October 21

Baby Bay would have been due October 21. There are certain dates that are just more difficult than others, so we chose to get away for the weekend with just our little family. It is so crazy how much you can miss someone you've never met and how you deeply you can love someone you've never held in your arms. The brokenness is real, and the grief hits hard and often. 

One day, I do hope to hold a baby Bay in my arms but I know that even if I do, we will always long to have known THIS one, and the three others we won't meet in this life. We grieve this child, the memories we are missing out on, the joy that might have been had, and the life we might have lived. 

It's hard to wait in the silence sometimes, wondering what paths our family might take on this journey, thought God meets us in our need. 

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. 

Happy would-be birth-day little one. We can't wait to meet you some day and we will never stop loving you and remembering your short time in our lives. And thank you to the many sweet friends who reached out to us this weekend. It is so good to be loved and heard and cared for by so many. 

Glory Baby: The Story of #4

On February 17, I was shocked to discover that I was pregnant. You wouldn't think that it would be a surprise, but since it had been nearly 36 months since my last positive test, I think my heart stopped for a second. I was at once overjoyed and terrified. I'd waited until over a week after my missed period, pretty sure that something else had to be going on. For the fourth time, I was pregnant, yet I have no living babies. My eyes immediately welled up with tears as those two bright pink lines showed up right away. I called Carson (on his way to work) and he came home in a split second. We stared at the test and prayed about the life growing inside me.

For the next few weeks, I felt very on-edge. I had pregnancy symptoms that were getting stronger by the day. I had food aversion and exhaustion and insomnia and was so thirsty and went to the bathroom like fifteen times a night (it seemed). We had our long flight to Cleveland planned and I was terrified that somehow flying would rock the boat and cause me to miscarry again. I don't think I've ever prayed so much about anything in my entire life, but every breath I took, every little thing that felt off or wrong or scary, and I was praying for peace and a healthy pregnancy. I had spotting from about six weeks on, and I was in a constant panic.

I was so nervous about making it to the 8 week mark, because that's when I've miscarried pretty much every time - I've never made it to 8 weeks and 1 day. I was supposed to hit that milestone on the day of the wedding, and so I spent that entire day doing my best to sit and rest and not do anything that might hurt this fragile life inside me. I felt a great relief at getting past that point, even though I was still nervous. I was and still am jealous of people who somehow find out they're already thirteen weeks, having made it to that magical date.

On March 17, I had my first doctor's appointment. I wasn't sure what to expect, because I've also never made it to a doctor's appointment in time while pregnant, and because of course, I was in Germany. The doctor thankfully speaks English as well, and because of my history of miscarriage, she decided to do an ultrasound and a blood test.

Being well versed in google searches, I know what an 8 week fetus should look like on an ultrasound. I knew that the image on the screen did not look like the images I would have expected. The doctor guessed that I was just off on my calculations and that all was fine. But you know when you know something just isn't right? Looking at the long awaited image, I fought back tears. There was a baby, on the screen, but even though the doctor tried to reassure me that all was well, the size of the image told me that it was not. They took a blood sample to check out my hormone levels and sent us home.

That was a hard, weird weekend. Carson found things on the internet that suggested that sometimes the ultrasound is off and the baby just measures really small from the get-go and everything is fine. He was a major optimist, while in this, I was absolutely the realist. I felt like we were just sitting around waiting to miscarry the child that was no longer living inside me, but I didn't know for certain. We both struggled. Carson went on a late-night run to get out some of his frustrations, and I camped out in bed, hoping and praying for a miracle.

The following Tuesday, the doctor drew my blood again to compare, having called to say that my numbers from Friday looked really high and good. She planned another ultrasound for that Friday, just to check to see if the baby had grown. I slept most of the day after we got back from the doctor's office, feeling strangely weak and weird.

I didn't sleep at all that night and at 3am, I began to realize that I couldn't sleep because I was in pain. The pain increased and I realized quickly that my body was contracting. I remembered my previous miscarriages as being painful, but they were nothing like this. I was absolutely nauseated, in immense pain, doubled over on the bathroom floor actually moaning. At around 5 in the morning on March 22, at what would have been nine weeks and five days pregnant, exactly three years since my last miscarriage, I miscarried our fourth baby.

The feeling is like no other, laboring in a bathroom to deliver a baby that you will never know in this life. There was extreme pain and extreme sorrow, with absolutely no promise of the joy I hear comes from a live birth. For hours, I sat in that bathroom, at my absolute worst, going through the process of delivery. The last time I miscarried, I was at work, which is also horrible, but this time Carson was by my side, trying to be helpful and clearly wishing he could do something to ease the pain.

It was the strangest thing, and I don't know how to say it well, but once I had miscarried, it was the oddest mixture of sorrow and also great relief. For weeks, I'd prayed for the health of this baby. I prayed that my body could protect it while it lived inside me. I was consumed with doing what I was capable of doing to keep it safe - eating right, drinking lots of water, doing my best to rest and not do anything strenuous. When I lost the baby, I felt a strange peace at knowing that it was no longer in my hands at all. I could not physically do anything more for that baby, and though my body failed me once again in this task, I knew that God was more than capable of taking this little life in His hands. I feel like my body is my own a little more than I did before, and I think about how I wish that wasn't the case. I wanted the nausea and bloating and all that went along with it.

Life now feels oddly normal. It feels surreal to think that I was actually pregnant just a little over a month ago. This is going to sound very pity-party of me, but life now is familiar territory. The emptiness is a little bit routine. There were a few weeks where we got to live an unfamiliar life and to navigate the world of pregnancy, and now it's a little bit business as usual.

We buried the baby under a tree in the backyard here, and Carson fashioned a cross out of some sticks. Two weeks after we buried the baby, we came home to the most beautiful white flowers on the tree. It feels strange to walk past that spot on our way to the lake, knowing a part of our family will always be there. It will feel wrong to leave our baby in Germany when we go home. In October, we will do something on the day our baby was due to remember this loss, and to remind ourselves to keep pressing on in the Lord.

This journey is hard, harder than I expected it to be, and longer too, and we still pray that one day, in some way, we would be given the opportunity to raise children. We can't and won't forget the four that we've lost, or this chapter of our lives, and I pray that all of this will make us better parents and more committed followers of Christ. 

A Difficult Surrender

In January, we chose a word of the year: joy.

We chose "joy" because we felt that we were relatively accepting of the life we'd been given. We deeply desire a family and this year will be our fifth of waiting on that blessing. Over the past few years, we've struggled with a variety of issues relating to this and I think that in a sense we've become content with where we are in this journey. I really felt sort of mentally pushed toward the idea of being joyful in all circumstances, not just accepting them but receiving whatever hand we're dealt with a sense of thankfulness and peace that only comes from God.

The one thing I both love and hate about choosing a word like this to focus on is that it seems like that gets tested right away. Nearly immediately after the year began, it became difficult to choose joy. Something that sort of rocked the boat happened, and my commitment to being joyful plummeted and my worry and fear took over. It seemed natural and logical at the time, but in truth, I was saddened by how quickly my desire to live out this characteristic and word faded away when difficult things happened. 

I was up thinking the other night about all of these things, and trying to make myself not worry while also making a mental list of more things to worry about, when Psalm 4:8 popped into my head: "In peace, I will both lie down and sleep; for YOU ALONE, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." My immediate reaction to that verse was humility. There I was, thinking of more and more ways to worry my way into slumber, when I have Someone who is more than sufficient to take these worries upon Himself. It is a difficult surrender. 

The other day I mentioned wanting to "pull the golden thread" to Carson, and he didn't know what I was talking about. It's a story I remember reading as a child in the Children's Book of Virtues (I remember so many of these little stories and was so glad to find a nicely used copy at a thrift store last summer). In the story, there is a young man who is frustrated by the time he's been waiting for something and so one day he happens upon an old woman who gives him a spool of golden thread with a warning: you can pull the thread to move ahead to events in life, but you can't put it back. So the boy pulls the thread to shorten his school days, his engagement, the difficult years when his children are young... and one day he looks over and realizes that he's an old man and has completely missed out on his entire life. He finds the old woman and asks her if there is a way to push some of the thread back into the ball so he could relive the parts that he missed. There is not of course, and he missed his whole life. It turns out that the whole thing was a dream, so when he wakes up, he gets to live that same life over but without any skips. (I found an adaptation of the story here, and the cartoon with the story I also remember from Adventures From the Book of Virtues on YouTube)

The waiting is hard, but worth it. I think sometimes if I had a golden thread, I'd like to pull it just so I could get to the "other side" of this, but maybe there isn't another side. Maybe there's more waiting, or more wondering, or something else that I' can't imagine. Either way, I feel pretty confident that the journey is going to be worth it in the end. And I'm very thankful to not have the temptation of skipping ahead.

Worry isn't something that is going away as a struggle of mine, it's sticking around for the long haul. It's going to be that thing that when I'm 90, I'm battling. But I don't want to get to 90, or 29 for that matter, and suddenly realize that all my life I've been holding on to being in control. I don't want to trudge through life looking for things to worry about and focusing on what I can't change. I'd love for my nights to be for sleep and not for worry, and to be thankful when things are hard and when they're good. I want to thank God for what He's given me and then surrender my fears to Him. 

It's so hard. It sounds really easy and simple and I think that's what makes it so difficult. It's very easy to say things to myself like "Oh, but you have to plan ahead!" or "Oh, but I'm only googling this so I have peace of mind" and to turn to little things like that while slowly turning away from putting trust in God and confidence in His plan. 

So, joy, thankfulness, trust. These are things that are a burden right now. They are the difficult surrender as I attempt to place my will in line with God's plan. When He says no and I want it to be yes, choosing joy is hard. When He says turn right and I'd like to go left, it's still not easy. I want the control. I want the knowledge. I want to pull the golden thread and zoom ahead to the good parts. But the joy is not just in the good. It is in the heart of the struggle, it is in the yoke of trusting God's plan. It is in the everyday of looking to the cross and running the race that is set before us. 

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication WITH thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:4-7)

Second Birthday

If I'm reading a book and I get nervous about the possible outcome, I flip to the end, breathe a sigh of relief because I know what's going to happen, and keep reading. I do the same thing with movie plots. It drives Carson a little crazy, but it relieves the pressure since I know what will happen and we just have to get there in the story. I can rest easily even if I know that something bad happens, because I know what's in the future.

Unfortunately, life doesn't offer the same comfort.

Had he or she arrived on the due date, our third baby would be two years old today.

Two years ago today, instead of sitting anywhere near a hospital delivery room, we took a little getaway to Destin to think and pray and to be sad about things that might have been. It was a good weekend in a beautiful place and it was good to get away from our regular life for a few days and clear our heads.

I am thankful that I didn't have a window into the future, because I don't think I could have handled knowing that over two and a half years after my last pregnancy (which ended in March of 2014), there would be no progress on that front. We have a bunch of doctor's appointments and countless vials of blood saying everything is great, looks great, should be perfect, and at the same time, every month tells me that things are not great.

How do you deal with this? How do you live in what doctors are calling a healthy body, and yet that body just doesn't do what it's supposed to do?

It seems clear to me that for right now, waiting is the name of the game. Sometimes I am very okay with this, and sometimes I am very NOT okay with this. Is it hard to have a friend announce a pregnancy that's seemed to happen rather easily? Yes. Is it hard to have friends announce subsequent pregnancies? Yes. Is it hard feeling really really left out of what it's like to be a parent when nearly all my friends are parents? Yes. But in the day to day, it's sometimes not very hard. I wonder about our future family every day, and I ache to know if and how our dreams of becoming parents might be a reality. We've prayed about a number of different avenues to parenthood, and I really have no idea what's best.

So we wait. 

If I could, I'd love to pull the golden string and skip ahead to the "good part". I think there's a reason that isn't an option though, and I think that's because the journey matters. The pain and the heartache and the prayers and the tears? Those aren't pointless; they are shaping us. I pray that if one day we are blessed with a child, this time of life will not be forgotten. I pray that it has shaped us and changed us and made us grateful and thankful. If one day we are not blessed with a child, I pray that we are grateful and thankful with that, as hard as that would be.

Will there be a day where I give birth? Will there be a day when we adopt? Will there be a day when we look at each other and come to the realization that the waiting has ended and that it will be the two of us forever? It's too much. I am glad that a window to the future didn't exist two years ago, and although perhaps a hint would be nice, part of me is a little glad I have no idea what things will be like in two more years. 

I am not a brave person, and this journey overwhelms me. It is hard, but I don't think it's impossible, and I know that despite the hard parts, it is good. 

We wait tearfully, and hopefully, maybe, we will wait well. 

Taken on that trip to Destin, two years ago

A Future Hope

It seems like so much has happened in the course of just two years. Our time in Cleveland hadn't even started two years ago and here we are, one week away from a move to Florida.

Two years ago today, we lost our first baby.

When I think about it, those long two years seem not so long ago after all. The pain and emotion of that day two years ago will stick with me forever.

Though I've lost three babies, the first has been the one I grieved the most. With that pregnancy, I had complete hope and almost no fear. I was excited and happy. With the others, what I'd experienced plagued the back of my brain. Every semi-abnormal thing became a point of alarm, to the point where Carson found me weeping on the floor one afternoon, terrified of what might happen. Crying again, when it did. It's been a good two years, but also difficult. Marked with more sadness than I've ever experienced in my admittedly easy life.

I never got to hold any of those babies, or even see them in an ultrasound. I wonder all the time, what would that have been like? How would I have felt at the first listen of a heartbeat, the first glimpse on a blurry screen, feeling those first kicks?

It's that way though, I think. When we grieve, we grieve the memories, the tangible. When an unborn child is lost, there isn't much to hold onto. It's the grieving of what might have been, memories that could have been made: first birthdays, first steps, loose teeth. All I've experienced of motherhood has been nausea, food aversion and sleeplessness, and still, I long for that again. Amidst those not-fun experiences was something greater. There was the hope that one day, I would see a sweet little red-faced baby screaming as his lungs breathed on their own for the first time, hold him close and calm him. For someone who never heard so much as a heartbeat, I loved, and I longed for the day when I got to see that love face to face.

I can't stop there without talking about the hope that I really have. Because of miscarriage, I have become more aware of the grace of God in my life.
I know that we live in a broken world. Because of this, there is sin, there is pain, there is loss like we shouldn't have experienced. I know that there is more. I know that through the brokenness, God desires to make new. I know that He heals, and makes complete. Through the death of His own perfect Son Jesus, God not only experienced loss, but He also made new. Because of the cross, I can rest in the promise that God will restore all of creation. The world itself continues to be broken and full of pain. But there is more waiting. I know that I will one day spend my days in eternity, and I'll see Him face to face.

Despite the sadness and the brokenness I've become more aware of in the past two years, I've also been more convinced of the truth of the gospel. I am more aware that God is who He says He is. I know that I have a peace and a hope in Christ that I find nowhere else. Two years later, I find myself still struggling, still having difficult days, but ultimately more aware that I live for a future hope found in Christ.

No storm can shake our inmost calm

While to that refuge clinging;

Since Christ is Lord of Heaven and earth,

How can I keep from singing?

(song found here)

I Just Haven't Met You Yet

In dealing with life and loss, I have often thought about what I would say to people when they ask me how many children I have. The truth is that I do not currently have any, but I have had pregnancies and am, in some sense of the word, a mother.

The truth is that it hurts quite a bit when people say "You've been married almost four years? And you have no kids? Why IS that?" because of two things. One, it's not their business. And two, I would like children very much, thank you, and I don't need the reminder. They don't know, couldn't, that in reality it is a very hurtful thing to bring up. That there are lots of people with perfectly good health with seemingly nothing wrong who for some reason that isn't explained, lose their pregnancies. They couldn't understand how "You need to get on that" or even, "You're quite young; it probably wouldn't hurt to wait a little" actually does hurt. 

The truth is that I hear of friends' pregnancies in cute Facebook announcements and get a little catch in my throat. That I mentally calculate how old my babies might be, and what it might be like to tell people you're pregnant and not "I lost another baby". That I get nervous when one of those public announcements goes out before the first trimester is over. 

The truth is that it hurts that not a day goes by that I don't think of the babies I've lost. I would have thought that I'd get to the place where it was a distant memory, but it isn't. It's not fresh, but I never forget what I have lost. 

I wear a necklace with a January birthstone on it and it isn't a superstitious thing. I know that my due-in-January baby is not with me when I wear it (which is every day) but it is my small way of saying "I loved this little one and this is the way I choose to honor that". I have nothing else tangible as a reminder. I cannot pick up and look at a favorite blanket or a first outfit to remind me that I was, for a short time, pregnant. I have no idea who my babies might have been or what they looked like. I never felt a kick or even a flutter of life. 

I still love. I still miss. I still think about what might have been. 

The past, what I know of pregnancy, has not been full of happy memories. I have always looked forward to pregnancy. Not that it would be rosy and wonderful, but there would be the promise of life. There would be an end to pregnancy and a beginning to a huge chapter of life. Mine began and ended in a matter of a few short weeks. 

Naive as it may sound, I still look forward. Not innocently as before, as I wish it were. I look forward with the hope that one day I will know what that little flutter feels like. That I will know what it's like to have a belly so huge you can't see your feet. That I will hear that first healthy cry. I hope for these things. I hurt because I want them but I don't know what the future holds. I might always hope, and never get what I want. 

In addition to that hope, I look forward to one day knowing the babies I have never seen. I believe, fully, that that WILL happen. I believe that having a healthy pregnancy is not a promise that I have, but that seeing my children one day definitely is. 

I can't imagine what that might be like. I really cannot fathom seeing the ones over whom I have grieved. How can I? I don't know what they look like. I don't have faces or names to go by so I really can't process what the moment might be like. 

But I do look forward. I look forward to seeing my little ones one day in heaven. I look forward to hearing them tell me what it's like to have been with Jesus from before birth, to have never known pain or grief or loss themselves. They have the fullness of glory which I cannot even imagine. They have the one who knit them in my womb. They have God Himself. 

For Those Who Fear the Unknown

Written 6 March 2014 and published as if I'd posted it in 2014. At the time I wrote this, I was pregnant, had just spotted a lot, and I didn't know what was going to happen. I freaked out and I stayed scared. On March 22, I did miscarry this baby. It was not an easy thing.

I hate not knowing in the big picture.

I've always wanted to be pregnant, but I never considered that it was a scary undertaking. There's unknown morning sickness that could strike at any moment, lists of foods and drinks to avoid, things you can't do... and sometimes even when you obey all the rules, things go wrong.

In my world, if you follow the rules, everything should be fine. People who stay on the path are safe, right?

Welcome to life, Lindsay.

There have been several sets of circumstances in my life that seemed like mountains, and right now, pregnancy is the one looming in front of me. I've already suffered loss, so my senses are heightened. Any pain I feel brings on the "certainty" that I will lose this baby. Any time I feel funny, or suddenly feel just perfectly normal, I assume the worst. In my head, this will change as time progresses and I pass the 13 week mark, but right now? Time seems to be standing still, just waiting for that one moment when... surprise, surprise, I lose the baby.

But the thing about pregnancy and the thing about life is that you miss out on a lot if you're scared about what's behind the bend. Yes, I could lose my baby (which to be honest feels incredibly real right now even though I wish it didn't), but if I don't or if I do, I don't want to live like I'm preparing for a trip to a funeral home. A child is a miracle. Pregnancy is a blessing. If I live in fear of what might happen tomorrow, I miss out on today.

 One of the things I remember from the first time I was pregnant was the absolute joy I felt. I was on cloud 9. I downloaded What to Expect When You're Expecting on my Kindle and read the whole thing (minus the post-birth stuff... whole other obstacle) on the plane to Ukraine. I thought about names, I planned how I'd tell my family and friends... and I don't regret those plannings and that joy. It helped me as I grieved, because it showed me how much I loved the little life inside me.

This time around, there's naturally heightened sensation. I wish I could shake the feeling of fear that I have, but I know that I can't. I wish I could speed up time, but the days are seriously d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g by.

Hebrews 12 begins with a reminder to lay aside "every weight, and sin which clings so closely" to run toward Jesus. Instead of focusing on the things that slow us down or might entangle us or get in the way, we are to look ahead -- "looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith". Why? Because "for the joy that was set before Him [He] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God". It goes on to list other thing Jesus endured in His pursuit of the cross.

Though this passage isn't a perfect parallel to my situation, it hits the nail on the head for me. Instead of thinking about my fears and what might happen and what could be the eventual turn of events, I have to look forward. Thankfully I already have my hope in Jesus - I look toward Him, I run toward Him as my hope. If I were to put my hope in things on this earth, like feeling secure, I would be surrounding myself with my fears, allowing myself to be surrounded by them. Instead of that, in Jesus, I look ahead. I look to Him as my hope. I know that no matter what happens, He is the founder and perfecter of my faith and I can trust Him even in troubling times.

I don't have perfect faith and I don't think I'm guaranteed it in this life.
. I still get scared, but in Him I know there's more. He holds the future and has purpose, and though I may not understand it, I can give Him those fears and run unbound by the things I'm afraid of.

It's Been Three

The summer has been so long. It feels like a million things have happened in the few months since I graduated. If I were to use just one word to describe the summer as a whole, I'm not sure if I would use "crazy" or just "difficult". It's been both.

Today, it's been three months since my miscarriage.

The move was an excellent distraction. I got totally caught up in goodbyes and packing and three full days of driving, then unpacking and finding a job and getting settled. But as I settle in more and more, I have fewer things keeping me busy. For one, we know a small handful of people here, not the large circle of friends we kept in Spokane. Two, Carson is gone most of the day and I work unpredictable hours. This gives me lots of time to think.

And today, my thinking has been about our baby.

I'm sad today, thinking back to three months ago. That was easily the worst day of my life; every day since then has been progressively better. I'm healing today, thanks to the blessings of time and perspective.

But it still hurts.
Not too long ago, I was in line at Target. I heard the squeaky cry of a newborn baby and buried my head in Carson's arm, crying. As happy as I am for the friends and relatives who've recently announced pregnancies, I get a lump in my throat. I've cried more tears in the past three months than I can remember crying in any other period of my life.

We've been so blessed by the people around us that I can't end on a "this is so sad" sort of note. Because while I am sad, I am still amazed by how the Body of Christ has wrapped its arms around us. Simple emails, letters, phone calls, Facebook messages, comments on the blog have amazed me. Stories from other women have encouraged me. People have come up, hugged my neck, and prayed for us in church. Two friends brought brownies and flowers.

I've been amazed by all the giving that has happened in our lives because of this. We have been so blessed, so encouraged, so in awe of what Jesus is doing in His church. I wouldn't have seen that if not for this, so while I'm not glad that it happened, God has given us great encouragement as a result.

The healing is going to take awhile, and I'm pretty sure it will never be complete, but even in the face of this storm, we have seen God's goodness. We eagerly wait the day that we will see our sweet child's face.

I can't imagine heaven's lullabies
And what they must sound like
But I will rest in knowing
Heaven is your home
And it's all you'll ever know
All you'll ever know

From Glory Baby, by Watermark