still.

I hope you are watching This Is Us. Talk about a show that depicts real life. Every week Taylor and I get to the end and can't move. We just look at each other, shake our heads, and one of us says, "it's too real." A few weeks ago, we came to the episode where Kate loses her baby. I knew it was coming, but I didn't know how the emotions in the show would bring my own emotions bubbling to the surface. I watched as tears silently slipped from the corners of my eyes. Too real.

It's been four years since the miscarriage where I was furthest along. While I have experienced so much since then and given birth to two beautiful and healthy boys, I still vividly remember every single thing about that day.

I still remember how all sound dimmed except a loud buzzing in my ears and everything in my line of sight went hazy as the doctor in the ER said the words I dreaded hearing. I thought those things only happened in movies, but it truly does happen in those moments where life stops.

I still remember hitting send on a text message to Taylor. "No heartbeat." I hated having to tell him that way, but I also knew my voice would fail if I tried to call. I did not want to say it out loud.

I remember the hospital admin who followed me to my car just to console me. It wasn't her job, but she saw my chart and worse my face. I needed her in that moment.

I remember when the contractions hit a week later. I so naively thought it was over, but at twelve weeks along your body has to labor and release it all before it's done. I found my leftover bottle of 800 mg Ibuprofen from Gideon's birth and kept taking them hoping for some relief, but it didn't touch the pain.

I still remember spending the day on my knees in the shower. There was so much blood and I didn't know what to do. I did not want to go back to the hospital so I stayed right there, begging God to let it be done.

I remember as my body expelled everything into the toilet and I remember panicking about what to do. And I remember as I flushed it and knew that my baby was gone.

I remember rocking Gideon in his room that evening as Taylor went to pick me up a steak. With that much blood loss I needed to get my iron up. The irony was not lost on me. New parents get a steak dinner in the hospital.

And each and every December 13, my heart hurts and breaks all over again.

When I'm old and gray and maybe don't know where I am or what day it is, I know that these memories will be iron clad in my mind. They are with me forever. Those moments that are fuzzy while you're in them yet crystal clear in hindsight.

As much as it all hurts, I also have peace knowing that my baby only knew the good parts of this life. My baby was safely tucked inside of me and for twelve weeks only knew the love and excitement that we had for him/her. And now that baby is tucked in the safest arms there are.

Spring came, my love.

The week after our first miscarriage, I found myself reading Angie Smith's book, I Will Carry You.  Her story through carrying and losing her fourth daughter and how her faith played a role throughout.  I had actually read the book before without really knowing why I was, but I see that the Lord was just preparing me for what we would walk and that I would recall so much from this book to bring comfort.

I posted a photo on Instagram that week of this quote from one of the pages:

"However easy it may be to allow myself to wail over my loss, it is a far more satisfying thing to believe that all of this is a brief season.  The Lord I have placed my trust in tells me that I will see my child again, and while He stands beside me, He weeps.  He doesn't weep at the barren ground, nor does He mourn the browning branches.  He cries because I can't see what He can.  And in the fluttering of the breeze, with my heart pressed to His, I can hear Him whisper, Spring will come, my love."

For the months following that loss, I kept praying for my Spring to come. I kept begging for it.  Make it obvious, Lord.  Where is the Spring?  Then we found ourselves facing loss again and I forgot all about the coming Spring.

I think the strangest thing about loss, and the hardest to explain to others, is that I still hurt.  There are no replacement babies.  Sure, having a baby has taken away a lot of the ache and filled me with joy, but there was still loss.  I still hurt as I watch friends and family walk this same path.  As they feel the bleakness that comes with winter and crave the Spring.

I honestly hadn't given much thought to this quote since that time.  Just last week, as I sat holding my few day old baby boy, with our doors flung wide and the breeze rustling the trees, did I remember the Spring.  I couldn't see what He could.  In the midst of the craziness, Spring showed up.  Literally and figuratively.

And I heard Him whisper... Spring came, my love.

Compelled to share

{via}

Over the last year, I often questioned why I wrote about and shared the things I have.  Why did I feel the need to open up about miscarriage and loss in the form of the internet?  With the first one it seemed more obvious.  I was pretty far along and we had just publicly announced that we were having a baby.  Do you just pretend you didn't and not post anything? Do you skim over it?  I thought about it, but I couldn't.  I didn't want it to seem like it didn't happen and something kept nagging me within to write.  I couldn't help it.  I had to write.

What I didn't expect or see coming were the flood of messages and emails.  Facebook friends and those who I knew some, but not much, that were writing to tell me they've been there.  They are walking it now.  Facing another of multiple miscarriages.  Deciding between passing the baby naturally or having a D/C.  Struggling with infertility for several years.  My heart broke with each one and I cried.  I couldn't help it.  I knew the pain they faced day in and day out.  It was tangible to me and I realized I share because this journey is such a lonely one.

People could talk about pregnancy all day.  Cravings, movement, names, nurseries.  But, this place of loss is one that many people choose not to delve into.  It's a place where your husband finds you in the bathroom at three in the morning after you just discovered it's happening again.  He is dealing with the pain as well, while simultaneously feeling the need to stay strong for you, but it's also something he can't fully understand as you see your hopes and dreams bleed out.  It's a sacred place and often it is hard to put into words the feelings you have about losing something/someone you hadn't yet met.  It is also hard for friends and family to know how to respond.  Like I said, it's a lonely place.

I know the Lord was the urging for me to be so open.  Not necessarily for me to be the backbone to these other ladies, but for them to support me as well.  Knowing we both experienced these losses is the glue that held us together.  It's a silent club of walking wounded and sharing that with each other allowed us to all feel less alone.

The first couple months in this pregnancy with Nolan, I found myself in a place of constant insomnia.  Wide awake at one or two in the morning most nights.  The only thing I could think to do was pray.  So every night, the faces of each of the ladies who had messaged me found their way into my mind and I prayed.  Lord, let this be theirs too.  Hear their cries.  No more loss.  I wiped tears and cried for those who I didn't know well, but felt like I did.

I write all this to say, He is faithful and he continues to show me that each day.  Slowly, but surely the announcement posts have been popping up from these same women.  EXPECTING!  Due in May, June, July.  Each and every time I see one my heart races from excitement.  It's theirs too.  The joy is theirs.  Messages after positive tests.  Sharing the fear of those first few weeks as they wait to hear that heartbeat.  The long wait from infertility over as they see the profile in the ultrasound.  And, I know in those moments why I felt compelled to share.  To make this journey a whole lot less lonely and to see the faithfulness of the Lord revealed again and again.

June 30

via

Today's a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I should be having a baby today.  Or in the next week. At least that's what we had planned for.  A summer baby.  June 30.

My whole heart aches today as I sit here wondering what happened and as I look at my still flat stomach wishing it was round and growing.  It still isn't.  Oh, how I wish this day was different.

The past six, almost seven, months have been some of the most difficult.  I try to keep this blog an upbeat, mostly happy (with a few tangents) place, not wanting to bog it down with sadness because truly there has been plenty of joy.  But, the pain has been present despite sharing it here.  What would have been milestones in the pregnancy have always been in the back of my mind and sometimes have spilled out in tears.  Driving home from church in the dark, knowing we would have found out girl or boy.  Laying in bed and telling Taylor I would have been 37 weeks, full term.  June 30, our due date.

There have been many tears since December and at times I have told Taylor the past six months have felt like a cruel joke.  I've often found myself on the floor of the kitchen screaming out to the Lord.   Why?  Why couldn't I keep my baby? Why must I face this twice in half a year? 

The past few weeks, I've been in a fog.  I didn't expect this to hit me so hard and I don't know why.  I remember sitting in my mom's car on New Year's Eve, outside of the restaurant on a day where others are celebrating, and I cried.  My mom reminded me that little things would trigger my pain and reminded me that today would probably be hard.  I guess I didn't expect it to get here so quickly.

I cried on Gideon's due date.  I was sick of being pregnant.  Sick of feeling huge.  I was ready to hold my baby.  I cry today, too.  I'm sick of not being pregnant.  Sick of feeling empty.  I'm ready to hold my baby and wishing it had been today.

 Many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God.  But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.  I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill.  I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.  I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.

-Psalm 3:2-6