Strength

I have found myself many times over the past year and a half grasping for strength.  It feels like that horrible nightmare where you find yourself suddenly falling and there right above you is a bar only to find that you either a) can't reach it or b) you grasp it only to find that it isn't attached to anything solid either.  Many have told me, "You are so strong.", or "I see the strength in you.".  But is pretending to be strong for the sake of self preservation and for the greater good of those around you really strength....I ponder this...  There are many times that I have to, as I say it, "Put on my big girl pants" and just do it, just get through another tough day, agonizing conversation, whispered prayer, when all I want to do is yell, scream why until I am hoarse, and run away from it all.  I feel like I am strong on the outside - I have to be, it isn't helpful to my children or my husband if I am not.  I have to be, because it makes others uncomfortable if I am not.  But it also makes me uncomfortable - I would rather not be brittle and show my millions of tiny fractures waiting just waiting to break all the way.  I try desperately hard to daily wrap myself with faith, thankfulness for the little things, and grace towards others, but that doesn't stop the depth of the hole in my heart.  Even as I am incredibly aware of the blessing we have at being able to conceive and carry this child within me, I can not help but quake with trembling fear every moment of every day.  You might not see it looking at me, but I am - desperately afraid.  I want this child to be healthy and in our arms and in our home and to be able to learn this amazing child and his or her personality - I want it so desperately that I can feel it - my arms literally ache.  But, I stop myself from begging for it or hoping on it, because it might not be.  My arms and our nursery may remain empty of a new warm being in our lives.  And so I desperately reach for strength, faked or otherwise as I dance daily with hope and fear.  I love Ethan with all of me and I will until the end of time, and to never be able to cuddle him, kiss him, or watch him simply be is a hole that will never heal in this mother's heart.  I have had to surrender one to the earth and leave our knowing until later, and I don't want to have to do it again.  This brittle vessel is not that strong.

Just Have Faith

It is amazing how I can work myself up into a panic over a doctor's appointment.  Even though I know it is coming, and I know that it makes me slightly anxious and I try to prepare myself mentally and emotionally I just can't prepare enough it seems.  Yesterday was no exception.  We had our second trimester ultrasound, and Felix and the boys came along.  The boys were excited to see the baby for the first time, Felix who worries probably more then I do (which is hard to believe, but true) wasn't so excited and yet went along.  I was terrified.  What if this... and what if that.... went through my brain.  Secretly I have been very very worried because with Ethan I didn't feel good or even slight movement from him until I was well into the 20 weeks.  This precious one has been keeping me on pins and needles as well.  I felt the first butterfly movement at almost sixteen weeks and weak ones every now and then ever sense, but I was growing anxious because why weren't they getting stronger and therefore I worried.  Then in the ultrasound yesterday we found out that the placenta is on the front (which I have never had before) and therefore the baby has to kick really hard at this point for me to feel it - because it has a cushion to go through.  As I laid there absorbing this information, the doctor ticking off each organ and body part (though not the boy or girl ones :))  that we are concerned about, I dwelt on the amazing hand of God and the wonder of faith.  I have been anxiously waiting for the movements and kicks and stressing over it and all the while there is a perfectly fine reason why I haven't been feeling them stronger.  I heard the phrase, "Just have faith"  ringing over and over in my head and had to smile and shake my head at my God who never ceases to bring wonder into my life.  There is so much that is unseen in our lives, things that we may never even know God put into work and yet we feel and experience the after shocks not understanding the fullness of it all.  Only God knows.  There is so much that has come into our lives as a result of Ethan's brief life with us - things that we see occasionally and I am sure many things that we will never know - there has been a lot of difficulty, hurt, and pain, but there has also been in equal measure and sometimes more so, grace, mercy, love, and growing in wonder....faith.

Cautiously Optimistic

When we were pregnant with Ethan I had a feeling, but didn't know that something was horribly wrong. This time I know that something is more than likely not okay, and yet I have to trust that the outcome will be much different. For three weeks now I have been spending 6 hours on Fridays in Sanford with an IV in my arm receiving IVIG, and I have 17 more to go. Each time the treatment starts flowing into my vein I breath a heart prayer hoping it reaches God's ear, a prayer that this will do what it is supposed to and keep this little one safe from my antibodies. I find myself begging God for this little one's health, and then I stop myself and think maybe I shouldn't beg. I have begged for the health of my children before and that hasn't turned out very well. So instead I try to find peace, and trust in the faith that I cling to. I wish that God would lean down and tell me that all will be well, but I haven't heard that audible voice and don't anticipate that I will. I don't know where we will be come February, will we be at home cuddling our little one and breathing in that new baby smell - sending peace to my soul, or will we be standing beside another open cold grave? These thoughts swirl through my mind daily, and I struggle to remain calm in this storm. Not only do I feel my own fears, but I have to also daily address the fears of my sons as they are cautiously optimistic about what is going on and what can be a very real outcome. We don't spend a lot of time planning for the coming of this precious child within, we spend more time planning how to breath through each day, and silently praying that there will be good days to come.

Breath Held

I have not written a lot lately because I have been at a loss.  My heart has cried out so many words, but I could not find a way to make them translate through my fingers onto the screen.  I looked back on my past few blogs remembering how they were so close to the one year anniversary of Ethan's entrance into and exit from our arms and all the raw pain that raised again, and how in that moment I felt without but desperately clung to hope.  I remember that next weekend sitting out on the back porch with my husband reminiscing on a beautiful summer night and raising those questions, fears, and dreams that we seem to be only able to say to each other anymore.  All those crazy things that we quietly fear would make others eyebrows raise...  I asked my wonderful husband "What if God doesn't want us to have more children, what if this is our family story?"  He looked at me in his quiet confidence and said, "I have no fears about that, we are going to have more."  I felt hope and disbelief run through my soul at the same time and do a crazy dance there.  I thought on what my husband had said for several days; asking myself if I had that kind of quiet insistent faith.  I felt ashamed to say that I didn't - I still had doubts as to what God could and would do in our lives.  And that plagued me...I desperately wanted to lean into my Savior and believe but I was struggling.  Little did I know then, as I struggled with my faith, my God was doing what I had come to believe was impossible for us and had lost real hope of.  It is now a fact that on the day of that conversation, God had already begun the work of a possibility of a miracle in our lives.  As I write this I am 18 weeks pregnant, and holding my breath.  Believing that God is doing a miracle in our lives, and I am blessed to be a part of it.  Even as I endure the stress, the sleepless nights, the tears, fear, and hours of infusions I have to trust in my Savior because even as I hold my breath, He has breathed new life in me.

Roller Coasters

The mere thought of getting on a roller coaster sets my heart racing.  The last time I was actually physically on one was almost 8 years ago on our honeymoon.  My new husband wanted me to come with him and I, the much in love new wife, agreed - what he did not tell me until we were strapped into our seats with our feet dangling below us was that this was the highest and fastest in the park - gulp....great!  My palms were sweating, my heart threatening to pound out my of chest, my breath was coming in short fast puffs, and my eyes were tightly squeezed shut from that moment until the ride came to a complete stop.  My legs did not quit shaking until we had gotten off, walked a short ways to collect our valuables and I collapsed on a bench.  I will never voluntarily get on another man made roller coaster in my life.  It just is not my idea of fun, never has been and never will be.  What is it about roller coasters that get me - it might be the height, but I enjoy expansive breath taking views in nature...maybe the speed - no really I like the rush....the tummy flopping twists and turns - that probably has a lot to do with it, but what really sets my body into the fight or flight mode is the fear of the unknown.  I have no idea what is going to happen once that seat starts to move and all I can do is pray that it will end, and thankfully it eventually does - probably over much faster then the amount of time I spent in anxiety over the pending ride.  Translate that into my real life roller coaster - up and down, twists and turns, the unexpected, the fear of the unknown, and the speed.  The only difference is that this extreme roller coaster that we find ourselves on right now doesn't seem to want to slow down or stop to allow me some time to recover.  There are definitely days when one thing rushes in after another and the space in time from point A to point B in a day has taken so many twists of emotion and fact that I am dizzy from it all and all I want to do is get off.  A lot of people find roller coasters fun, I don't...I find them exhausting.  But if I am real about it - they are exhausting and this roller coaster of extremes that my life, family and marriage is on right now is exhausting because I do not have control.  I have to rely on the roller coaster operator to get me safely to the end of the ride.  Once I was strapped into the seat on the roller coaster beside my new husband I had no choice but to trust the one in charge - I was in for the ride and went where they took us.  But answering the question of do I truly trust the One who is in charge of this roller coaster of life if much harder.  I feel that I have to be prepared every day for fight or flight and that is exhausting.  I want to desperately believe that the One I believe in is in control and He is guiding us and has for us a hope and a future.  But, really I am desperate for this life passage to quit twisting and turning, for my God to lean down, let me off, and lead me to a resting place.

A Father's Love

I am handing over the blog today to my husband, but first I must say a few words... Watching my husband grieve over the past year has been heart breaking to say the least, but it has also many times given me the strength that I lacked.  When we were hoping for Ethan's life and maintaining our bedside vigil - it was often my husband who kept the spirits up and kept me holding on - he refused to give in and quit fighting for Ethan until Ethan told us he was done fighting - only then did he allow himself to grieve.  He encouraged me while Ethan was still with us to take over Ethan's physical care as much as possible, even when I just wanted to crawl into a corner and cry - and for that I am grateful.   And after Ethan left us, I watched him tenderly wash Ethan's lifeless body and do for him the only thing that he could, after he had stood by so helplessly for two weeks, and then cradle the body of our lifeless son in his arms, rocking him with tears running down his cheeks.  My husband has seen and experienced trauma and death all of his life - he was the only one by his father's side when he passed away, and has lost many family members due to the horrors of war.  He told me after Ethan's death that loosing his son was worse then anything else that he has experienced in his life, and yet he remains strong.  His grief is often a silent one, but there is strength in that.  He spends more time at Ethan's grave site then I do, and he is allowing Ethan's strength of life to impact him and how he lives the rest of his days on earth.   I am honored to have him as a husband and so very thankful that he is Ethan's Daddy.

          From Ethan's Daddy:     As a Father, today is a very important day for me, and also a sad day because Ethan is missing all the fun things that we get to do today as a family. If he were with us today, I would be crawling around on my hands and knees giving elephant back rides, teaching him how to kick a soccer ball, and he would be learning how to build a castle in the sand box. As I watch Simon and Reuben this morning playing in the sand box, I only wish Ethan was with us today as this would have been his first Father’s Day in which he would have been old enough to interact in the experience. As a family, we always do a lot of fun stuff on Father’s Day ranging from biking, playing soccer in the back yard, grilling, playing on the slip and slide, and going bug hunting in our local creek. When I woke up this morning, the first thought that went through my mind was “ I wish Ethan was with us here today”, he would have been over a year old, running around with Daddy, or playing hide and seek, and we would be playing a game from my African tradition “turlala” which my boys love. It is one of those fun silly games that just makes them giggle the whole time you play. Children need our unconditional love whether they succeed or make mistakes; when life is easy and when life is tough. On this day as a father, all I can do today is love the ones I have even more!   But most of all I say to the son I lost to this world:  I love you so much “Tiger”, and I miss you, Love, Daddy.

Praying for Rainbows

This past week has been deeply emotional - I found myself holding back the tears and by the end of each day exhausted  - drained even though I hadn't let the tears flow outwardly.  I relived each day a year ago from the 23rd when our extended family got to meet Ethan and say good-bye; to the 24th when we got to spend one more day with him, just Mommy and Baba and our son, and then let him go; the 25th when we had to mix the sorrow of meeting with the funeral director, with celebrating with new found pastor life friend  the birth of their healthy baby girl - to telling our young sons that their baby brother was never coming home; the 26th was again full of funeral preparations - for myself selecting music to celebrate our love for our son and to grieve his loss, and writing what he was to us and our hearts for the funeral home memorial folder - to spending hours watching over his lifeless form as friends and family gathered to give us their hugs, tears, and love, and closing the casket over him before we left that night; to the 27th - the day we placed his body in the ground - the finality of being cut off from him while we are on earth - I so wanted to wake up from the terrible dream...  I have felt the finality of Ethan's journey from our arms to the arms of Jesus so acutely this past week that at moments I have felt as if I was drowning in the depths.  Lost hope seemed to pile upon lost hope, and the glimmer of God's promises were once again fading from my limited view, and then.... there were rainbows.  When I was young I received a heart prism from my parents - I have treasured it for many years and then the strand that I used to hang it from nails over a window or from a car visor broke and I put it in the back of my jewelry box to fix someday.  I dug it out this week and hung it in my bedroom window to catch the afternoon light - to remind me of the vision of God's promises when I am exhausted at the end of my day.  When we miscarried our first child in April of 2009 for some reason the first thing I wanted to do was to go and get a prism, and so we did; we went to the local gift store and found one shaped like a star - it felt appropriate - I hung it in my dining room window to catch the glorious morning sun  - reminding me of God's unfailing love born new each day.   This week I felt the desire to find a new one - to hang in my kitchen window - where I spend so much time uttering heart prayers, and I did - I found a beautifully hand crafted butterfly prism - rather 5 prisms made by an artist into one.  We were graced the week with a glorious late afternoon and as the sun dipped low in the sky its' light penetrated my kitchen window and set hundreds of rainbows dancing  - across my cabinets, ceiling, and floor - My boys and I grabbed each other's hands and had a silly moment of dancing in the rainbows - while my heart was crying out for God's promises to renew our lives.  Then God gave us one of His - spread across the sky it all of its glory after the rain of heaven washed the earth.   Rainbows - those reminders of God's faithfulness and promise of hope - His covenant - sacred promise to us.  As a family, we have chosen to enter a sacred heart covenant with God - trusting... believing...  even as our human minds find us spinning and sinking into despair.  And so I pray for rainbows - those moments that remind us that God is near - that all hope is not gone, and that no matter the storm - God's light always brings rainbows.