I'll take you back to the summer of 2008. May 2008, I took my two children who were 3 and 1 1/2 at the time on a week long visit to Houston to chill with my parents so Rod could get some work done on the home we purchased through HUD as an on-going renovation project. During that week, Rod was asked by his employer to take a two week long work trip to Mexico since he already had a current passport. So, Rod and his brother drove down to Houston at the end of that first week and visited with us over the weekend before heading home. We were going to stay with my parents for the next three weeks.
Fun time at Kemah Boardwalk.
Flew back to Tulsa and my normal issues with motion sickness were a million times worse. Praise God for the off-duty Southwest airline attendant who helped me care for Zoe and Gideon and did her best to help me out too. That was a crazy ride. I was wheeled off the airplane in a wheelchair to my waiting husband who was amazing through all of it.
Finally made it home to Tulsa and we were all together. I struggled for that first month to be excited. I honestly had a lot of misgivings and concerns that something wasn't right. But, early pregnancy is full of so many hormones and fears take over. Honestly, I tend to be a paranoid person by nature so it didn't really seem that much different from my first two pregnancies.
We continued with our crazy busy summer. After two weeks at home with normalcy, we headed off to our yearly week at Camp Good News. My husband was the program director and I was a dorm mom and Bible teacher. We took our oldest with us, but our Gideon stayed with his MomMom. It was a long week. I felt horrible with "morning" sickness the whole time.
Picture proof: at Camp Good News feeling the effects.
At the end of the week, we came home and rested for the night. Then I went to a baby shower for a friend who happens to own a 4D Ultrasound business. It was exciting to celebrate her pregnancy while I was finally getting excited about my own. At the shower, I won an ultrasound of my own for this now hoped for baby. I was eleven weeks pregnant at this time.
Exactly a week later, on Saturday August 2nd, we had a big game night planned and had friends invited. As normal in pregnancy, I took my daily, much needed nap. I woke up that afternoon with light, but not light enough bleeding. Called my OB and was told to lay down, put my feet up, and drink lots of water.
So, we relaxed for the afternoon. I got started on a book I'd been putting off reading for forever, oddly enough Twilight - don't judge. As the afternoon progressed toward evening, it was obvious that blood flow was not lessening, but increasing. So, Rod called his parents and they came to get the kids so we could have more flexibility and move quickly if we needed to make a trip to the hospital. We canceled our game night and settled in for the evening. I was praying to keep this baby. So hard. We distracted ourselves as much as possible with t.v. and me with Twilight. Crazy enough, just the sort of fluff I needed at the time.
As the evening progressed, I started having more and more pain. Now, I'd had two births at the time, but both of them I ended up having an epidural with. There are no epidurals for miscarriages. I called my OB again. Trying to find out what was going on: if I was indeed miscarrying and there was no hope or if I should still be doing everything possible to save this baby. As much as I'd loved her before, I felt like she was vague and unwilling to give me much direction. "Be comfortable. Take ibuprofen. Relax as much as you can." I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know there would be so much pain. I didn't know if I should be in a hospital or not.
Thankfully, our deepest pain can be used to carry others through their deepest pain. Rod's Mom, who has faced three maternal losses, was invaluable in her words of help. She confirmed that the pain of the labor I was going through was absolutely and unfortunately normal. I forgot to mention that at this time Rod was in excruciating pain himself from an injury he had sustained to both of his feet while at camp. So much so that when I decided I was scared enough and wanted to know for sure the I was losing my baby and we should go to the ER, he crawled on his hands and knees to get what we needed to be able to leave.
He drove me to the ER. He sat with me in the waiting room of St. Francis' ER. Waiting into the early morning hours. At one point, I decided I had to use the restroom. Made my way to the one in the ER waiting area (which seemed like miles away from the seating area it contained) after telling Rod he didn't have to come wait outside the door. Silly me. I am unsure if I passed just the placenta at that time as I am relatively sure I actually saw the tiny form of our teeny, tiny baby while we were still at home, but I definitely finished the process there and from the loss of blood and sheer magnitude of emotions and mental things going on, I left the bathroom unsure if I could make it to the ER front desk without fainting. Didn't even try to make it to Rod in his much needed chair (foot injury and all), but made my way to the desk, leaned heavily on it, and said I felt like I was going to faint. Wow. That got me right in. Good to know, hopefully for no future reference.
Once they ushered me into the ER area, they put me on a gurney in the hallway as all of the "rooms" were full. They gave me an IV and a drug to help my nausea and dizziness subside. Whatever it was, it made me feel horrible. I went into sheer panic. It is honestly by the grace of God that the craziness going on inside my head stayed only there. I didn't jump out of the bed and scream and run out like I thought of doing. I cried out to God laying in that bed. My eyes were closed and I screamed at Him. I questioned why this was happening. It felt so undeserved. Why did He allow me to get pregnant, when we weren't even trying, if this was going to be the result? When I was finished with all of the mental rage and craziness, partly from the drug and then from finally being able to rest (no more labor pains) and face what had happened, I felt God speak to me in the quiet. Nothing hugely profound, at least maybe not to you, but it was to me at the time and still to this day. It was "at least you have me to yell at". It was then my spirit quieted and I soaked up the fact that I wasn't alone. Even though my sweet husband was with me, I was never aware before until that time that ultimately, in times of sorrow, in times of pain, in times of mental breakdowns, in the time of death.....it is just me and God. No one else walks through that with you.
Finally quieted, they eventually moved us into an examination room where they asked a million questions, checked me, and didn't give me any information. I knew I had miscarried by this point, but everyone spoke to me like it hadn't happened yet. Understandable from a medical point of view - nothing was absolutely confirmed yet - but increasingly infuriating to me! After the examination, they wheeled my bed into a "room", gave Rod a blanket to try and sleep in his chair and said they'd do an ultrasound around 7am the next morning to have a diagnosis.
So, I slept. Amazingly, I slept well. Closed everything out and just slept. I woke when they were wheeling me into an ultrasound room. The tech performed her duty and then I was wheeled back into my "room" to wait for a Doctor to officially let me know my diagnosis.
I really have no idea what time he came....probably close to 9am....and confirmed what I already knew. I had lost my baby. I was released and told to see my OB as soon as they could get me in. We left the hospital numb and so tired. Rod drove us to Sonic and got us some food. While he ran into Wal-Mart to pick up something I can't remember now, I called my mom and told her what had happened. Then we went home and just crashed.
I felt like I had just become excited and overjoyed about another baby and now we were canceling our first ultrasound that was scheduled only three days after I miscarried and beginning a long, long road to recovery. Immediately, we had family and friends loving on us like crazy. I remember my friend and neighbor at the time, Katie, coming and bringing us a homemade calzone for dinner. She sat and talked with me that first day when I honestly didn't want to talk to anyone, but needed to talk to and see her. My sweet, sweet sister-in-law made us a lovely dinner of manicotti. Strange the things you remember. My longest girlfriend outside of my sisters came and dropped off roses. My mom and sisters came and kept everything going while I recovered physically and attempted to recover emotionally. Honestly, there were so many people who cared for us that my memory is fuzzy on the details.
This picture was taken one week after my miscarriage
when we went out to celebrate my mom's birthday. I
remember feeling numb and almost like I was present,
but not really. I was so very sad.
The emotional recovery is ongoing and the hardest part was the first two years. I was seemingly fine and healthy and trying to get on with life and love the good that I had for the first three months after, but I was really struggling inside and felt like I couldn't share that with anyone. Felt like if I was honest about all of the dark thoughts and feelings I was having, they'd commit me! Unfortunately, I shut down. I closed in. I became depressed and really struggled with the idea of staying. I never thought of taking my life, but I fought constantly it seemed at one time the idea of leaving and Rod and the kids being better off without me and all of this ocean of emotion going on in me.
God and Rod were incredibly patient and loving to me. I had so many people praying for me and loving on me, even when I struggled to acknowledge or accept it. I reached a point where I decided to leave the life I once knew and the ideas I'd had about God and take a leap of faith. I was going to try Him. I was going to seek Him. I was going to question Him. I sang and cried out to Him with the songs "There Will Be A Day" by Jeremy Camp and "Whatever You're Doing" by Sanctus Real over and over. Amazing the healing that comes from admitting that I don't understand, I question, but I also have hope and faith that what I believed was true.
"This is where the healing begins...."
By Spring of 2009 I was pregnant again and while fearful and working to trust God, I knew every moment was a gift. Nothing was promised to me: no matter how "good" I lived or thought I looked in God's eyes. I decided to put aside any masks. To stop pleasing people and only care about pleasing God. That desire just continued to increase after Tobyn Valor was born in October of 2009, healthy and truly a "gift from God" as his name means.
We began searching earnestly for authenticity and truth in Spring of 2010. We found so many communities of Jesus (churches) that fulfilled all of that and more, but decided our home community was Lifechurch in August of 2010. Since then, we've solidified our faith and have a passion to be fully devoted followers of Jesus like we had never had before. No more doing things to look good or to "please" God....we learned that does not promise a life without pain. We live from a place of knowing that because of Jesus, God is already pleased with us and we can't do anything to change that. We live, we love, we laugh, we hurt, we know that all things work together for good. I am passionate about telling my story and hope you will be too. I feel like this is only the beginning and I just celebrated the 5th anniversary of baby Xara Hope meeting Jesus before we did. There will be more pain. There will be more joy. This is life and it is beautiful brokenness.
