Friday may never mean the same
thing to me, for it was a Friday when my world turn upside down. It was Friday when
I heard the four words that will forever haunt my dreams “there is no
heartbeat.” Fridays are hard! It’s just another week without the baby I desperately
wanted. The baby I love with all of my heart but never met. The one I’m
supposed to be over the loss of but my heart can’t move on from yet.
As I lay
here tonight still awake, even after taking the medicine I now have to take to
even fall asleep without seeing that ultrasound and hearing those words on
repeat in my head, I’m reminded its Friday and my heart hurts. I lay here with the
thoughts of you in my head. What would you look like? Who would you have acted
like me or your daddy? Would you be just as wild as your big brother or more
laid back? Would you have his same big blue eyes and cotton top hair? I’ve
dreamed of you a thousand times but my heart still breaks.
As I lay
here I think it has to stop hurting so much. At some point it has to get
easier. My heart can’t stay in these pieces forever. I look at your big brother
and I see the works of God and I wonder how could the same God who created this
perfect little ball of energy take you away. I wonder how He couldn’t
save you. I wonder what I did wrong. I’ve been over the list of things I could
have done differently millions of times and I can’t seem to find an answer and
my heart just breaks.
As I lay
here I cry out to God “I just want my baby back.” I cry into my pillow and beg
the world to turn back time. BUT, I’ll wake up tomorrow and the truth will hit me again
and I’ll start the process to another Friday over again, but tomorrow won’t be so bad. Tomorrow will be Saturday and it won’t kick me in the gut and shatter my heart quite as hard. I may still be broken but I’m trying to find my way in
this new normal.
Today as I was driving home from school after a long day and not getting much sleep last night (which has been common since we heard the news) I heard something on the radio that really stuck with me. I can't even tell you if I was listening to Power 88 or KLove or who was talking but this is what they said...
Everyone is going through something. Everyone in this world of millions of people is dealing with some circumstance that they don't want to be dealing with. It may be finical, it may be marital issues, the loss of a loved one or just dislike for their job or appearance but everyone is dealing with some circumstance they don't want to be dealing with. BUT here's the thing circumstances change. God doesn't! As humans when things don't go our way or when we are dealing with something we don't want to deal with or something we don't think is fair we turn away from God because how could he let this happen. If He is SO good why does He let bad things happen? We've all thought it right?!? I know I sure have, more than I'd like to admit.
BUT God doesn't change He is still the same powerful and mighty worthy to be praised God that He was when everything was going perfectly in our lives as He is when things aren't going our way. Our circumstances can change and they do. Often! Sometimes in the blink of an eye.
This just really stood out to me today. Ten days ago my circumstances changed. The way I thought life was going to go changed. I went from everything is perfect to how can this be in less than five seconds. Four words turned my life upside down "there is no heartbeat." BUT thank goodness my God doesn't change. He didn't leave me when my circumstances changed He held me and is still holding me while He guides me through this difficult time. I needed this reminder today and just like a rainbow after a storm there was my sign of hope right there on the radio.
Don't turn your back on God when your circumstances change. For God is good all the time and all the time God is good.
It's been one week since our
world turned upside down. That's 7 days, 168 hours, 10,080 minutes, 604,800
seconds since everything suddenly changed and yet it seems as if it has been
years. Maybe that’s because this has been the hardest week of my entire life.
Maybe it’s because I feel like I’ve been watching my life from the outside
looking in. Maybe it is simply because I keep hoping I’m going to wake up from
this nightmare. But, every morning I wake up and here I am living out my
biggest fear come true.
It’s funny how one moment in your
life can change your whole outlook. As a Christian I knew I had to lean on God
to get me through this mess. I knew there was no other way I’d survive. What I didn’t
know was how to do it. I felt lost, confused, alone, guilty and like I had
failed everyone including myself.
For the first few days I cried
non-stop. Jared would hold me and ask what he could do to make it better and
all I could do was cry. I was sure deep down he hated me for not keeping our
baby safe enough to survive. After all, I hated myself.
Everything made me think of how
it was my fault; from the nurse asking routine questions at my pre-op
appointment to our preacher saying blessings are taken away from those who aren’t
faithful. I just knew it was all my fault and the guilt of that was about to swallow
me whole. I mean that is a mom’s job, to protect and keep her children safe and
yet, somehow I had failed without even knowing it.
I began praying Saturday that God
would help me understand. I begged Him to hold me in His arms, to give me some
type of peace or comfort. I knew I needed Him like I had never needed Him before.
Besides if anyone could understand the hurt and heartbreak of losing a child it
would be Him.
I spent more than 2 hours in the
shower that night on my hands and knees crying out to God. I needed Him! By
Sunday morning I began to hear His soft voice saying you aren’t alone. I’m
here.
We went to church like we do most
Sundays and I’ll admit it was more out of habit than anything else. As the
choir began to sing “You’re a Good, Good Father” by Chris Tomlin I stood there
sobbing. That song had been playing in my head off and on since I had heard on the radio Friday morning.
The song says:
Oh, and I've seen many searching for
answers far and wide
But I know we're all searching
For answers only you provide
'Cause you know just what we need
Before we say a word
You're a Good, Good Father
It's who you are, it's who you are,
it's who you are
And I'm loved by you
It's who I am, it's who I am, it's
who I am
'cause you are perfect in all of
your ways
You are perfect in all of your ways
You are perfect in all of your ways
to us
That’s the moment I felt God really
start to move. You see I started to see I had been searching for answers within
myself. What did I do wrong? How did I mess this up? At that moment I realized
only God could provide me with the answers I was looking for.
As I continued to stand there crying I
heard the chorus as if it was a flashing neon sign sent right to me.
And I'm loved by you
It's who I am, it's who I am, it's
who I am
WOW! I hated myself but God loved me. How could that even
be? I started to realize as I stood there listening to my husband sing along
next to me while holding my hand that I was letting the devil tell me lie after
lie. I was letting the devil use this awful time in my life to pull me into his
web of lies. I had let my guilt and sense of failure be so used against me that
I was convinced Jared hated me. I was convinced there was no way he could ever
love me after I lost our baby.
In that moment I could feel my Savior holding me in His
arms. He was giving me exactly what I had been praying for. He was telling me I
am loved. I can search in myself for answers all day long but somethings only
He knows. And just as I began to put all of this together I heard these words:
'cause you are perfect in all of
your ways
You are perfect in all of your ways
You are perfect in all of your ways
to us
After some time at the alter Sunday with Jared and I holding
on to each other and crying out to God while surrounded by our friends, I began
to really feel the comfort only God Himself can provide. I began to realize I
will make it through this. We will make it through this.
I still feel a sense of guilt and failure but I’ve come to
realize I didn’t do anything wrong. I took my prenatal vitamins, I ate healthy,
I continued to exercise, I didn’t drink, smoke or do wild and crazy things. I
followed the rules. I did everything like you are supposed to. It just wasn’t
God’s will for this baby to be born. He needed him/her in heaven more than we
needed him/her here on earth. Somehow along the way I had found a sense of
peace about it.
No, I wasn’t ok and I’m certainly not over it. I don’t know
that I ever will be. I haven’t stopped crying about it although the tears are
less frequent. My heart still feels like it has a giant hole right in the middle of it.
Yet, I have an unexplainable peace that says I’m not alone. I will survive.
There have been many times throughout the last seven days, 168 hours,
10,080 minutes, 604,800 seconds that I’ve found myself feeling hopeless, guilty
and like a failure. I’ve had many moments where I’ve had to fight to keep it tougher
for fear if I started to cry I’d never stop again. Like when the maternity
pants I ordered showed up in the mailbox or when we had to return the diapers
we had already began to stock pile. But it’s in those moments when God sends a
sign of hope. A rainbow if you will.
For example on Monday as they
rolled me to recovery following my D&C I was in a panic. I was crying “my
baby is gone, my baby is really gone.” I began to beg the nurse to please go
get Jared in my hysterical panic. I told her I needed him right then. She told
me my heart rate was too high and I would have to calm down first. I
immediately asked her if she was a Christian. She told me she was so I asked
her to pray with me. I told her I was teacher so I understood if she wasn’t
allowed to pray with me but without a single second of hesitation she grabbed
my hand and began to pray. Within a few minutes I had calmed down enough for my
heart rate to even out and she immediately went to get Jared. I needed the
comfort of The Lord in that moment. I needed His love and I knew I couldn’t get
to it on my own. He knew I’d need Him and placed someone right in my path to
help me find my way.
On Wednesday I checked the mail to find the
maternity pants I had just ordered for work. There is nothing quite like that
kind of slap in the face to bring all of the emotions you were trying so hard
to keep inside right back to the surface. After coming inside and crying over
that stupid box for at least 30 minutes I finally got myself together and
opened my Timehop. I found this memory from 2013:
What a perfect reminder God hears our
prayers. He heard my cries all those years ago for a husband who
would turn to Him and would lead his family into worship with The Lord. Sure,
it may have taken years for me to find the answer to that prayer but God
provided. He heard my cries. I needed that reminder as I cried out to The Lord
to heal my broken heart.
We’ve still got a long way to go, but
we want to take the time to thank all of you for your prayers, love and support. We are making
progress within the healing process and we know with God on our side we will
find hope, comfort and total peace even in this difficult time. Words will
never be able to express how much each phone call, text, comment, card, meal, hug
and prayer have meant to us. It is because of this and God’s love that we are
able to face tomorrow even when our world still feels upside down.
