A story of hope--Before the Morning

The day of my D&C I was on Facebook and watched a video that told the story of Josh Wilson's song Before the Morning. I don't claim to be a Facebook wiz or anything but I would not call myself a novice. But the weird thing was I saw the video in my news feed one moment and then it was gone--seriously I could not find it. I emailed Becca and Josh to tell them how much the video had ministered to me and told them that after I watched it it was now gone. Did God mean that just for me? A couple of days later I found it again so I wanted to share. I don't know what happened. I think God just might have done some Facebook God stuff and popped this video in my news feed just for me!

At any rate, the day of my D&C I watched this video and wept. It spoke great encouragement to me. There are so many lines that touched me. But one that was so powerful was "If we trust God with our eternity we've got to trust him with our now". Well at the time I needed to hear that so much. That was exactly where I was--asking myself if I was going to trust God with this miscarriage and the future He has planned for our family. I needed to be reminded that I could trust God.

So where ever you are, what ever you are facing right now, watch this video and allow God to speak to you in your circumstance or in your struggle. I am overwhelmed at God's tenderness with me. He is daily making Himself real to me in this road I am walking. I pray that he will do the same for each of you.
Josh Wilson, Before the Morning

Hebrews 12:12

In these past few weeks every time I have seen a scripture posted anywhere I have looked it up to see if somehow it had meaning in my life right now.

Heb 12:12 was on Tim Tebow's face (I'm sure there is word for the black tape that football players put under their eyes but I don't know it--Allison can you help a girl out?).

Anyway--Hebrews 12:12 says "Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees." Wow did I need that Word. In the days following our miscarriage my arms were feeble and my knees were weak. God was faithful to strengthen me day by day.

The interesting thing is that what his EYE BLACKS (found it online myself) actually referenced was Hebrews 12:1-2 which says "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." I didn't find that out until tonight when I was typing this post. God obviously meant for me to see Hebrews 12:12, yet again he is faithful!

Follow up email to my Girlfriends about the D&C

We had the D&C January 11th. When I went in I still had no physical signs of the miscarriage but had double confirmation that the pregnancy had ended. I was thankful that the Lord gave me such a peace about the D&C and that I had not started having a natural miscarriage. Another detail he faithfully took care of.

My sweet friends had sent me flowers the week I found out about the miscarriage and they were BEAUTIFUL the day of my surgery. I'm posting the email I sent to my friends the day of the surgery--the first part is pretty boring and factual. The good stuff is at the bottom. God spoke clearly and gave me great scripture that day!



Attached is a picture of my beautiful view. Thank you to each one of you for being so sweet to me and sending flowers. They are beautiful today!

What a day! It started early with a 6:45 check in. The kids ended up spending the night with my parents last night so my mom wouldn't have to come in so early. It ended up being really nice not having the kids to worry about waking up while we were trying to get out the door.

I was doing fine until I saw Dr Daily. Then I had a complete break down and could hardly stop the tears once they started flowing. Even thinking about it now brings back those tears. Dr. Daily and I a connection that is hard to explain. We have had many tough conversations and I have always appreciated her tenderness and her reliance on faith. She has not been ashamed to speak of her faith and encourage me in that in the worst of situations. She seems to be able to read me like a book and respond to my needs without me even speaking at times. She ordered some meds to calm my nerves as I waited to go to the operating room.

I have only one memory of the operating room. Just the sweet faces of Dr Daily and the nurses telling me everything except the temperature in the OR revolved around me. They would take good care of me and have me in recovery soon.

I don't know how long the operation and recovery lasted but I was home by noon and resting comfortably. I have taken pain meds twice but it was more to stay on top of the pain than actual pain. Tomorrow I will be more conservative with the pain meds.

When I came home I had some relatively heavy bleeding but since that 1st pad change it has been more like spotting. Praise the Lord!

The kids are at my parents again tonight and I will be staying out there until probably Friday. I'm not sure about when Ed comes home. I think its Thursday but usually that means 11pm. I am restricted to picking up 10 pounds or less for the next 3 days so Thursday would be the earliest I can pick up Rylee. Its possible I will be up for it and be able to be home Thursday night but I'm playing that by ear.

At this point I'm planning on the kids going to preschool tomorrow and I plan to spend at least a couple of hours working.

God has given me some cool verses today I thought I would share with you guys.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
16Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Philippians 1:12, 19-20
12Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, 19for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.[a] 20I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

I love verse 19 because it speaks of each of you. Through your prayers and the help of the Holy Spirit what has happened will turn out for my deliverance! This is not meant for my bondage but for my deliverance.

The other verse I have been pondering a lot the past couple of weeks is Isaiah 57:1
1 Good people pass away;
the godly often die before their time.
But no one seems to care or wonder why.
No one seems to understand
that God is protecting them from the evil to come.

In many ways this speaks to me specifically dealing with miscarriage because it is so often not really acknowledged or spoken of. But it is hope to me that God has protected my baby from the evil to come. I believe this child is in heaven without having to experience all the hurt of this world. Praise God!

OK girls, I am going for now. I will be talking to you this week.

Kathy

The D&C was scheduled

A week after we saw the ultrasound with an empty gestational sac I still had no physical signs of a miscarriage. It was a tough decision to make but after talking with my Dr and much prayer I decided to move forward with a D&C. From the time I scheduled the D&C I still had 5 days to wait before the actual procedure but I prayed each day that the Lord would allow me to have the D&C since he had given me such a peace about that decision. Below is the email I sent to my dear friends who had been praying for me faithfully even before we received our news.



Girls I am so tired I don't know that I will even finish this email but I want to let each of you know I am scheduled to have a D&C Monday at 8:45 am.

My Dr's office called today and said my hormone levels have dropped since they did blood work early on in the pregnancy. For me that is the secondary confirmation that indeed there is no baby (not that I was questioning it but when considering the D&C that is relevant).

My Dr said the D&C will actually be less painful and the recovery will be much quicker (3-4 day although I read on the Internet it could be 2 weeks of bleeding). With the natural miscarriage there is pretty intense pain and I could bleed for 4 weeks (that is what I did with the 1st miscarriage).

I am at complete peace with my decision and it will be nice to get to move forward with the grief and healing that is so difficult to do with no physical closure.

I still have not started spotting. As long as I have not started heavy bleeding they will proceed with the procedure Monday morning. If I start to bleed (more that spotting) they won't do the D&C. So please pray that I won't start bleeding prior to the surgery. Pray for God's mercy in this detail of this miscarriage. I trust the Lord in this. I know he has a plan and while I feel at peace and have prayed for his wisdom and direction I realize that my desire to this may not be his desire for the process. But I am asking his mercy in this area.

We are planning on keeping the kids at our house Sunday night and my mom will meet us at the house when we leave, let the kids sleep in and then take them to her house. I'm kind of guessing the kids will spend the night Monday night at my parents but that hasn't been determined. I don't know if I will work Tuesday but I'm planning on the kids going to preschool so I should have them covered for Monday and Tuesday. I hope the recovery will be 24 hours as far as being able to take care of the kids.

Love each of you! And a huge thank you for my flowers! They are beautiful and brightened my day!
Kathy

Right now I...

In my last post you read several "right now" statements I made the day I found out we had lost our precious baby. Those "right now" statements voiced where I was at that moment.

Right now I feel let down.
Right now I feel sorry for myself.
Right now I am angry.

I have had a hard time getting the next post together in the time line of events but I want to make a few new "right now" statements.

Right now I feel lifted up.
Right now I feel hurt and pain not only for myself but for all women who have experienced loss. I am saddened when I hear of dear sisters who have not only experienced this but experienced it alone.
Right now I have joy and hope in the midst of my pain. My anger is distant but probably not completely removed. I am praying the Lord will take that away completely.

A few days after the miscarriage I downloaded Steven Curtis Chapman's latest album that he wrote after his daughter was tragically killed. It is an amazing album. One of the songs that spoke to me is titled God Is It True (Trust Me). I can't figure out how to add the song to this post so I just posted it to facebook.

God has been good to me during these past 3 weeks. He continues to provide peace and mercy in the toughest of times.

Jesus sees our suffering

God is pretty amazing. In this whole process he has been so tender and so merciful.

I am in a Wednesday bible study called Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). This bible study is unlike any other bible study I have ever been in. When they say bible study that is what it is. We aren't going through a book or commentary, we are going verse by verse through the book of John. Wow John is packed full of the wonder of Jesus! It shows Jesus ministering over and over to people like you and me. At any rate, I had been a little slow on my homework for this particular week it was Christmas break after all. I decided that since I didn't know where else to turn in my bible I would go ahead and try my homework to see how far I could get. Little did I know God had words for me. Words to encourage me, words to show his great love for me, and most of all words to give me hope.

This particular week we were studying John 9 which tells the story of a blind man. A man who had been blind from birth.

The first thing that I love about this story is verse 1 which says "As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth." That doesn't seem like that interesting of a verse unless you understand that in the Greek the word 'saw' means a searching look at the blind man. The notes provided by BSF goes on to describe is this way "As though in deep sympathy, Jesus saw into this man's lifelong suffering soul and loneliness, as well as the suffering of spiritual ignorance." Jesus had deep sympathy for this man and his suffering.

Back in those days people believed people suffered for their sins and the disciples--followers of Christ, asked who sinned. This man in the womb or his parents that he would be born blind? Jesus responded in verse 3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." This man had lived a life of total blindness, he had no other options but to beg. Assuming he also bought into the idea that his suffering was because of his own guilt imagine the shame he must have felt.

Oh how I can relate to the blind man. You see if you haven't experienced a miscarriage you may not realize the guilt you feel. The questions you ask yourself, the if only's that you play over and over. If only I had known I was pregnant I wouldn't have taken that medicine. Why did I drink so much diet coke? If only I had taken my vitamins every day. The questions are endless. The if only's are hopeless. The answers don't matter and don't change anything. The questions only bring the feeling of more guilt. You begin to wonder if other people think you could have done something different. And at that point the shame enters your mind.

I believe that guilt and shame is one of the root causes for so many women to suffer miscarriage alone. Think about it...if your beloved pet died--would you talk about it? How much more loved is a child regardless of whether that child has been born. Do you only start loving that child the moment they are born? Of course you know the answers to those questions. But my guess is that each person reading this has a friend who they have no idea they have suffered this great loss.

I'm not trying to be critical of the person who chooses to keep a miscarriage to themselves. I'm also not trying to be critical of others who haven't experienced it. I'm just thinking out loud and wondering how we can change these thoughts of guilt and shame. I'm imagining what it would be like if those thoughts and feelings were whisked away with the truth from God's word.

I'm imagining if we responded to people who are hurting the way Jesus did? Not just women who are experiencing miscarriage but anyone who is hurting. How often as Christians do we wonder what secret sin someone is involved in to contribute to their pain? I don't think we think of it exactly in those terms but sadly I think we do it more often than we would admit. Jesus had a searching look where as though in deep sympathy, Jesus saw into this man's suffering soul and loneliness. THEN Jesus healed him AND defended him! That's right not only did Jesus defend him when the disciples asked questions about him. Jesus also sought him out when the Pharisees kicked the guy out of the temple! Jesus found the man after he had been thrown out of the temple and brought the man into a relationship with Him!

Every suffering is a opportunity to know the Lord more intimately. The Lord is seeking you out. He is there to remove all guilt and shame. More next time about our the Lord being our Good Shepherd.

December 30th and the news

Our ultrasound was scheduled for December 30th at 9:30 and like I said in my last post, the day couldn't come fast enough. I had texted some of my closest friends saying "Ultrasound this Wednesday at 930. Please pray for peace for me until then. The first 20 weeks or so are hard on me mentally. I've been struggling a lot this past week. Feelings of fear or another loss."

The night before the ultrasound Ed and I were talking and I asked him if he had any thought of there not being a heartbeat when we did the ultrasound. He said "no". Wow--what was my problem? I had been consumed with it for weeks.

Right before I left for the appointment I ran upstairs and pulled out my "What to Expect When Your Expecting" book and looked at the 9th weeks to make sure we could see the heartbeat. Sure enough we should be able to see it.

The appointment finally came and my worst fears came true. As I lay there on the bed it became clear that there was no heart beat. I began to look at Ed in desperation. Was this really happening? The tech proceeded with the ultrasound without saying anything to us. Finally she told me I could "empty my bladder and get dressed then we could wait back in the waiting area". Ed finally asked if something was wrong. She told us she was not a doctor and could not give us the results of the ultrasound. Well, without saying anything we knew that something was wrong.

**This is not my ultrasound (we didn't get the pictures from mine). This is one I found on the internet but this is what we saw on the ultrasound.

We were sent to Dr Daily's office to get the official news. The rest of the post was my email telling my dear friends our news.

I don't even know how to start this email...

The ultrasound showed a sac that was 8 weeks but no developed baby. What does that mean? The baby never developed but the sac did so in the next couple of days I will start to experience bleeding and my body will get rid of the sac. Since there is no baby I will not have to have a D & C they will just let my body naturally expel everything much like a period.

With the 1s miscarriage the ultrasound was done after I had already been bleeding and there was really no way to tell what had happened because the uterus was completely empty. This time the ultrasound was done anticipating a healthy baby and heartbeat since I have really had no symptoms of a miscarriage. The Dr believes the same thing probably happened with both pregnancies (egg fertilized but baby never developed).

I will have to do blood work every week until my hormone levels get back to 0. When we did the early blood work my levels were increasing as expected and since I haven't started having any signs of a miscarriage they will likely still be climbing or just leveling off. With the 1st miscarriage it took 4 weeks for my levels to reach 0. That means 4 blood draws and I was bleeding most of that time.

I told my Dr I didn't want to start the blood work today so I probably won't go until Monday. Which means I won't know my levels until Tuesday. The levels really don't matter to anyone but the Dr and the only reason I mention them is that it is not fun to go to a lab to get blood drawn to find out yes indeed you are not pregnant.

Mentally and emotionally I am struggling at best. I had been consumed with the thoughts of loss the past 2 weeks and had really expected to hear the heartbeat today and have that weight lifted. My mom has the kids and I sent Ed back to work. I'm getting my hair cut in an hour (still planning on keeping that appointment). I have talked to my mom but saying the words out loud proved to be painful so please don't get your feeling hurt if I don't answer if you call. I know for most of you this is something you cannot completely relate to so I don't want to put undo pressure on you as friends. And having gone through it before I know it is a hard thing for friends to know what to do. Here's some tips (I feel a bit ridiculous typing this but I'm going to anyway).

Go ahead and call--I need it even if I don't have the guts to answer.

Please pray.

Don't be afraid to ask me questions or talk about it.

If you know someone who knew we were pregnant please feel free to tell them. It's not a secret and even if they didn't know we were pregnant I won't be upset if you tell them.

I may (or may not) take a little break from church. It's tough because I know that is where I should be but right this minute I don't feel like it. I'll keep you posted on those thoughts.

As for other thoughts...here they are

It is a loss. This is hard. My heart is broken. I feel like the rug has been ripped out from under me. I am in shock. I will have the tendency to with drawl from people and things. Right now I feel let down. Right now I feel sorry for myself. Right now I am angry.

I have walked this road so I know that I will get through it. My faith was strengthen the 1st time. I expect that to happen again.

I love and cherish each one of you.

Kathy

The Positive Pregnancy Test and the days to follow

***Disclaimer--sorry for being a blog snob and asking you to comment on my blog not facebook. It wasn't because I didn't want people to comment. I just think of my blog as something more like my personal journal. I cherish each word of encouragement regardless of where you post it so post away!***

Around the 1st of December I realized that wow--it had been about 5 weeks since my last period. That's not normal...so tucked away I had a pregnancy test that I took bright and early (after a sleepless night which is very typical of me all through my pregnancies). It was positive and it was positive fast!

I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. With the other pregnancies I have tried and wanted to be creative when I tell Ed but really I'm not all that creative so I have failed each time. This time I put a cute little riddle together which really wasn't a riddle I don't think something to the effect of we had been married 15 years and now we were going to be parents of 3. I don't remember exactly what the riddle was but it was silly and Ed didn't figure it out so I had to tell him what I was trying to tell with the riddle...once again...FAIL!

Ed was excited too. We hadn't completely decided we were going to try for 3 kiddos so it was a nice surprise for both of us. Ed started telling people immediately. I had to slow him down a little bit so that we could at least tell family and close friends. It was so fun to watch him be this excited about this baby.

After the initial excitement and the telling of family and friends. The fear set in. This was my 4th time to be pregnant and the 2nd time it didn't turn out the way I had expected. We miscarried our 2nd baby during the 11th week. Since that miscarriage my doctor has ordered blood work to be done as soon as I have a positive pregnancy test to make sure my hormone levels are rising as they should be. So in week 6 I had 2 blood tests done and got the call from the doctors office that everything looked great. Numbers were where they should be and rising. Praise the Lord. A little rest for my mind.

But as the days past the fear and worry began to set in. I would text my closest friend and confess the fear of another loss and ask her to pray for me. She was faithful to pray. I was faithful to continue to worry. When I am consumed with worry and fear it is hard for me to function. It is hard for me to get out of bed much less eat or drink or take care of my kids. So day by day I would fight this fight. I would pray that I would 'feel' sick so I would 'feel' pregnant. I prayed that the fear and worry would go away but most of all I prayed that everything would be ok with this baby.

I had my 1st OB visit scheduled for January 6th so I knew that sometime before that we would have an ultrasound and we would see the baby and the sweet heartbeat. That day couldn't come fast enough...

Blogging Life in the ups and downs

Our best family Christmas photo of the year. It is so hard to get a good picture of our family. Gunner and Ed both hate having their pictures taken. But I wanted to show our precious family at Christmas. A lot has happened between Christmas and now.

In an act of obedience once again, I am going to expose my latest life hurt to my blogging and Facebook friends. My blog is set up to feed into my notes on Facebook so you could see it both places. If you are a blogger I'm going to be silly and ask you to comment (if you so desire) on my blog not Facebook.

Wow--this is harder to start than I thought...

The family picture is special to me because at the time I was 8 weeks pregnant and having wonderful dreams of what our family would look like next Christmas. Would we have another boy or another girl? How would Gunner and Rylee welcome this new baby into our family? Would I be breastfeeding again? Would I be having many sleepless nights again or would this one be my good sleeper? How would Ed be with baby #3?

Dreams, questions, and thoughts of a how adding this new life to our family would change everything. The sad fact is that this baby, which is actually baby #4 in our family, will and has changed everything but will not live with us on earth. This baby will spend all of its days in the presence of the Lord. This baby will never know the pain and hurt I am experiencing right now. This baby will live with our baby Rose, with Uncle Brian, with my MeeMaw and Pa, with my PawPaw and with Ed's mom whom I have never met. We will have a great reunion one day. Until then I will look for the Lord in this hurt. I will trust in Him. I will share with others my hurt and pain.

In the next couple of days I have decided to blog some emails that I sent to my dear friends during the past couple of weeks with the details and timeline of how everything has happened and I hope to show God's faithfulness in those emails. I hope to show others how He has made a difference for me in this dark time.

I certainly have not arrived by any means but for me this is part of my journey of healing.

Psalm 56:8

You've kept track of my every toss and turn

through the sleepless nights,

Each tear entered in your ledger,

each ache written in your book.