On Waiting For Norah and Advent

Recently I have been feeling a deep sense of longing to meet Norah. I want to look in her eyes. I want her to be here, healthy and whole, and be okay. I just want to hold her and stare at her. I want to know what color her hair is. Will she have Mark’s dark skin, or my fair skin? Will she have very little hair like her momma had or will she have dark hair like her daddy has? Will her nose really look like mine as it does in her sonogram? Of course, I want her to continue growing in utero as she should, but I so desperately want to know she’s going to be okay and that I will get to meet her outside of the womb. I’m sure most mothers can’t wait to meet their babies, so maybe my longing is normal. But I also wonder if my longing isn’t accentuated because I have yet to meet any of our babies outside of the womb, and we have waited so long. I know that along with her birth will come a completely different set of worries, risks, and challenges, but oh, how I want to know her. 

I see her now on ultrasound screens, trusting and hoping she’s okay with each beat of her heart and with every movement, and seeing just a glimpse of her - her little face, her tiny hands and feet, her little neck and shoulders. I love her so much already, and I want to see her without an ultrasound wand between us.

I want these next fifteen weeks or so to fly by. While I’m generally not a person to want to rush life away, I just want to get on the other side of this fifteen week hurdle. I guess the race really started in the fall of 2012, and so now we are hopefully approaching the last leg of the last lap, the last few steps and jumps before crossing the finish line. It’s so close, and I so desperately want the race to end well. 

Looking back over the race, I remember a couple of years ago, where a series of circumstances lead me to a very dark valley. It was a season of sadness and darkness, and I’m scared to think what would happen if I end up in that very place again. In some of my worst moments, self-preservation allows my heart and mind to fill with dread of the “what-ifs”. We have come so far from there. While I trust there will be grace for those days, I don’t want to experience it. I even have a reminder on my phone that says, “But if not, He is still good.” 

The last couple of years I have read some beautiful writings on Advent and longing. I was going back over these posts this week to send to someone, and happened across a comment made by a pregnant woman talking about Advent. I had a bit of a light-bulb moment, relating my longing for Norah to the longing of the Advent season.

Sarah Bessey said on her blog, Would we be so filled with joy at his arrival if we weren’t so filled with longing already? If Christmas is for the joy, then Advent is for the longing. As I learned in particular through our lost babies, one after another after another, the joy born out of suffering and longing is more beautiful for its very complexity. The joy doesn’t erase the longing and the sadness that came before but it does redeem it, it may even stain backwards changing how we look at those days or years. But the joy is made more real, richer and deeper perhaps, because we longed for it with all our hearts for so many days.

I can’t help but think that my perspective, my sense of wonder, my coming joy, my longing, are all so very different, so much deeper, because of our journey. Sarah also said, Now that I have wept, now that I have grieved, now that I have lost, now that I have learned to hold space with and for the ones who are hurting, now I have a place for Advent. Now that I have fallen in step with the man from Nazareth, I want to walk where he walked into the brokenness of this life, and see the Kingdom of God at hand. Now that I have learned how much I need him, I have learned to watch for him. Advent is perhaps for the ones who know longing.

I know that my longing to meet my daughter is a speck of dust in comparison to the longing the world has for a Savior - the collective longing of all the hurts in the world to be healed, needs to be met, and beauty to be made from ashes. 

So this Christmas, as I long to meet Norah Grace, may my longing for my Savior be so much deeper. May my longing for my daughter remind me of the need I have for salvation and the need the world has for redemption.

May my longing not be merely a selfish desire for my own happiness, but may it serve as a catalyst in my heart to draw closer to another tiny baby - a baby wrapped not in a hospital blanket but in rugged swaddling cloths, a baby not laid in a fancy nursery crib, but in humble manger straw. May I find my peace this Christmas not in a perfect pregnancy outcome, but in a perfect, tiny, baby boy named Jesus. 

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death's dark shadows put to flight. 

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

~Kathryn

Peace and Quiet

Peace and quiet, hand in hand. Companions.
Working in the yard. Flowers and vegetables and thoughts. Peace and quiet. 
Peace and Quiet. Uninterrupted sleep until the alarm sounds.
Car rides around town, conversation and music. Peace and Quiet.
Dinnertime. Peace and Quiet. Clanking silverware, conversation. 
Evenings without plans. What to do? Peace and quiet.

It’s funny how quiet can be so loud. Quiet is loud when you know something is missing. 
When quiet is an adversary of peace. When things should look differently.

Working in the yard. Cooing and laughing, distracting the gardeners.
Sleep. Short increments. Always interrupted. 
Car rides around town. Crying until sleep sets in. The same song over and over.
Dinnertime. Food thrown on the table, meltdowns inevitable.
Evenings without plans. Bathtime. Books. Exhaustion. 

Sometimes quiet speaks for itself. 

Yearning for noise and what’s missing today. 

~K

Remembering

You may or may not know that yesterday, October 15th, was National Infant and Pregnancy Loss Awareness Day. I had been looking forward to this day for a couple of months - since I found out that my support group (www.mend.org) would be doing a balloon release in memory of our babies on that day. Karlie came down from Shawnee with her boyfriend to participate in the event, and it was really beautiful.

They had lots of balloons ready to go when we got there!

We were given balloons so that we could write messages to send up to our babies. It was very sweet, and also very emotional. Mark started tearing up as soon as he started writing on the balloon.

After we finished writing on our balloons we took a couple pictures before going outside to release them.

When everyone had finished their balloons, we all went outside on the porch and got in a circle. The leader said a prayer of thanksgiving for our babies and then after the prayer ended we all released them. We watched them go up into the sky until we couldn't see them anymore. It was beautiful.

After the release we had our regular meeting, and it was nice to have so many couples with so many different stories. The cool thing about MEND is that it's remarkable to hear how people work through their grief in so many ways. You can see the healing, the redemption, and Jesus all in the midst of the pain. It's really incredible. You are also surrounded by people who understand how it feels to experience a pregnancy loss, and people are open in sharing. It's people loving other people who are experiencing the same walk in life. I can't say enough good things about it! (-:

After our meeting, we went around and looked at the tables. People brought memorabilia for their babies and it was really special to see what everyone brought. I chose one of my ultrasound pictures, a little lamb, and a card saying that a Bible was donated in memory of our baby.

All in all, it was a perfect evening. (-:

~Kathryn

Baby #1: Part Four

Mark and I were greatly ministered to during and after our loss. Honestly, people still minister to us. Last week I got a card in the mail and a care package, and friends still ask how we are doing. I am doing okay. I'm not really going to sugar coat it - I'm really sad. Some days are better than others. Right now I'm trying to really allow myself to grieve and not push it away. We've had a lot going on lately, obviously the baby, then we were victims of armed robbery last month, and I just feel very overwhelmed. I know that God is working to finish in me the work that he started (Phil. 1:6), and I am working to be strong and wait on the Lord. (Ps. 27:2). All that to say, if you think of us, we appreciate every prayer, and they are needed. I just feel like we have been under attack lately.

So, after our appointment that Thursday, I sent out a group text to friends and family to let everyone know. Within a couple of hours, our pastor's wife showed up on our doorstop with a bag from Braum's full of ingredients to make ice cream sundaes. While I wasn't ready to talk to anyone, Mark answered the door, and she encouraged Mark, shared about her own loss, and gave us the ice cream. After that, my brother had the idea for him and my sister to come down over the weekend from OKC to hang out with us during the day on Saturday just to be supportive. We felt very loved. 

After our appointment on Thursday evening, I knew I wanted something to have in memory of the baby. My due date was October 28th, and the October birthstone is an opal. So, I decided that I wanted an opal ring, and we went to a few different stores in the mall before I settled on this one:

I love it, and I wear it every day. 

Family, friends, and even Mark's work sent us beautiful flowers, which was a bright spot in the midst of our sadness. We had friends that brought up dinner a couple of times, and one friend brought a plate of chocolate chip cookies. These people were the hands and feet of Christ as they ministered to us.

So many beautiful flowers. (-: 

My friend gave me a pair of cute pajama pants and cute socks, both of which I wore on the day of my surgery:

So, we felt so very loved. Not that the timing for these things is ever good, but it happened in April, right when our church was doing a sermon series on death, and right before Mother's Day, Memorial Day, and Father's Day. Kind of like a one-two punch to the stomach. 

I received some sweet cards and sweet words on mother's day:

So, that's the story. We are hanging in there, and appreciate your prayers. A week and a half ago, God laid an idea on my heart for a way to minister to women who have gone through a pregnancy loss. It's still in the works, but has received approval from the "powers that be" (-: so I want to do a separate post about that soon. 

~Kathryn

Baby #1: Part Three

So, I've been procrastinating on this post, because this is the tough one.  This won't be the last one, because I do want to end on a more uplifting note and we received so much love and support afterward. This post is going to be pretty much just facts about what happened.

We went to our ten week OB appointment, and I was about ten weeks, two days. When we got there we met with a nurse for a while and she took all kinds of information from us. After that we went to the exam room. Our doctor came in and asked how I was feeling. I told her I hadn't really been having any morning sickness, and she asked if that concerned me, and I said that I did. I was surprised that her response was intuitive enough to ask how the lack of that symptom made me feel. She turned on the ultrasound machine, and she could see the baby, but couldn't get a very good view. Eventually she decided she needed me to drink more water to get a better picture. I drank the water, and she came back in, and we could see the baby, but the baby wasn't moving. We didn't see a heartbeat, and the baby looked much smaller than what we should have seen. I had been having zero symptoms of a miscarriage.

Then my doctor starting using words like D&C. I was kind of in shock. Our doctor wanted to have confirmation from a more advanced ultrasound machine, and so they went to bat for us on a late Thursday afternoon to make sure someone could squeeze us in that day to confirm. I was so thankful we would have a definite answer that day, and so thankful for the compassion of my doctor and staff. The hospital agreed to fit us in, and it was there that my emotions took over. I am so glad they sent us to have a second ultrasound, so I had two machines and no doubt that there was no heartbeat. The hospital was measuring our baby at about eight weeks, two days, which was about two weeks smaller than what should have been.

We went back from the hospital to our doctor's office, and our nurse was so compassionate. She hugged me, answered all my questions, and set up our procedure for that Monday - which was just shy of the eleven week mark. Mark and I were going to St. Louis that weekend with friends, but they told me I needed to stay close over the weekend, and we had to cancel our trip. We went home and told our family and friends that knew, and I got in the shower an bawled my eyes out.

I went in to my pre-op on Friday, which was much more awful than I was expecting. I thought I would be okay to go by myself, but in hindsight, I should have had someone stay with me. I met with the lab, anesthesiology, and at least one other person before it was all said and done. It was just a little too much.

The procedure on Monday went as well as could be expected, and thankfully, I didn't have any complications. Physically I healed pretty quickly and didn't have much pain overall. Afterward I had pretty much zero control over my emotions, as I'm sure my hormones were on some kind of elaborate roller coaster. I tried to go back to work too soon on Wednesday for a partial day, and had a major meltdown and went back home a few hours later. Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it?

I did go back to work for real, had my post op appointment a couple weeks later, and am in good shape. However, it has taken me three months to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. This week was the first week I hit it. I am very glad for that.

So, those are nuts and bolts. However, we were showered with love, prayer, and support, and I want to highlight that on my next post.

~Kathryn

Baby #1: Part Two

After we got our good HCG level, we were cautiously optimistic. I even bought a few maternity items, a baby name book, and some lotion for stretch marks. You can never start fighting those too early. (-: We were tightening up the budget and planning for October 28th, 2013.

Time ticked by super slowly until the day of our first ultrasound. I figured that the baby should be around 7 weeks, 2 days, and I looked online the night before to get a good idea of what our ultrasound should look like. I wanted to be as educated as I could and know what to expect. I had heard some stories where the ultrasound technicians didn't tell people much at all, and so I wanted to be able to pick the heartbeat out myself.

The morning of the ultrasound, we got to the imaging center very early. They make you drink a bunch of water so they can see clearly, so I drank water and we waited. We finally got into the room and all I wanted to do was see a heartbeat. I laid on the table and he put the probe on my tummy. I stared at the screen, waiting expectantly. First they had to take measurements of my uterus - couldn't that have waited till later? (-; And finally, he started looking for our baby. And sure enough, there was our little bean nugget. I immediately started looking for a heartbeat. I stared at the little blob and then I saw it: a little flicker. I said, "That's a heartbeat, isn't it?" and the technician said, "It sure is." Tears trickled down my face and my eyes just stared at the monitor and that sweet little heart, which I later found out was beating at 149 bpm. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me stay all day and stare at the computer screen, but they did print off some photos for us to keep.

We left the ultrasound center with our photos and a lot of relief. We told my parents that evening and told Mark's family that weekend. We had originally planned on waiting, but some things happened that made us decide to tell them sooner. 

At this point, I believe I was already feeling bloated and looking pregnant - at least to me! (-: I wasn't really experiencing any morning sickness, but I tried not to focus on that. I had read that a small percentage of women don't experience morning sickness, but that your chances of miscarriage are much higher if you don't. I struggle with fear, but I didn't want to focus on a symptom I wasn't having, so I was hopeful that I was in that small percentage of women who didn't have morning sickness but still had a healthy pregnancy. 

The Chris Tomlin song, "God of Angel Armies" was a big radio song at the time, and I claimed that song over me and the baby. In hindsight, I realize God is always by my side, even though it might not always be in the same way I hope.

A friend of mine knew about the pregnancy and told me I was "glowing" and took this hilarious picture of me during church one Sunday and drew a "glow" around me. It was pretty awesome so I wanted to include it:

Ha. Oh, and I bought a pregnancy pillow. Dude, pregnant or not, this thing is AWESOME. It's called a Snoogle:

I started taking weekly pictures at week 7. 

These next pictures are pretty ridiculous. Like I don't think I even really need to go into an explanation of why normally I wouldn't put photos like this on the internet. LOL. However, I feel like this gives a pretty good photo of how big my belly was getting. I believe this was right before ten weeks. 

Oh, and one other thing. (I know this is already a novel). I sang in a concert around this time and wore a black dress and it was pretty darn uncomfortable and I was hoping my belly wouldn't be noticed in it. Here's a photo of my with my mom and dad after the concert. I was going to tell my dad that night, but ended up deciding to wait:

So, that pretty much brings us to right before our first full OB appointment, which was scheduled for about ten weeks, two days. I will write about that in the next post.

~Kathryn

Baby #1: Part One

First of all, I want to say thank you to so many women who reached out to me after last post - whether it was through email, comments, or on Facebook. I appreciated each encouragement I received. You guys are really great.

I've been trying to decide what I want to share. I've decided that even though our baby is no longer with us, I still want to be able to to remember this part of our life and the happy things that went with it. Among other things, I see my blog as a journal. I love going back and being reminded of what we have experienced. And I certainly don't want to forget our little one, even though he or she is no longer with us. I want to write the story, but I also understand if you choose not to read it.

This brings us to February. I had been obsessively using pregnancy tests for a while - squinting at the white space, looking for that second line. There are incredibly cheap test strips online for less than $0.40 a pop, so I didn't feel guilty using them often. Anyway, on a Tuesday night I did a double take on a strip because I had thought I had maybe seen a hint of a shadow of something, but then I ruled it out. The next morning, however, I saw this:

I know, I know. You may or may not even see the super faint second line. However, I had been peeing on enough of those sticks for long enough that I knew this was something new. So, I went on to work with several more tests to use throughout the day. A test at work showed a little clearer (but yes, still very faint):

So, I did what most normal people do: I uploaded this picture into my trying to conceive online community so that people could vote to convince me whether or not this was something. I just checked, and this photo received 61 positive votes, and 2 negative votes. As the day went on and people kept voting yes, I started thinking, maybe this is for real. I knew ANY second line was a positive. So I knew it was for real, but, I wasn't quite completely convinced. 

The next morning was Valentine's Day, and I went to the store on my way to work and picked up the fool-proof digital test. These tests should pick up a little higher level of HCG, and would be more convincing. Sometimes we can tell ourselves the two lines mean nothing, and we need an actual word to prove it. So, I went into the women's bathroom at work and peed on the stick. I sat there and stared at the little digital screen, showing some sort of timer as it calculated my hormone levels. And then, it was there, clear as day:

That was when I started kind of freaking out. And it was Valentine's Day! What a great day and a perfect time to tell my love. A little Valentine's Day baby!

My excitement was rather short lived, however, as later that day I was talking to my friend and I started having some cramping. I was talking to her but just kept thinking, "As long as it's just cramping it's normal, as long as it's just cramping it's normal." When I went to the bathroom I noticed a little bit of blood, and I pretty much put a halt on all things celebratory. When I told Mark that night it was somewhat of a mix of "I have good news and bad news." Not exactly what I was going for.

The next morning (Friday), I had my blood HCG levels drawn, and then scheduled to go back in on Monday to have a redraw. In the meantime, I had a pretty miserable existence - I was experiencing one sided pain, and so I was trying to not completely freak out. We went to a basketball game with my aunt, and it was a nice distraction. I remember really experiencing pregnancy emotions at that game. After the game was over, the two teams lined up and proceeded to shake each other's hands and offer the proverbial "good game." However, my sweet cousin (a high school sophomore) hugged a lot of the opposing team's players - above and beyond the hand shake. I remember feeling very emotional at him hugging the players and thinking something to the effect of, "He is so sweet and kind hearted." And I realized I needed to pull myself together because this was an over reaction. (-:

On Monday morning I found out my first number was 30, which is very low. However, I knew I was very early in my pregnancy (3 weeks and maybe 3 days), and one number doesn't really mean much. It's all about what the numbers are doing. Later that afternoon I found out that my second number was 58. Still very low, but higher. The doctor's office was kind but not very optimistic, and the next day my doctor decided to wait a full week before testing again, to give the numbers time to stew a little. 

In that week of waiting, I decided that even if I was only mommy to that little baby for a short amount of time, I wanted to be a good steward. I had already been taking folic acid while trying to conceive, but I went to my nutritionist and loaded up on all kinds of pre-natals, and asked people to be praying for our little baby.

The weekend before my next draw, I led worship with a dear friend of mine at a women's retreat. It was a very sweet time of worship, and helped me to focus my mind on something else.

Monday came and I went in for my draw (Sidenote: This is my third draw in ten days, and I HATE having my blood drawn). Later that day they called and told me that my number had risen from 58 to 1100! Now that was some serious growth. I was thrilled. They wouldn't give me the all clear, and said we weren't out of the woods yet, but decided to schedule me for an early ultrasound after seven weeks so that they could get a better look at things. 

A week and a half into this (felt like so much longer!), and it had already been quite the roller coaster. This put me somewhere around here with our little sweet pea:

I think that's all for this post. That's a lot of info, and there's more to come, so I will leave it at that.

I hope you guys have a happy weekend - thanks for letting me share! (-:

~Kathryn 

A Happy Medium: A Confession

I've gone back and forth. Mostly settled on "not now," "I'm not ready," and "I'll share when X happens." I think I've settled on a happy medium.

I was walking through our neighborhood with Mark the other day, on a routine leisurely stroll. We passed a couple. The husband was running and his clearly pregnant wife was riding a bicycle next to him - the thing you think about in a picturesque pre-natal walk. Mark and I held hands. He said to me, "I'm sorry." Mark was sorry because she was pregnant, and I am no longer. I mentioned to him that I don't understand why everyone else's babies are okay and healthy and ours wasn't (no exaggeration in our communication, clearly). And Mark responded that there are lots of babies like ours. We just don't see them.

His words resonated with me, probably because they are filled with truth. Losing a baby can be a private struggle. And when it happens, we look around for someone else to help us. Someone to reassure us that what we are feeling is normal. Someone to validate the life lost and the hope and plans that went with it. Someone to say, "It's okay to be sad" and "It's okay to be sad for a while." A friend to say, "We remember your baby," and a friend to say, "It's okay to move forward."

But sometimes, when we see ultrasound pictures on Facebook, EPT digitals with that unmistakeable "pregnant" in our newsfeeds, strollers everywhere, gender reveal parties, pictures of a pregnant person due the same month as us, and that ever present pregnant woman riding a bike through the neighborhood, we can feel very alone. Ugly thoughts of jealousy and bitterness swell as a result of our sin nature. There is genuine joy for those we love who are expecting, and sorrow for our loss. At times, it's a bit overwhelming.

While many women aren't comfortable sharing their losses publicly, for me, I took great comfort in talking with friends who had walked the same debris-filled road I am on. Yet, with it being so private, sometimes it may be hard for a person to know who to talk to.

This bring me back to my debate. Should I share? I think the body of Christ can do amazing things when we encourage each other and share. Maybe something I write will give hope or encouragement to another mommy whose heart or womb feels a little too empty. Perhaps someone will feel comfortable sharing her story with me because I shared mine. Maybe we can all walk this crummy road together, helping each other up when we trip along the way. My emotions are still raw, and maybe, just maybe, they can help someone else. And maybe they will be a help in my own healing.

So, I'm sharing. I had a miscarriage. We lost our baby in April, and I had a D&C just shy of 11 weeks into my pregnancy. I am looking forward to the day when Jesus wins the battle and things are made right. I am hoping to see how this can be made into something that glorifies God. And I am praying that he heals the broken-hearted and binds up our wounds.

This is my first step in sharing. I don't know when the next step will come or what it will be. But I'm taking the first leap.

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"                                                                                        ~Revelation 24:4-5