Infertility awareness — the invisibility of it all

April 19-25 is infertility awareness week this year. Infertility is defined as the inability of a couple who wants to become pregnant to become pregnant within a year. That is primary infertility. Secondary infertility includes the inability to carry a baby to term once pregnancy occurs.

One of the important things to know about both forms of infertility, though, is you can’t always see it by looking at a family. Take our family, for example. If you were to pass us in church, you would see a husband and wife with 5 living children and you would never imagine that we’ve struggled with both types of infertility.

You can’t see the half of our babies that are in heaven. You can’t tell by looking at us that, of our 5 pregnancies, my husband and I have 1 living child. You can’t see the ocean of tears we’ve cried or the river of blood that has flown, expelling our hopes and dreams. You can’t see the disappointment, month after month for 3 years straight, when pregnancy just didn’t happen.

(In)Fertility is a struggle for many, including my husband and myself. It’s invisible. It’s painful. It’s often unexplained. It is something some people suffer with and others joke about. It’s a very touchy subject.

And it’s a touchy subject that is usually only touchy on one side. On the other, it is considered to be socially acceptable small talk. Because it’s invisible, one doesn’t expect anyone else to have “that problem” if they haven’t experienced it.

It’s a typical ice breaker — “Hi. How are you? Are you married? Do you have any kids?” Because no one sees the minefields until it blows up in their face. You don’t want to talk about dead babies at the grocery store? Well, why did you ask then?

Is it socially acceptable to talk dead baby at the grocery? Probably not. But when you ask a woman if she has any children and she has suffered a loss, you give her 2 choices — lie and deny the existence, however brief, of her progeny or tell the truth and speak the taboo. See what I mean? Minefield. If only it was as painful for the asker as the answerer, perhaps the question would be asked less frequently. But it is what it is.

It’s invisible. It’s a minefield. It’s reality. And it’s teaching me to accept life as it is, not as I wish it was. Beauty comes from the ashes, but that never stops me from wishing that it had never burned in the first place.

Such is life. And death. And (in)fertility. Life is so much more complicated than we thought when we were kids. When having kids wasn’t even a blip on the horizon. When we still thought if we worked for it and wanted it, it would happen.

Life is complicated. It doesn’t always happen just because you want it to. It can be painful to talk about in ways many are unaware. So here’s my friendly Infertility Awareness Week PSA — think before you speak about fertility because it might be a painful subject to the person you are speaking to and you can’t always tell that by looking at them. And you might get an answer you aren’t prepared for. Infertility isn’t always visible, but it is always painful.

Grieving on.

Thankfulness is not an antidote for grief

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard it said as a response to grief — “I guess you just have to be thankful for what you have.” As if thankfulness cures grief.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m all for being thankful. It makes the world a better place. But it doesn’t cure grief.

Thankfulness is for the living. Grief is for the dead.

When my sister died, of course I was thankful for the 2 sisters I still have here. But being thankful for who I still have didn’t make me miss my sister who had died any less. She is irreplaceable. No one can fill her shoes or make me miss her less and I realize that more with every day that passes. I’m thankful for all the time I had with her, but I still grieve her and wish for more time with her.

Not only does thankfulness not cure grief, sometimes it even makes grief worse. For example, this guy:

He’s 14 months of into everything and after 3 consecutive losses, I am SO THANKFUL to have a baby to hold and bring home and care for and show off and watch grow. He is showing me how to take every moment captive and savor it because the time is precious. And I‘m learning to savor the moments with my other kids and others in my life more than I have in the past, too. Because I am thankful they are all here with me. These times are precious and precious times should be savored.

Thankfulness is necessary to happiness and contentment. I absolutely believe there is a choice when a loved one dies— to be thankful for the time you had with them or to be angry that you did not get to have more time with them. But it isn’t a one-and-done choice. It’s a choice you have to make every moment of every day. And being thankful for the time you had doesn’t stop grief.

And it is much less of a comfort when the time you had was so short. When an unborn baby dies, one might even argue that they had no time at all.

When an unborn baby dies, there are no pictures or momentos. There are no “remember that time when”s. There are no memories that are theirs. All the memories are only mine. Or mine and my husband’s. Or mine and my kids. All the memories are only memories of them, not with them. And the memories of them are conceptual only — memories of our hopes and plans and dreams of a future life with them, not memories made with them. For all practical purposes and from an external view, those babies had no memories at all and might as well not have existed.

They existed for me and for others who loved them. They left footprints on our hearts and each of them changed my life. I look forward to meeting them one day in Heaven and I’m thankful for the time when I was excited about them and the time while I celebrated their lives within me and time I spent looking forward to their birth. And of course I am thankful for the children I have at home.

That thankfulness makes my world a better place to live in. But that thankfulness does not help with my grief. If anything, it makes it worse.

Right now, half of my babies are dead. And because of the half that are alive, I know what I am missing out on with my dead babies. I know what it’s like to see eyes open wide, the myriad of emotions on their faces, the firsts. I know the way each child evokes a different response than other children and how each relationship is unique and precious and irreplaceable by another. I am so thankful to get to experience each of these things with my living babies, but each thing I am thankful for with the living is something I am missing with the babies who have gone before me.

I know enough of what I am missing that the knowing increases my grief instead of decreasing it. And I don’t know enough about my babies that I will never stop wondering or wanting to know more. I will always be reaching forward to a time when I will get to finally know them. I will always be grieving for the life that I never got to live with them.

As thankful as I am that I get to do life with my living children, it doesn’t fill the void left from not getting to experience life with my heaven babies. If anything, it expands that void. The more I know of my living brood, the more I wish I knew of my heavenly babies.

So forgive me if I laugh the next time I hear any derivative of a statement that implies that thankfulness lessens grief, whether it’s directed at me or not. Because it’s laughable. And I generally would rather laugh than cry. Or don’t forgive me — just laugh with me. Or don’t. It’s whatever.

Anyways, grieving on.

The Very Ugly Truth that I wish wasn’t true

There is. . .

My baby is. . .

It is. . .

I feel like I should be better at dealing with this by now. I should have this down pat. I should know what to do to move on, carry on, make myself ok again.

But I don’t. I just know all the right words to say to sound like I’m ok when I’m not. And when I can’t find them I know how to not answer.

I’m not ok.

Wednesday I went to sleep on a sterile table pregnant and I woke up scraped clean and bleeding. And hollow. And empty. And numb. And not pregnant.

Part of me died on Wednesday and I don’t know if there’s any of me left. I feel like a robot going through the motions. Like maybe I died too and I just don’t know it yet. I sort of wish I had died, too.

I did not want to be pregnant again because I did not want to lose another baby. And now I have and I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t make the screaming in my head stop. I can’t make my heart stop hurting.

I spent the last 2 weeks not dealing with the possibility that my baby was dead. Clinging to the hope that maybe I ovulated late. Hoping the next ultrasound would be different. I just wanted there to be a heartbeat.

I spent 2 weeks listening to my husband pray for God’s will while I silently prayed for God to please let this cup of death pass from me now. To please let me drink of the cup of life instead. But he said no.

There is no heartbeat.

My baby is dead.

It is done.

And I am not ok.

Again.

That is my truth and I don’t like it. It tastes like vomit in the back of my throat. I wish I could vomit the words out and make them not true. I would give anything for it not to be true.

But it is true.

And I don’t know what to do with that truth right now.

Some things don’t get any easier no matter how many times they happen. And this is one of them.

There was no heartbeat.

My baby is dead.

It is done for my baby, but not for me. For me, it is only beginning. Again.

God, help me.

Our Journey to not needing a 12-passenger van

Today, I was asked to share my story, but I cannot. It is long and twisty and complicated and time consuming to explain. But I will share the broad strokes of my journey so far and welcome you to check out the rest of my blog for more information.

I’m a mother of 9, but before you start looking for my 12 passenger van, let me tell you why I don’t have one.

Once upon a time, I was young and fertile and I had 3 babies like it was effortless. Because it was. And then I had a heaven baby. And before I had a chance to process that loss, I was pregnant again and next month she will be 10.

My husband left 7 weeks before she was born and never came back. Not to meet her. Not to see his other kids. The only times I’ve seen him since have been in court.

I thought that was unthinkable. I could not understand it. But I accepted it. I thought if he did not want to be there, then we were better off without him.

I thought I was done. Done with him. Done with men. Done.

Done with babies, too. And I was ok with that. I didn’t even really mourn my first heaven baby then because had that baby not “grown wings”, Rory wouldn’t be here and I could not imagine life without Rory so I never imagined life with that baby. It had happened, it was sad, but that baby had prepared the way for Rory, and I was happy that I had her and I was soldiering on. Single momming 4 girls and trying to enjoy my “last baby”. My “rainbow baby”.

And then God.

God brought a friend back into my life and I realized how lonely being a single mom was and how it might be nice to share the load of raising 4 girls with another. So I married him and it’s been 6.5 years now and I still like him. Like a lot.

So maybe I was not done with marriage after all. . . But I was still done with babies. 4 was enough.

And then God.

God blessed us with 2 pink lines just a few months after we married. We were young and healthy. My husband had never experienced pregnancy or childbirth. Rory was 2.5 when we got married so 2.5 and older was all he knew. It might be good to have a baby together. What could go wrong?

And then God called that baby to heaven just a few weeks after we found out we were expecting. That baby had shown us how much we wanted to be parents and then left us with that desire unfulfilled. And the next month came and I was not pregnant. And the next month and the next.

And I grieved.

It took 3 years to become pregnant again and I hoped and grieved every month that I wasn’t. There was no silver lining for that loss. No greater good. That baby had not prepared the way for another physically. But that baby had planted a seed in our hearts, watered by a thousand tears, and the longing for a baby grew and grew and grew.

And then we found out we were expecting Maggie. And I was scared from the beginning because it was almost exactly 3 years to the day from when we found out we were expecting our last heaven baby to when we found out we were expecting her and I was scared that this pregnancy would end the same. I kept a steady mantra of “different baby, different pregnancy, different outcome” in my head and hoped and prayed. And hoped and prayed in vain. She was a different baby, and it was a different pregnancy and there was a different outcome.

Maggie was born sleeping March 3, 2017 at 38 weeks and 6 days of gestation. She was perfectly healthy as far as anyone could tell until the moment her heart stopped and we do not know when that moment was. Friday her heart was beating and the next Thursday it was not.

I had always thought, when I bothered to consider it, that a loss hurts the same whenever it happens, but Maggie taught me I was wrong. Every child is different. Every loss is different. And her loss absolutely crushed me, broke me, obliterated me, destroyed me, and changed me irreversibly.

She was stillborn, but she was still born. She still lived. She is still loved. I still miss her every day. She is still teaching me and changing me and affecting my life daily in ways I can’t explain. But I keep trying.

It was about 5 months later when we found out we were expecting again. I was not ready. I was still searching for comfort wherever I thought it could be found. I contacted all the loss of a child and pregnancy loss non profits I learned about. I joined all the loss groups. I had the jewelry and the books and the devotionals and a song list for my heaven babies and my heart was still broken.

I joined all the pregnancy after loss groups. I hoped and prayed and worried. I knew I couldn’t take another loss.

So it took me instead. It took me to the brink of death and I teetered on the edge a bit and then I came back and baby Ruth did not. We lost her at 7.5 weeks, found out at 11.5 weeks, and she almost took me with her at 12 weeks when my body finally realized she was gone and tried to expel her. It took iron infusions and a lot of rest and months for me to stop being anemic from the massive blood loss and start to feel better physically. But my heart felt even worse.

Half of my babies were with me and the other half were in heaven. I was a mother torn in half, pulled like stretch Armstrong from here to heaven.

About 9 months later, when I was still more ok with the idea that I was done having babies than I was with the idea I might lose another, I got another positive pregnancy test. And that 50% birthing average was not my friend. After 39.5 weeks of constant worry, doctors visits at least every other week, a thousand tiny panic attacks, gestational diabetes for the first pregnancy ever and a very traumatic induction, we welcomed our rainbow boy into this world and our birthing odds improved a bit and our lives by giggles and poops and a thousand other things.

He’s 8 months old now and my days are filled with peaks when I squeeze him and my heart almost stops with joy that I get to have this moment followed by stabs of grief because I never felt these moments with Maggie. Her loss still crushes me daily. The transition from peak to valley makes me nauseous and dizzy. I feel like I never have my footing. I’m sailing the good ship Loss and never getting over seasickness.

I am not over my losses. I have not moved on. I still grieve and just like parenting one living kid sometimes takes the back seat to parenting another, grieving my heaven babies sometimes usurps parenting my living children. I still get derailed sometimes. I still have bad moments. But I have good moments, too. My life is colored by the beauty of my living children and friends and family who enjoy them with me, but muted and muddied by being steeped in grief.

That is my story, but not all of it, just the broad strokes. There are a thousand other things I probably left out, a couple I’ve probably forgotten entirely and a thousand more I don’t know how to put into words yet. So I continue to blog. Because there’s still more to say. Still more to process. I’m still here and 4 of my babies still are not.

That’s where I am right now. God isn’t done with me yet. I’m still grieving on. I’m happyish to be here, but longing for my babies in Heaven. I’m a mess, but God isn’t done with me yet. And I’m no longer naive enough to think I won’t get messier somewhere along the way.

This is the life I’ve grieved. And I will continue until I move on to Heaven.

And that is why I don’t need a 12 passenger van.

Thanks for letting me share.

New Beginnings

It is the beginning of the school year and what better time to start afresh? It’s been a crazy, super short summer and frankly an awful year, so rather than wait until 2018, I’m happy to begin a “new year” now at this, the beginning of the new school year. My kids are loving their new teachers and I’ve decided its a great time to start a new blog, learn some new things and share it all with you here.

In the awfulness of 2017, we all got into some bad health and fitness ruts and our bodies were suffering. I had shingles, my husband had a gout attack and I lost 2 teeth. In short, it’s been a physically bad year. After that, we decided to reclaim our health and fitness. We are reclaiming our health as a family by making simple changes – drinking more water, eating more fresh fruits and veggies and less processed foods, being really intentional about what we put in our bodies consistently and fueling our bodies well. We are reclaiming our fitness by exercising on a regular basis, being more active during the day so we can sleep better at night and really trying to get enough sleep. Its not easy, but we are doing our best. We are not only trying to reclaim health and fitness, but wellness and wholeness, too.

Our physical new beginning started months ago when we started making simple, healthful changes. My mental new beginning started July 31 when school started for my kiddos. My blog new beginning is now and I invite you to begin again with me. Let’s get fit and healthy together, beginning now.

Not sorry, NOT SORRY

Parenting after a loss is hard. There is definitely a tendency toward giving my living children more than I would have before. There is a heart softening that comes from the crushing that grief inflicts. I have felt it.

There is a desire to protect the living children. A wish to wrap them in bubble wrap so nothing ever gets close enough to hurt them. Most parents want to protect their children — that is instinctual, but what I’m talking about is deeper and broader than that instinct and it is borne of fear. A fear that most parents don’t have. A fear that the living child(ren) could die, too. Because (at least) one already has.

I am an overprotective parent. I am a loss parent. I wish I could say that I am the way I am and parent the way I parent because of my losses, but the truth is that, while my level of protectiveness has increased since my first loss in February 2010, the bulk of my protective nature was built long before that. Over 20 years before that. It makes me want to keep my children home and the world locked out until they are grown — even the ones that are taller than me now. I know I need to let them spread their wings a little and learn and make choices and mistakes and I struggle to do that because it is what’s best for them. But I have always wanted to keep them in a bubble and keep them safe. Always.

As a child I was “never going to have kids”. I was quite vocal about it. I’m sure people thought it was cute. They probably thought I was just echoing my favorite uncle, who would proudly claim that he never had biological kids because the world was a bad place and he didn’t want to be to blame for bringing anyone else into it against their will. I probably said it just how he said it and I was definitely ok with people believing I was just echoing him. But I wasn’t.

I’m sure it was adorable. But the truth was not adorable. The truth was much darker and deeper than parroting. The truth was, by the time I was in kindergarten, I already knew that the world was a bad place with bad people who did bad things because of my own life experiences. I didn’t need anyone to tell me it was there — I had tasted the badness. I did not like it. And I was going to protect my kids from it by never having them.

Obviously, God had other plans and I’m glad he did. The world is a much better place with them here. My world is a much better place with them here. God knew better than I did, like He always does. I have experienced great healing and joy because of my children. But still I struggle to parent them out of my own brokenness. I struggle to protect them from an evil that I know and that I hope they do not. And they struggle against my protection. And I’m glad they do.

In most cases, I look forward to the day when my children will understand my perspective. I look forward to the day when they will have children and feel the sweet exhaustion of busy days, the frustration of trying to watch something that’s not animated and being interrupted a thousand times an episode, the touched-out feeling after a long day, the feeling like a broken record from repeating the same things over and over. I look forward to taking them out for coffee to commiserate and then offering to watch the babies while they nap.

I can only think of three things I do not want them to understand with me and those are:

• The brokenness that comes from child loss.
• The brokenness that comes from sexual abuse.
• And the brokenness that comes from your mother not believing you.

I don’t know why I experienced what I experienced. I know I cannot protect my children every moment of every day. I know God is in control and I trust Him. But still, I do everything in my power to protect them because I don’t want them to understand. And I am not sorry about that. NOT SORRY.

I have fought the prompting to share this part of my story for a while now. I’m really not even sure what is prompting me to tell it now beyond a feeling that it is time to tell it, but either way, here it is.

As a child, my mom had a friend, who is still her friend today. Her friend had a child who would come to our house sometimes when my mom’s friend came over. This happened when I was 4-5.

My mother’s friend’s child was a little older than me and etiquette dictated that the older child got to choose the game — because older kids knew funner games, of course. So we played house in my room. Except this “house” was different. It was naked. And involved touching.

I did not like it. I played it once and told the child I did not want to play again. The child told me it was ok if I didn’t want to play, that my sister could play instead. My sister was a year and a half younger than me and that was my baby. There was no way I was going to let my baby play that game so I continued to play even though I didn’t want to.

I don’t know how many times we played. I don’t know when or why we stopped. Despite the fact that my mother was in my house with me when this was occurring, she never walked in on it. Despite my internal screaming, she never saved me. She was oblivious.

Until the day when I took her oblivion away. At this point, we did not have cable and I had not been exposed to any media that was not a Disney movie rated G or tv shows like Little House on the Prairie. I had never walked in on my parents. I had no frame of reference with which to create a false story from and my mother knew this. When I told her, she seemed like she believed me. She went right to her friend and discussed it with her. Her friend discussed it with her child. Her child denied that it had occurred. My mom’s friend believed her child. My mom either believed her friend or decided she could not afford to lose that friendship and no longer believed me. Both parents decided we should not be in the room alone again so at that point the abuse ended. At least for me.

My relationship with my mother is broken to this day and I’m honestly not sure which has affected me greater — the sexual abuse I endured or the fact that my mother did not believe me.

So I am the mom who asks a million questions. I am the mom who needs to know all the details before I give my children permission to do anything and sometimes still say “no” for reasons I cannot explain. I am the mom who does not allow sleepovers unless I know the parents or my kids are old enough and mature enough to tell me if something bad happens. I am the mom who encourages my kids to play in my sight and opens doors without knocking. I am the mom who restricts access to technology because I’m trying to keep all things bad from my kids eyes and all people bad from access to my kids. I am the mom who tries to protect my kids from the boogy man that hurt me and I am not sorry. NOT SORRY. And I hope my kids never understand.

As an adult, I know that my abuser was most likely abused, either by experiencing something similar or by being shown something inappropriate that inspired this form of “play”. I pray for my abuser and pray the abuse stopped with them. I hope that it stopped with me and did not continue on to my sister, but I never asked her because I didn’t want to burden her with it and she’s been dead for 5 years now so God only knows. And I’m hopeful that it has been a protection for my children, that my vigilance has kept them safe and continues to keep them safe. Because that is really all I want. For my kids to be safe.

I am glad that my children who were born into heaven will never be touched by the evil of this world, but I still miss them and grieve their loss. Every day I open my eyes into is another day that I never planned to wake into without my children.

I’m hopeful that my story will help others who have been abused to know they are not alone. I’m hoping it will help prevent abuse by helping parents to realize that children can be abusers, too. If my story helps one person, that would make the telling worth it.

I am a sexual abuse survivor. I still deal with the effects of feeling like I had no choice in what was done to my body. Every day.

I believe Jesus died for my sins and can heal my hurts and use my pain for my good and His glory. I know I am a mess and I know He isn’t done with me yet. I am thankful for the love and healing I experience in my relationship with God. Every day.

I am grieving on and parenting my living children the best I can while trying to protect them from the pain I’ve experienced because that’s what a mom does.

This is who I am. And I am NOT SORRY.

Gentle Bereaved Mother’s Day

Tomorrow is Bereaved Mother’s Day. I kind of like it, but I’m kind of dreading it.

Since Maggie died, the last 4 Mother’s Days have been sad for me. I’ve wanted her with me so badly, it just darkens the whole day. I just want all my kids there to tell me “Happy Mother’s Day” and I’ll never have it. It is too much to ask. So it’s a sad day for me.

I kind of like having a day to think about my daughter (and my other babies, heavenside), a day to remember them, to honor myself for remembering (and thereby mothering) them. I like having that day to be sad on intentionally and that day to prepare for the next week, when I will be honored for being a mother by my children who live and when I will be sad because I’ll wish my other children could be here with me, too. It is the way my life is now.

I like that the day exists because I need it, but I hate that it’s necessary. And the day is inherently sad by definition because, despite the fact that it’s a day to be honored for mothering the children who have gone before us, we really can’t be honored by our children who aren’t here. We can feel honored that they are ours, but we can’t be honored by them.

It’s sad. But I’ve found, in the past 4 years and 3 months, that going through the valley of the shadow of death has changed me. There is joy, but even that is tinged by sadness. The shadow of death has attached to me and goes with me wherever I go. It is my second shadow. It doesn’t leave. It goes before me and shades my life. It is my new reality. The filter I see all life through. It sucks. It sucks the life out of me.

I love my babies. All of my babies. I miss more than half of them daily. It isn’t intangible, it’s something I feel keenly. 4 years and 3 months into this journey, I still can’t adequately describe it.

But, for the sake of tomorrow, I try again. I feel broken. I feel like parts of me are missing. I feel full of holes and unable to hold the happy. I am sad to such an extent that I sometimes question my salvation, because I feel like I should feel more joy than I do. But at the same time, I am sure of my salvation because I remember asking God to take that cup from me when they told me Maggie had no heartbeat. I remember running to Jesus in the hurt time after time. And yet, I still struggle with feeling like I’m a bad Christian because this freaking hurts. I know Maggie is with Jesus and I am happy for her, but I want to be with her so strongly that I have to stay away from my husband’s guns. Because I just want to be with my daughter. So. Much. That it just isn’t safe for me. So I keep my distance.

So tomorrow, be gentle with me. Don’t ask me how I am. Don’t cast pitying looks my way. Don’t mention it. Ugly crying might happen either way, but I promise you don’t want to see it. And I don’t want to do it. And if you are missing your baby today, hug someone you love close and have a gentle day. Have a gentle day, missing your babies and remembering they are still yours.

I can’t say happy bereaved Mother’s Day. But gentle bereaved Mother’s Day, that’s as close as I can get. Gentle bereaved Mother’s Day it is.

Gently grieving on.

But does it get better?

I haven’t blogged in a while and for that, I’m sorry. I feel like maybe my silence has made it seem like I no longer struggle with grief, like I’ve maybe reached grief nirvana where nothing hurts anymore and all is peaceful and that is not the case. But I’m more sorry to myself than to anyone else, because I benefitted the most from my blogging. It was an outlet for me that I’ve missed and needed and not had and suffered from not having.

I had my reasons for not blogging. And we can talk about that later. Maybe. But they are not quite as relevant anymore, so here I am.

Today, it has been 4 years and 29 days since my daughter, Maggie, was stillborn. When we lost her, I was devastated. I really wanted to know if it gets better. I read the books and the blogs. I listened to the songs. I searched for the answer and today I feel like I finally have it. So here goes.

Today, I went to Starbucks and got coffee. I ugly cried through the drive thru. I ordered. I hiccuped and deep breathed myself into mostly stopping by the time I got to the window to get my coffee. The barista looked at me with tears running down my face and asked me how my day was. I shrugged and said something neutral and banal that wasn’t interesting enough to remember and he said it. He said “it’ll get better.”

He lied. It’s been 4 years and 29 days and it isn’t better. Some things don’t get better. I no longer expect or hope for this to get better. I might be better at carrying it or hiding it or coping with it or cushioning it so it doesn’t hurt as much or shoving it deep down inside so it doesn’t show externally, but it isn’t better. Dead baby doesn’t get better.

I don’t know that I could have survived reading that when I was freshly bereaved. I wanted hope. I wanted someone to tell me it would get better. I wanted something to encourage me to keep going and not just give in to the grief and drown. I needed that because I was drowning. I needed to think I could survive so I wouldn’t quit trying and fighting not to drown.

I don’t know if I found that or not. I don’t really think I did. I think instead I found a lot of BS and lies and misinformation that inspired me to argue and refute and speak out and blog. But it’s been 4 years and 29 days so I guess that’s worked for me so far. It did what I wanted hope to do. It kept me going.

So here I am. I’m going. I’m fighting. Sometimes I’m swimming. But I’m still in the middle of a sea of grief with no land in sight in any direction. I still feel the waves crash over my head. I still feel like I’m drowning sometimes. I still want to just quit sometimes. Just quit fighting and drown and go meet my daughter. Some days that sounds good. Really good.

So does it get better? I don’t know. Not yet, I guess. Does it feel better? Nope. It still feels like grief. It still feels like drowning. My daughter’s still dead. I still can’t see her. I still miss her and hate being separated from her.

But I am still here. So there’s that.

I guess God isn’t done with me yet. Obviously.

Grieving on.

(Not) My Rathers

I saw a little bit of blood when I wiped today and right away I knew I’m either spotting and pregnant or about to start my period. Guess which one I’m hoping for?

Definitely the period. Did you guess right?

If you didn’t, don’t be too hard on yourself. I have five living kids. One might safely assume I like being pregnant and there was a time when you’d be right to assume that.

But not anymore.

Something about losing 5 babies before birth kind of puts a damper on that whole pregnancy joy thing. Especially having had a stillbirth. Knowing by experience that you can lose your baby right up until the end makes every day of pregnancy full of stress and worry. It dims that glow a bit for sure.

If you add to that the fact that of my last 5 pregnancies, I have 1 living child, that only makes it worse. If you add to that the traumatic birth of my one living child from the past 7 years during which they could not find his heartbeat multiple times and I spent hours feeling like maybe I was in the process of losing him right that minute, that makes it worse still.

Children are a blessing straight from God. I believe that. And I would never turn down a blessing. But I don’t ever want to lose a baby again. I am sick to death of loss. If I had my rathers, I would rather be done with having babies than suffer more loss to have another.

But God.

But God is the author of my story and I am not. But God is sovereign over my womb and I am not. But God is in control of this and I am not. But God knows the best plan and I do not.

See, if I were to choose, I would always take the path of least pain, the path of least resistance, the path of least loss, but I don’t get to choose. And I don’t get to know why. Or what’s next. Or how God will use the pain.

And maybe that’s a good thing. See if I’d had my rathers, I’d have been done with marriage after my first husband left and I’d never wish away the beautiful marriage I have now. If I’d had my rathers, I’d have been done with pregnancy after I loss Maggie and I’d never wish away EJ. If I’d had my rathers, I wouldn’t be here now. And here is pretty good most of the time. If I’m being honest, I have to admit that I’m ok with not having my rathers. At least in these cases.

I don’t have all the answers. All I know is God is in control. He has a plan for my life. A plan to prosper me not to harm me. A plan to give me hope and a future. He doesn’t make mistakes and he can use every bit of my pain if I give it to him.

I know all of this. I trust God. And yet, every month at that first sign of blood, I hold my breath for a second and whisper a prayer that it’s my period. Because in my selfishness, if I’m honest, I’d have to admit that I do not want to feel that pain again, even if it can be used. It just hurts too much. I’m over it.

At least, I hope I am.

But if God wants me to walk through the valley of the shadow of death again, I will. I trust Him. I submit to His will.

Not my rathers, but His be done. I mean that, but I can’t tell you how hard it is to mean. Or how much I hope more loss is not in His plan.

I just can’t. But I will. If I can’t hope and pray it away, I will. But right now, I just can’t.

I hope that makes sense.

I also hope it’s just my period hormones talking.

Just being honest.

Just grieving on.

Running a way with my grief

I need to run. It isn’t a want. It’s a need. It is an option that doesn’t need to be opted out of for my mental and physical health.

I have opted out of it, though. In some of my darkest times when I most needed those endorphins, I have opted out. When I began to miscarry while running, I opted out for almost a year. I just couldn’t. I needed it, but I couldn’t. And I suffered because I didn’t. I suffered depression and anxiety. I gained weight, which just exacerbated my mental issues. And I’m convinced that I suffered all of these things for longer than I otherwise would have because I opted out of what I needed to do to recover some sort of equilibrium faster.

That having been said, I have commented before that every time I start running, I either get pregnant or injured before I attain my running goals. It’s said in a sort of tongue and cheek manner, but it is not really. It’s the truth. And it’s what happened this year.

I started running again and I started seeing results and boom I got pregnant. Unlike my pregnancy with EJ, I continued to run right up until we lost this baby. I had just finished week 6 day 2 of c25k. I had just run my second nonstop mile. I was 12 weeks along and death stopped me in my tracks.

I had to have a D&C again. (Don’t get me started on the irony of being anti abortion and needing an abortion procedure in order not to bleed to death. Again. That’s a different blog post for a different day.)

Besides the loss of our baby, the thing I hated the most about having a missed miscarriage again (and a D&C again) was having to stop running for 2 weeks. I needed not to run, but I needed to run. I couldn’t run — I needed to heal, but I needed to run, too, because not all the necessary healing was physical.

I needed to run but I couldn’t. Instead, it was my carrot for 2 weeks. Just keep going until I can run. Bandaid that depression and anxiety until I can run away from it. Just keep plodding. Just keep breathing. Just hold on the running is almost here.

Then when that 2 weeks was over, I was both excited and scared to run again. I was scared it would hurt or I would need longer to heal and would have to stop and wait again. But I needed it more than I feared it and I was excited to see what I could do after a 2 week break. I was excited to feel the wind in my hair again.

I was in a dark, sad place emotionally and I needed to run to process it. I needed to run to get away from that place. I needed the endorphins and the quiet running offers. I needed to run more than I needed not to. (Which is my state of being 90% of the time or more.)

Ten days ago, I was cleared to run again. And I did, gently at first. I’m still on week 1 of c25k after 10 days (6 of which were spent running this run), but I’m running almost every day and yesterday I challenged myself to run a mile nonstop — and I ran 2 miles nonstop and felt like I could have run farther. It was amazing.

Running doesn’t fix grief, but it helps clean up my head space. It doesn’t run away my grief, but it makes a way for me to live in the midst of ever present grief. It keeps my anxiety and depression at bay and it’s something I look forward to doing all day long. And most days it feels amazing in a way I don’t feel the rest of the time. I run a way with my grief. I make a new path for me to live in.

I need it. And I function much better and handle whatever comes my way much better when I give myself what I need.

Some things I need to survive. Some things I need to thrive. And running is in the gray area between the two.

Now I’m not saying running will help your grief. Running doesn’t fix grief. And running might not be your thing or even a viable option for you. But discovering what you need to survive, what you need to promote good mental health as physical health for you, discovering what you need to thrive and making an effort to give yourself those things daily — that helps. Despite the circumstances I find myself in, making sure I have what I need physically and mentally helps me.

Some things can’t be fixed, but most things can be helped by taking care of our needs and reducing stress in our lives and our bodies. I know that is easier said than done sometimes. Sometimes in the midst of my pain, I have blamed myself and not cared what I needed and suffered more than I had to because I denied myself what I needed as a self-punishment.

Grief isn’t fixed by running. Grief just is. It’s a constant suck with waves of greater suck. But running helps me. I need it to function some days. Other days I need it to thrive. Either way, I need it.

Dear Grieving Mom,

My wish for you this year is that you find what you need and give yourself the grace to give yourself what you need. It won’t stop the grief, but it will help some. And that is better than nothing.

With Gentle Hugs and lots of love,

Maggie’s mom

10 Second Mom

My daughter was born 3 years ago today. She was stillborn, but she was still born. I still had to labor through the night. I still was brought to the point of physical pain where I despaired and thought it would never end. I still had to push through that and push her out. I still birthed her. I just didn’t get to take her home.

I remember the emotional pain. I remember hoping against hope that the doctors were wrong somehow and praying she’d still be ok. I remember the moment when she was born and the deafening silence that was immediately eclipsed by the screams in my heart and head. I remember the fog and feeling deaf to everything and everyone around me.

And I can still feel it all today.

It’s been 3 years today and the pain is still here and in some ways it’s worse than it was initially. The initial shock and grief, fog and numbness that softened the blow and kept me disoriented are mostly gone so now I feel every stab. Every. Single. One.

There are moments that take me back to that night and I feel it all over again, only this time without the numbness and fog. And I die a little bit more inside again for a moment. And that moment feels like it’s never going to end. Until it ends and then starts again.

I feel like my soul was a mirror and in that first silent second, it shattered into glitter. And that glitter gets on everything I touch and everything that touches me. And no matter how hard I try to pick it all up and put it back together, I can’t. It’s a fool’s errand that I am compelled to try anyways.

John Piper said “Occasionally, weep deeply over the life you hoped would be, grieve the losses, then wash your face, trust God and embrace the life you have.” I think that is great advise, but I still just can’t. There is a part of me that unequivocally rejects the idea that my daughter is gone. Even after 3 years of her being gone. I just can’t get past it. I feel like 10 second Tom only in reverse. It goes something like this:

My brain: “My daughter is gone.”

My soul shatters.

My heart screams.

Someone says “Don’t worry, you’ll totally get over it in 10 seconds.”

I consider punching them and I’m still screaming in my head when my brain tells me again “My daughter is gone.”

I’m 10 second Mom. And I totally don’t get over it. Like ever.

It’s an endless loop that plays in the background of my life. How do you “get over” that? You don’t.

Some things just stay with you no matter what you do. I’ve had to accept that this pain and grief are just going to be a part of my life for the rest of my life and for me I guess that’s ok. Because, in that regard at least, she is forever with me. And because I can’t get rid of it anyways.

So today is her birthday. My older girls want to do a toast with sparkling grape juice. I’m feeling macabre and I’m pretty sure my toast would be something like “Here’s to the sweet girl who shattered me forever, who I miss every day, whose absence is felt keenly still, who I would trade anything to have back without hesitation. Anything. Happy birthday in heaven, where I wish you weren’t or I wish I was.”

So I guess I won’t be giving the toast.

Or maybe I’ll just be nice and say “Happy birthday, Maggie” and leave it at that.

Happy birthday, Maggie.

With all my love,

Your 10 second Mom

Grievy New Year

I guess you could call me musical. I find songs or rewrite lyrics to suit the moment. It’s a special skill that I probably got from my dad, who does the same. My husband and I both do it, so we don’t annoy each other with it, but it drives our (living) kids crazy, which only makes it funner for us.

For example, if they say they don’t want something, I might randomly start singing “you don’t always get what you want. . .” to The Rolling Stones tune of “you can’t always get what you want“. It’s beautiful. Sometimes it ends up looking like the equivalent of adult jokes in kids movies because it just goes right over their heads, but it amuses me whether they get it or not, so I do it.

I do the same thing with quotes and jokes. Which was probably really disturbing to the nurses when I was giving birth to Maggie and making random “dead baby” jokes, but it helped me a little. I think. So I did it.

So maybe I’m not so much musical as lyrical or poetic because I don’t warp the tune just the words. But either way, that’s my secret power. Sometimes it helps me in my grief. Sometimes it makes it worse, but like the grief it’s always there. It’s a part of me.

About a week before New Year’s Eve, there were memes on facebook about what decade you were born in and how many decades you’d lived in, etc, and I rewrote that one, too. In my heart. For Maggie. And every time I see one of those memes, I think of her.

(She was) born in 2017. So this new year is the 3rd new year and the second decade we have gone into without her.

That is heavy.

To put it into context a bit, I need you to know that I didn’t want to go into another minute, hour or day without her. To such an extent that I could not trust myself to be around any guns for over a year after she left us. And still stay far from them because I know she’s just one shot away and I still don’t trust myself not to be tempted. The pull toward her is just too great. So I stay far away from any situation in which I might be tempted.

I did not want to go on without her, and yet, here I am, almost 3 years later, going into the 3rd new year and into a whole new decade without her. Not because I’m strong or brave. Not because of anything I can take credit for. Just because I’m too stubborn to quit and too devastated by being left behind to be able to choose to leave others behind regardless of the pain that trudging on entails.

Each new thing I go into without her hurts and somehow knowing this is 2 new things at once just makes it hurt more. It’s like the opposite of the placebo effect. The knowing makes it worse.

I mean, I carry her with me in my heart so I suppose I carry her with me into this new year and decade. But knowing that doesn’t help it hurt any less because this is not how I wanted to carry her with me. I wanted her to exist in this decade as more than a memory. And she can’t.

“I can’t always get what I want.”

I sing my songs to express how I feel. I sing my songs to keep moving forward. I sing my songs to encourage myself. I sing because I can’t not sing.

I sing her song, too. I sing her song for her because she can’t. I sing her song to remember her, but it’s not the same as hearing her singing her own song.

My world is still musical, but the sound of her tune is absent so sometimes it feels like my world is completely devoid of music because I can’t hear the song my heart longs for. I feel deaf because I can’t hear her. I listen for her, knowing I will never hear her. I’m still listening for the cry that never came.

And it won’t. I know it won’t. But that knowledge doesn’t help me. It doesn’t make me stop listening for her song. I can’t. I’m her mother.

It doesn’t get easier. It just gets different. I have learned to feel joy again through the pain but I can’t unfeel the pain. Everything I experience, I experience in the absence of her song and through a filter of grief. It has become a part of me and a part of my song.

And I carry it all with me into this new year and into this new decade that began aged and darkened by the grief I carried into it, instead of new and bright and beautiful and full of promise, as I imagine others might view it.

I’m grieiving on. Into a new decade. Because time marches on, whether I permit it to or not. And when I fight it, it merely marches over me and drags me beneath its wheels. I’d rather move of my own volition than be dragged.

So I keep going, but I don’t know how gracefully I’m doing it. A greeting of “Grievy New Year” seems more appropriate than “Happy New Year”, at this moment in my heart. I might be falling on my face, but I guess that’s sort of moving forward. I do what I can. 🤷‍♀️

I wish all my fellow loss moms a gentle transition to a new decade. Please know that you are not alone.

Grieving on. . .