Dollar Signs and Heartache

As the days have gone, the pain has lessened a little. It almost hurts me to admit that... I have not forgotten, and I definitely have my moments where the tears just flow uncontrollably at uncontrollable moments. But. There are moments where I experience joy, where I am able to look at my children and be completely in the moment, enjoying their crazy antics and silliness. There are times where I am actually able to lift up my arms in worship and adoration to a loving God without hesitation or anger.

I can't tell you why.... or how... because there are still moments where none of the above can happen but that is OK. I am still walking through this, a part of my heart will forever be in heaven and no matter the amount of time that passes by, I will always miss the life I never got to know.

There are some triggers... and this is by no means a blow at the medical industry or insurance companies, but the two of those together have been the cause for most of the breakdowns lately. Just a few short days after the miscarriage, we received a bill in the mail for the pregnancy test that I had taken a month earlier, the very one that had confirmed I was pregnant. The very test that brought peace of mind and really got us into "baby mode." When I opened that bill and saw what it was for, I was furious for so many reasons! J had to take care of it and get it out of sight, I could not even imagine how just three days after being in the hospital I could be receiving that bill.

I have known in the back of my head that there were going to be a lot of bills coming our way. We have great insurance but thankfully or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, we have been very healthy this year and weren't even close to our deductible (thank you Dave Ramsey - not really a plug, but a plug! Great resource on finances). I could not have imagined how each one of the bills coming in would be like a stab to my heart.... Just one more reminder of our loss. Yes, the crazy numbers on those bills slightly freaks me out, but it is more how reading through the itemized bill almost takes me back to the exact moment of each treatment or medical support. The fears, the pain, the uncertainty all come flying back at me and it is like slamming into a brick wall.

I know that this is just one more step of walking through this process. It is one more way that I am being forced to accept what has happened, even if I am not ready or wanting to.

Praying for all of us today that we would experience God... experience Him here in our weakness, here in our sadness, here in our hope to be able to have hope again someday. 

"Everything" Tim Hughes

Each heart beat brings more heart ache

Not only was it not enough to experience a miscarriage, but the amount of blood loss threw my body through the ringer! The very next day after losing our sweet Baby Raisin, I woke up with a pounding headache, the type where my head was literally pounding with each heart beat. I was dizzy, weak and sick to my stomach. I gave in and took pain medication prescribed by the doctor (something I never do) because I had never experienced such an awful headache before! It did absolutely nothing. J called the emergency on call doctor and they did not seem to think it was anything to be worried about and only said if it got worse to go to the ER.

At that point, I don't think that headache could have gotten worse. It continued at that pain level for two days. I was angry at God. How could I lose my baby and then have to deal with more physical pain beyond that which is typical of a miscarriage? I couldn't even cry, mourn or process the events of the previous day without having my heart rate go through the roof - creating such a headache that brought me to a fetal position literally begging God to make it stop. I did not leave my bed that day. I watched my family from a distance, watched as the littles giggled and watched as J tried his best to create some type of normalcy for the sake of our family. Tears slipped from the corner of my eyes as my littles came up to me to give me kisses and to share their "blankies" with mama in an effort to make me feel better.

This is when I became torn... torn between the need to love and take care of my two children that were at that time trying to take care of mama AND grieving for Baby Raisin. I wasn't ready for the world to keep going, but it was. Was I supposed to just get up and move on like nothing had happened?

What are the "rules" when it comes to grieving? Does it really matter how long you knew the person? Does a mother of a 25 year old child grieve longer than a mother that lost her child at 11 weeks? Who determines the amount of time needed? How are you supposed to grieve the loss of a child that you never actually held? Do you dress in black? Tear all of your clothes off and scream? Do you have a funeral? Do you go back to work as if nothing happened? WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?

I remember looking at my second child the day he was born wondering how in the world I could love him so much when I had only just "met" him.  A mother at any stage of being a mother, is willing to do anything to help/protect her child. From choking down prenatal vitamins, giving up different foods that they may have previously enjoyed, undergoing uncomfortable visits to the doctor, to staying awake all hours of the night to make sure her newest addition is fed and breathing. Mothers instinctually sacrifice and will do anything to provide and protect because there is a love there the moment a child is conceived, a love that can not be defined with words, but a love that is deeper and more real than anything one can imagine. That love is not lessened when one only knows her child while the child is still in utero. The pain of losing a loved one, no matter the length of time, is real.

I have come to the conclusion that grief will look different for everyone. It is processed differently by everyone BUT it must be processed... It must be met head on but I don't think the grieving process ever comes to an end, it may just be less intense, the tears may be fewer and father between, but the pain and sadness of losing a loved one will always be a part of our hearts.

What did it look like for me and our family? We talk about Baby Raisin often and our love for our child in heaven. We actually went to a memorial service for a friend's daughter and in a way, it was a way for me to find some closure as well. I am writing this blog as a memorial for our child so that his/her memory will live on forever. When things slow down a bit, we plan on releasing a Chinese lantern into the heavens with our prayers and thoughts written on it (in Taiwan, it is a tradition during the Lantern Festival to buy paper lanterns, write wishes or prayers on it and release it into the sky). I have well wishes from friends that I have put in my journal and flowers that are dried and will be put in a vase. I am still looking for the best way to remember Baby Raisin, some type of keepsake, or reminder of the life that once was and is no longer. Something that when the littles see it in the future, it will be a reminder to them that they also have a sister or brother playing with God in heaven waiting to see them someday.

I am praying through tears that if you are reading this and have experienced loss that you would also be met by comfort. I am praying that you will have a safe place, a safe moment, even if it is just in the shower for 5 minutes where you can cry your heart out, where you can pound the walls and scream. A time to be real and know that it is ok to be sad and to hurt, that there is no right or wrong and there is no time limit. Know that you are loved.

Loving Baby Raisin

After searching for somewhere to share my heart and my journey through grief, I felt led to share it in a public format. Not for the attention or the sympathy, but in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, somebody else will fall upon this blog and be encouraged by the words that I have written here. I pray that if you have been led to this blog that you will know that you are not alone, you are not a number, but you are seen and heard. You are loved by our heavenly Father and He holds you close as you cry and as you grieve...

On July 25th 2014, I learned in the most horrifying of ways, that we had lost our baby. I was eleven weeks pregnant to the day and had literally just shared with friends and family that we were expecting just a couple days earlier. This was our third baby and we were looking forward to a home birth and making plans in anticipation of welcoming another little one into our lives. The oldest of the littles affectionately nicknamed our baby "Baby Raisin" and would often be found touching my stomach and talking to his baby. Everyone was excited and no one could have guessed the nightmare we were about to embark on...

For two days, I had some light bleeding. I had contacted my doctor, but held on to hope. The bleeding was light, and I had never had a problem during pregnancy before. I was scheduled for an ultrasound on July 25th to make sure everything was okay with Baby Raisin, but the night before I could not rest. I cried, I prayed, I cried out to God begging for the life of my child. I stood firm on God's word, declaring through tears that Baby Raisin's innermost being was knitted together by our Father in heaven. I finally feel asleep from exhaustion to only wake up a couple of hours later with severe cramps... I still hung on to hope that my baby was going to be ok, but as the cramps became more and more similar to those of labor, I knew deep in my heart what was happening... my body was "pushing out" my child, not a fetus, but my child. One that I will never hold or kiss on this earth... The cramps were worse than any labor pains I have felt because not only was there pressure in my midsection, but there was pressure on my heart. When one gives birth to a child, there is hope, there is anticipation and excitement, but in those hours, there was nothing to look forward to, only despair.

After four hours of heavy bleeding J finally convinced me to go to the hospital. I was still trying to be the brave and strong one, so I went by myself. My reasoning was that it was too early for the littles to get up and someone needed to stay home with them. Looking back at it now, I think I was in denial and truly believed that I would be returning home shortly. I walked right into the emergency room and continued to bleed everywhere. The doctor performed an exam and determined that he didn't see any "tissue" AKA baby. When I heard those words it meant  "there was still hope that it was a viable pregnancy" but what the doctor meant was there was no sign of the baby being "born." Shortly after that brief encounter with the ER doctor, a gentle nurse came up to me and said "it is okay to cry." Yes, I still couldn't let myself believe what was happening.

Due to heavy blood loss, I became very weak and would become very dizzy if I sat up or moved just a little bit. At one point I sat up to clean myself off and I passed out much to the nurse's dismay. That is when the doctor decided that I needed to take an ambulance to a larger hospital 20 minutes away, that it was not a good idea even for J to drive me there. I finally admitted my weakness at that point. My sister rushed to our house to take care of the littles so that J could meet me at the hospital. When I arrived at the larger hospital, I saw a sign the designates which patient goes in which room. The identifier isn't the patient's name, but the medical diagnosis/problem. It was at that moment, for the first time, the word "miscarriage" been used to describe what was happening to me. NO ONE once said to me that I was miscarrying, no one expressed sympathy over our loss or explained to me what was happening to my body.

Once at the hospital, I was put on a heart monitor due to the amount of blood I was losing. I was sent to have an ultrasound, and even at this point I was still hoping... The images that came up on the screen still remain in my mind to this day... not the images I had dreamed of seeing... Still NO ONE said anything about miscarriage.  I tried to sit up again, and passed out, waking up to half a dozen medical staff surrounding me, yelling my name and pulling me back to bed. This is when they decided I needed a blood transfusion. The ER doctor ran in at one point to tell me an OBGYN was on the way to tell me what the next steps were, but I might be able to go home. Next thing I know, he is back and telling me that I will need to take some medication to help the "process" along. Shortly after that, he is back telling me that the blood loss was too severe and that I would need surgery!

At this point I had been awake for almost 24 hours and would drift in and out of sleep from exhaustion and blood loss. I remember waking up one time to hear J crying in the bathroom. I tried to call out to him but I could barely whisper his name. I cried for the man that lost his baby and had to watch his wife go through such a trauma. I could only ask God for strength at that time, strength for both of us to just get through that day.

I was taken up for surgery, something that I had never experienced before. Before that day, I had never been in an ER, I had never been in an ambulance and I had never had surgery. J stayed by my side through the whole thing, but as they began to prep me for the procedure, so many thoughts came flying into my head. It was a minor procedure, but it was enough to make me stop and think about what is important in life.

When I woke up from the procedure all I wanted to do was see J. I was so tired and my body wanted to sleep, but I needed to see J, I needed for him to see that I was ok. PLUS, I could finally have some water after not having any for over 12 hours! J was brought back to sit with me and within an hour I was being prepared to be sent home.

At this point, my whole life had changed within 14 hours, but I was being sent home as if nothing had happened.

July 25, 2014 will always remain a day of pain in my heart. As I write this, that was only four weeks ago, and I am struggling with the emotions that day brought into my life daily. I struggle with the thoughts and the emotions.... I want to see God in this, I want to know He is here with me, and I am going to wrestle with those emotions and thoughts until I can see the light on the other side. That does not mean that I am choosing to disregard the grief in my heart, because that is far from the truth. It means, that in my grief, I need to know that He is near.