needing 100% of our time and attention. My husband should be eager to touch and talk to the invisible within, but he hasn’t even reached out once to even brush past my belly.

We should be splurging now and again on a little pink dress and matching tights and glittery shoes that are just too cute to pass up… But instead we’re wiping away tears while attempting to hold back an utter adult meltdown in the isles of Walmart and Target while we try pick out the perfect light pink plush blanket to hold her briefly in, and then bury her in.

We’re not thinking car seats and baby swings or even bottle vs breast. I’m not flipping through cute maternity wear fit for fun and fashionable twenty-somethings. We’re not stockpiling diapers and washing up blankets and little socks, all things that would have been so fun to get to finally indulge in, through laughter at how old we’ll be by the time this one graduates, and dreading how many people will think this baby is really our grandchild, and gauging their reply when finding out otherwise.

We don’t have the same kind of nervous fear of labor and delivery. We aren’t going to sit in child-birth class with young adults half our age. We will sit through a quiet conversation with our palliative care team verifying and documenting what our hopes and wishes are if possible, and will carry sheer and utter trauma filled terror of this birth and delivery. We have a “due date” but no idea when that will actually happen.

Now we have the hard reality soon before us of how to even tell anyone this news. There won’t be any big facebook announcement with 200 comments and 500 likes. And how do you tell the complete stranger at the grocery store who asks when you’re due, that it doesn’t really matter… We’ll be going home from the hospital the same size family as we were as we drove there. And how do you say it all in a way that makes you feel justified and they not turning away in horrified tears?

I often find myself thinking of our birth mom. Granted this is totally different, she chose life, she chose us, but yet… both of us will have carried a pregnancy, grew a life within that nearly the whole time you knew would not become a part of your immediate life and family… We will both have been fresh moms, being discharged from a hospital, climbing into a car and carefully sitting our sore bottoms down, while sobbing from the empty ache within, as we drove away without our babies. I at least got to extend her tears to my car and my cheeks as I buckled her little baby in and drove home nearly seven years ago. She gets photos and updates and validation that her hard decision, was in fact a good and fruitful decision overall. I wonder what she thought through the pregnancy, through her body’s changes, through the conversations she had. I bet we’d be surprised maybe just how similar the two are. I don’t think that’s a conversation I’m going to ever have with her though.

I do however wonder if we do have a big and public visitation and / or funeral, if she will come… either silently with a signature in the book left for us to find afterwards, or boldly & bravely with a hug and huge matching tears… Yes, I think about these things, I’m not going to lie. I shouldn’t, but it’s the way I’m wired.

I realize I could somehow chose to make this “fun”… and it’s not that I’m not finding and allowing moments of laughter in my life every day, it’s just that it’s different. It’s not normal, it’s not ideal, it’s a constant heaviness and nearly strangling weight… and it’s not fun for me. I long to embrace this season with joyful abandon, but instead I find myself surviving in an exhausted dread.


Click HERE for our next journal entry.

Happy 11th Anniversary

{Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story? start HERE}
 
~~~ Flashback Post ~~~
Happy 11th Anniversary (March 13, 2015)

Today was Friday the 13th. I’ve never been superstitious, I’ve never thought too much about Friday the 13th, and truth be told, 13 is what I’ve always considered my lucky number. Yet for some reason, I struggled more that day than I had for several days.

We had agreed we weren’t really going to celebrate anything this year, and surely we were not going to get any gifts for each other. I had gotten my cake work done, posted a fun photo from our wedding with online anniversary wishes to the man I love “through sickness and in health… for richer for poorer… I will love you forever…”

I bought a card for him and penned a little note about having fallen in love more and more with him lately and so thankful for all he is and does. The previous night we decided to go out to eat somewhere nice.

I started getting ready the next afternoon. I showered and had no idea what to wear. I started trying on clothes… and nothing fit… and nothing that I could get on looked good.  I had been hiding in jeans and hoodies for weeks. I changed multiple times, and finally decided to try hide behind a sparkly scarf and pull-over sweater. Everything was quite snug, and I was very self-conscious.

My husband got home from work and I burst into tears before he had even reached the kitchen from the back door. He gave me a funny look and I had mumbled something about not having anything to wear through my tears. He assured me I looked just fine and went to get ready himself. Our six year old was left looking at my streaked make-up asking me what was wrong. I took in a few deeps breaths and assured him nothing was wrong…

I wasn't sure where we would end up eating because we had our son with us, and he is a wild card at best when it comes to eating at restaurants, but my husband packed us in the van and we headed south, and I was pretty sure I knew where he was taking us… He took the right exit and I smiled loving just how predictable this man I love was. 

When we arrived it was filled with people we knew, and I became even more self conscious. We splurged and ordered two appetizers and our entrees. The food was fabulous, and overall our son did pretty well. And as if we hadn't already eaten enough, we decided next to go out for ice cream at a specialty ice cream parlor in town.

We left and headed across town to get our ice cream

As we sat at the table talking and eating the ice cream, I looked over and saw a women come in… and she was for sure in her eighth month of pregnancy, if not closer to her ninth… She was of similar height and build to myself… and as big as I’m sure I’d get this time if we got that far. I was again blindly struck with emotion and couldn’t hold back the tears. The unfairness of the whole situation was so large and so hard and so… real.

My husband of course looked on with the confused male look that usually happens whenever there are unexplained female tears. I did think he’d put the puzzle pieces together as she had walked by, but he never did. I tried really hard to stop, to stop the crying, to stop the pity party inside, to stop the reality of the whole sucky situation.

We walked around the ice cream parlor and got a smashed penny souvenir, and headed back home. I was overcome yet again with the tears and the sorrow and the unfairness of it all. And again my husband was left looking confused, with borderline anger showing on his edges, and asking what was wrong.

What’s wrong?!? Inside I screamed - I’m sad! I’m hormonal! I’m reeling in a sick reality of total unfairness! I’m sick of having to be strong! I’m sick of having to hold it all together, and hold it all inside! I’m sick of having to act like everything is fine and put on a happy smiling face while facing the world and the public at large while hiding behind my hoodies!

But I said nothing. I wiped the tears that continued to leak down my cheeks, and made sure our son didn’t hear or know I was again crying. I'd held it together and not really cried or had any emotional breakdowns for nearly a week… Wasn't I surely due? Was someone in my condition surely not entitled to these tears and emotions?

I am forty, pregnant after sixteen years of infertility, and carrying a baby that isn’t going to live to or beyond birth. I surely can cry if I want to, dammit!

But as I looked over at my husband, I knew I needed to somehow figure out how to get it together so I wouldn’t put any more burden on him… he didn't need any more stress, or another layer of emotional baggage on him. I’d already seen him suffer and cry over all this already far too much.

I needed to remain strong and together, but I didn’t want to.

Granted, it’s probably easier to get through each day trying to ignore, or deny the feelings and reality, but it also frustrated me. I want to feel, to mourn, to live authentically… but all of that just makes it all that much harder… and as the general public still walks around unaware, it’s even that much harder to suffer alone in silence.  Not that I’m looking for sympathy or looking forward to when this whole things goes public, don’t get me wrong. I live in utter fear of the day this all comes out. I pray it doesn’t go social media viral… and I also pray we can just make it to that day before people start to whisper and wonder as I walk by… And perhaps they already are, I’m just grateful it hasn’t been anything I’ve been privy to hear or be asked just yet.

We finally got home and we put our leftovers in the fridge.  I quickly changed into my safe and comfy clothes, took a sleeping pill, and climbed into bed with heartburn, heartache, and eyes that burned and continued to leak tiny tears of sadness whenever I closed them. 

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All Things Pink

{Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story? start HERE}

~~~ Flashback Post ~~~
All Things Pink (March 9, 2015)

 I live in a house full of all things men and boys. Legos, matchbox cars, super heros, farm toys, paint ball, and all things hunting from camo to ammo, from plastic toy to the semi-automatic locked up in the safe under the stairs. I have stated time and time again if we were to ever adopt, or Lord willing, be blessed with another child, I did not want a girl. I would have no idea what to do with a girl. And there was not one pink thing in the house (besides my pink camo hoodie). And plus, I only had the perfect boys name figured out. And yet, as through my tears I had quietly asked at the end of our initial phone conversation with our geneticblood work results, if they knew the sex of the baby and she had said yes... And had then heard the words… “It’s a girl.”

For some reason, this information just seemed to drive the dagger of unjust and all things unfair even further in. As the tears continued to fall onto the table below me, I could hear Brian’s audible sobbing over the phone and it was all just too much.

Faith MaryJo.

We never actually spoke her name out loud for a long time after that phone conversation, but we both knew that was her name. As we had sat in the doctors office the morning after first finding out about the pregnancy, waiting for the doctor to come in with the ultrasound results, my husband had quietly said he had the perfect girls name. Faith MaryJo. Faith meaning "Confidence, Trust, Belief" and MaryJo the combination of both our mothers first names. I had replied with my perfect boys name. A name that meant "At the Cross” with my fathers name for the middle name. A twenty second conversation, after eleven years of earlier futile thoughts and conversations, and that was that.

Fast forward a few weeks and insert a several more tests, tears, results, clarity, and processing, and we began the harder-than-anticipated task of purchasing the initial pink purchases for her birth and funeral over the weekend while we were away. But, there were still two items left, so one night I went online and loaded a light pink scalloped photo frame (the scallops to match the blankets) with the words “Jesus Loves Me” under the photo opening, and a light pink scrapbook, because the only pink one from Walmart was hot pink and just not the right shade for me (this was my one and only chance and time for pink, so I decided I wasn't going to settle for anything that wasn't exactly what I had decided I had wanted in my head). The scrapbook I finally put in the cart was light pink with a little elephant on the front, similar to the embroidered elephant on the pink blankets. As I went to check out, it flashed “Two-day free delivery, order in the next five hours and receive by Tuesday, March 10.” Great, just what I wanted, to come home from work the day of my 40th birthday to the awaiting delivery boxes. But life is what it is right now, and it’s one foot in front of the other.  Fake it ‘till you make it. One day at a time, or more like one hour at a time if we’re totally honest.

Soon we will have everything for her funeral carefully tucked away in the storage closet in our bathroom. I realize I should probably attempt to start scrapbooking some of these "precious memories" of photos and general updates I’ve printed and are gathering, but I'm just not sure I will be able to.  I may never be able to...

"...precious memories...” ~ words that leave a bitter taste in my mouth right now, as I feel all of this is far from “precious...”

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Getting The Hell Out Of Dodge

{Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story? start HERE}

~~~ Flashback Post ~~~
Getting the Hell Out of Dodge (March 6, 2015)
 
After nearly four months in bed, many hours of lost sleep, indescribable emotions, and an “all clear” from the doctor to take our long planned and anticipated anniversary trip to Illinois at the end of the month, my husband encouraged me to come with him to a hunting vendor show several hours away that he had been planning to attend for months.

He woke me up at 4:30am and we were on the road shortly after 5:00am. For someone who used to have a 3:00am daily work schedule seven days a week, I found this almost unmanageable. But I got myself out of bed, washed my face, got dressed, grabbed my pillow and blanket, and off we went for the day.

After the upgrade to smart phones a little over a year ago, our traveling adventures have gotten much more enjoyable. See, I never drive, which means I am the “navigator”… I’ve been told it’s usually helpful for those navigating to accurately give helpful turning and travel information. Great in theory, but unfortunately, I am one of those odd people who seem entirely unable to read a map unless I happen to be going due north. In the past, this has lead to many an argument and I have been known to snap the atlas shut and toss it over into my husbands lap and just say, “Find it yourself!” (you know, as he’s driving). And then along came our best friend Siri, and our driving unpleasantries suddenly nearly become obsolete.

We also, believe it or not, are not often overly "talkative” when alone together… I’m quite a Chatty Cathy myself, but my husband is my polar opposite, and his silence often makes up for my over abundance of words. After nearly eleven years of marriage, I often just have entire conversations with him while doing all the talking myself – inserting what I know he’s thinking but not saying in my little sing-song reply voice, and then answer back and forth in return. It will end with a smirk and a shake of his head, meaning I was spot on.

About an hour and a half down the road I found myself talking, even edging softly into that oh-so-close to the surface hurt that we’ve both been trying to not talk about, or been unable to openly talk about due to the fact that less than 1% of all the people we are living life around right now have no idea of this “journey” we are slowly stumbling through right now.  At one point I turned and stated “About five minutes ago you probably starting thinking to yourself ‘What was I thinking asking her to come along… be quiet already!'”… But surprisingly enough, he turned and said, “Actually, I was just thinking how nice it was talking with you.”

We talked about a few things I was hoping to find and purchase beforehand in preparation to what we knew was coming - a birth and a funeral, two words that should never go hand-in-hand.

I wanted to find a pink blanket for at the hospital, as well as for in the casket. I also stated we would purchase two matching blankets, one to go with her, and one for us to keep. I wanted to find a soft pink photo frame to put an ultrasound photo in. I wanted to find a little elastic headband with a light pink flower on it, and I wanted to purchase a special light pink scrapbook, because as hard as it might be, I felt we just needed to carefully document these few and precious moments and memories.

We ended up having a most enjoyable car ride and soon we were parking and heading in to join thousands of other camo clad hunting enthusiasts. We spent several hours there, and afterwards headed out into a beautiful 50+ degree early March sunshine. Thanks to my ever amazing covered bridge locator "app” that my husband had downloaded on my phone a year ago, I batted my eyes and asked him about maybe checking out the covered bridge that showed to be a fairly straight shot down the road we just happened to be on.

With my phone in hand, he easily navigated us right to it, and within ten minutes we walked hand-in-hand through a freshly updated covered bridge with it’s fresh wood and still unblemished red paint. We were only there a few minutes, took a few photos, but as we walked away I was filled with a fullness and smile knowing that while I will never physically get to share with our little Faith her moms great love of the magic and rich history of all things covered bridge, I smiled knowing that while she was still alive within me, we shared at least one walk together through one.

Next we decided to next to a head to a large chain hunting store, another favorite stop of ours, knowing there would be a purchase at their fudge shop, another trip tradition of ours. We also drove through a favorite fast-food restaurant for our usually car meal of chicken ranch wraps, fries, and a malt. We pulled into the adjutant Target parking lot and ate in the car with lighthearted conversation.  We slowing quieted as we finished up, knowing soon we would be heading inside.

We remembered our rushed trip to a Target nearly seven years earlier after we got the call from the adoption agency that our birthmom had gone ahead and signed her paperwork, signing her rights over to the agency, and while she still had another 96 hours to change her mind, it was a promising go-ahead to tell people of the little boy in our arms that we’d quietly driven home from the hospital as a “high risk placement” two days earlier. We had immediately driven to the closest Target (an hour away) and stocked up on all things baby we needed that we had not allowed ourselves to purchase prior to placement.  Always a fun story to recall.

This time we did not carry smiles and excitement as we slowly walked to the baby and infant section. The blanket isle was disappointingly empty, no pink blankets in multiples. I stopped and slowly put a pink floral headband in the cart, and when I looked up, my husband was no longer next to me. I was pretty unemotional as I continued to walk through a few more isles. No pink scrapbooks, no pink photo frames. I continued to look for my husband and later found him by the checkout. He simply told me he had to leave the baby area, he couldn't do it. I paid cash for the tiny headband and we walked hand and hand to the car. We crossed the road and walked into Walmart.

We walked through their photo frames and found nothing. We walked through their scrapbooks and while it wasn’t exactly what I was wanting, I did place a hot pink scrapbook in the cart. We turned slowly to the left and entered their baby and infant area.

I walked over to the blankets. I felt the tears start welling up in my throat and held up two different light pink plush blankets. I turned and asked which one we should pick, he looked at me and said, either was fine. I chose the one that had some fancy scallops, white backing and a small embroidered elephant on it.  I placed two in the cart, and as I turned to leave the area, I was suddenly and absolutely overcome with emotion. I continued slowly pushing the cart but I could no longer see. Suddenly my husband turned and saw me, and he grabbed my arm and said “Keep walking... wipe your eyes… you can do this... this exactly what happened to me at Target and I had to leave… Just keep walking… you can do this..."

And in the middle of the isle, in the middle of Walmart, with the two plush pink blankets resting quietly on the hot pink scrapbook, I nearly absolutely fell apart. My body was wanting to break down into loud choking sobs and huge tears were falling to the floor. My throat was knotted and almost restricting my entire airway.  But I kept walking, trying to suck in huge breaths of air, the pressure of his hand on my arm directing me forward.

I had no idea how I would make it through the checkout process as I numbly fumbled around trying to get them out of the cart and into my husband's hands who was bravely scanned them through the self checkout.  He double bagged it everything, heaven forbid anyone have to see or look at what we were purchasing. I ran the credit card through the machine, placed the receipt in the bag, and we walked back into the sunshine to the car.

We took deep and quiet breaths in the warm and safe silence of the van.  In time we pulled onto the road and started toward home.

We decided to make another Walmart stop in another town along the way to see if we could find some cowboy boots for youngest sons upcoming birthday, which had also been on our list, but we had completely forgotten to look for them on our earlier stops.  After finding no boots we decided it was time to be done shopping on this trip and we headed over to one our favorite restaurant Mexican restaurants. It was a restaurant we had first eaten at when we were dating and had gone to visit my husband's sister at college. Ever since, we have always made sure to stop there any time we were in the area. We ordered our favorite dish, chicken nachos, and ended up taking three take home boxes of leftovers home, because neither one was overly hungry. We spent much of our time there that night just enjoying the memories of days earlier and the day out together we had just shared.

As we drove home, we watched the sun set in front of us, and found ourselves each in quiet thoughts of our own. Each mind swirling with many of the same thoughts, though just not audible.

We were both incredibly glad we’d decided to get the hell out of dodge for the day, grateful for the conversations we’d allowed ourselves to have throughout the day, and while parts of the day were hard and heavy, we were also blessed with an amazing time of ease and freedom interwoven throughout. 

Living - while waiting on the dying.

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