A tiny jewelry box

Two and a half years ago I found myself at Target one night thinking, for sure, everyone knew what creepy mission I was on. It felt like I was branded with a sign that read something like "incompetent" or "failure". I was there to find a box to bury my two inch long daughter in, the daughter my body had let go...the daughter my body was supposed to grow into a full sized baby and deliver safely to the font. But, of course, my body does the bidding of our Lord, Jesus Christ. And His will is perfect and beautiful even when my human heart wants so desperately for things to go my way. And so I wandered the aisles. The kitchen section? The storage section? Where on earth does one look? As I wandered around an end cap caught my eye...jewelry. Of course, a jewelry box. After all, my baby is a treasure.

My apple tree snowing delicate petals towards our babies' garden this spring. 

This past weekend my family all began to fall ill. We had unknowingly been exposed to an awful flu virus just as we were supposed to be preparing to go out of town and I was feeling pretty angry about it. I began praying, "Lord, please don't let..." before I could even get the selfish request out, I chided myself mentally. What is He? A God vending machine? Sigh. I wrestled with my thoughts as I hung up shirts on my husband's side of the closet. "Lord, I don't know what to pray. We can't get sick now...Lord, teach me how to pray. How should I pray?" I hung a few more shirts while the baby on my back kicked and grabbed at my hand. The baby on my back....I have a baby. I thought back over that awful year...Anastasia...Amadeus...Alleluia...Mercy....Noel...my Genesis (screen name only). Why did the Lord let him stay? Why after all those losses?

But look at all the good. I won't dare selfishly proclaim that I know why the Lord gave and received home those 5 children or pretend that those children going home have anything to do with a timeline that allowed other things in my life to play out as they have. God does not use children as pawns like that, they are just as important as my life or any other's. No, but He DOES work all things together for the good.

I tried my prayer again. "Lord, I really do not want to be ill right now. My family needs me. And I don't want my children or husband to be ill, we really need to get through this trip. But, Lord, you know all things, you know what is truly for our good. And if it is your will for me to be ill, please help me bear it with...endurance?....strength?...yes, and even thanksgiving and...(gulp) joy. Help me to remember that you are my Great Physician and, according to your will, lift us back up in due time and restore our health. Amen."

The baby on my back squealed and yanked on my hair while kicking me in my hip. "Yea, help me to tolerate that too, Lord," I laughed. And suddenly I thought back to my elementary school history lessons..."Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness..." I snorted. For the Christian, there is no such thing as the pursuit of happiness. It is a lie and it actually serves to steal our joy. If happiness is felt, it is something to give thanks for, but to set it as our focus and to pursue it ignores that life is not, and never has been, about pursuing happiness. I learned that the year I watched 5 babies go home to Jesus. Sometimes the reason hard things hurt so badly is because we think we deserve them and that to not have them is an injustice to our happiness. But life is about love. Life is about service. Life is about the least of these. Life is about dying in order to live.

Fear

"Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the LORD, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven." (Psalm 107:23-30 ESV, emphasis mine)


This passage has become one of my all time favorite Bible passages. One of the reasons it is my favorite is because of the verse in bold. Well, and the last verse of the passage because haven is one of our children in heaven's middle names.


We've all known fear: deep, intimate, soul crushing fear. Combine fear with another emotion/weakness like grief, illness, despair, etc and what you face turns down right ugly. They mounted up to the heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight...


I had just turned 29 when I faced my first miscarriage where I thought I was dying. My dr had prescribed a medication to take after the baby's body emerged to prevent post birth hemorrhage. What she did not know from the very short time I was her patient was that I have very low blood pressure, and I did not know that this medication lowers blood pressure. So, 20 minutes after taking the medication I had two crushing contractions, by far the worst pain I have ever felt (even after giving birth to four full term babies with no drugs), my vision went black, and I lost the ability to speak. My only thought, due to research I had done in preparation for having the miscarriage at home, was that due to my symptoms of extreme dizziness and blacking out I had something blocking the way out in my uterus and I was bleeding out internally. I knew this could mean death and I remember screaming in my mind, "Lord! No! Please not like this! Please don't let me die in front of my husband with my kids right on the other side of the door playing!" I imagined my kids growing up knowing their mommy died while having a miscarriage at home in the bathroom. That thought still makes me sick.


Last year I faced my own mortality more times than I care to talk about. My body kind of likes to bleed, a lot, and when with my second loss at 11 weeks I tried to get my OB to perform a d&c and, instead, she sent me home with cytotec to induce while again at home with my husband and kids I had to have a good cry in my bedroom before I had the courage to start. That time I really did have something get stuck, began to have severe dizziness after waking up from several hours of sleep with no further bleeding and my husband helped save my life by putting his weight onto my abdomen to push it out. That man and I have had good times.


And now I'm facing another full term birth. Those have been fun too. But we won't go there.


Fear. It creeps up on you, stealing your joy, making you despise the gifts God has given to you, causing you to lay sweating in the night as you fight of the demons that attack you as you face the wages of sin: death.


But...if death does not end in hell, in punishment, then where is its sting? Where is its victory? It's like being certain someone has broken into your house and you're seconds away from being slayed where you stand only to have a furry kitten poke it's head around the corner and nuzzle you. (Though my husband would say that's about just as bad. ;)


Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.


I'm terrified to give birth. I'm afraid my baby and I won't make it to the other side of birth alive. I'm afraid of the pain and agony that is transition for me. I'm afraid of having horrific tearing like I've had in the past. I'm afraid of that moment when you realize something is going very very wrong and there is nothing but faces all around you unable to make it stop.


"they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven."


Lord, hush the storm, deliver us, and bring us at last to the safe haven of Holy Baptism. Christ keep us.

In the waiting

My journey through pregnancy loss started and ended the exact same way. In December of 2010 I was blessed to conceive my little Hosanna Grace. In fact, I was able to slip the positive pregnancy test into my husband's stocking on Christmas morning. On January 6, 2011 she went home to the Lord. Very soon afterwards I conceived my fourth living child and he was due November 14, 2011. He was born into my hands on Nov. 4, 10 days early.

In December of 2012 I was blessed to conceive our 6th child, Anastasia Joy. Three months later she went home to the Lord as did our next three children that year. Then in December of 2013 I conceived our Noel Eve. On January 9, 2014 Noel went home to heaven.

I am now due, just as I was right after our very first loss, on Nov. 14. Less than a month away from my due date I no longer feel like I'm drowning in an inescapable whirlpool of death and nightmares. I always knew the Lord was with me, above and before me, but original sin is a beast. And when one is faced with inescapable death, old Adam loses his ability to congratulate himself for anything because the thing that is most important to mother at the moment is protecting her child and in repeat pregnancy loss we are rendered helpless, and it's so easy to despair.

I haven't had any ultrasounds this pregnancy since three weeks before the first trimester ended. Maybe I should have because it's been very easy to feel very removed this whole pregnancy. It's been hard to attach, hard to believe any of it is real, and hard to feel any bond with the baby within. Though, emotions are so fleeting anyways and I was so overwhelmed by them for months on end that I feel like it's OK to not be emotional if I don't want to. Baby does not need me to be emotional. And it doesn't matter if I "feel" attached. The reality is, I am, very physically speaking, and my body is doing what needs to be done with or without my emotions. Thanks be to God.

So here I am waiting, may the Lord deliver me in His perfect time and may my child be brought quickly, so quickly to the font of Holy Baptism.

Anastasia Joy, due August 2013

Abel 8-11-13

It was supposed to be our only family vacation of the year. We were on a gorgeous lake, in a mansion of a lake house, with friends. I was newly pregnant and thinking that since I had conceived only two weeks after my previous miscarriage, that this one would stay. My sister had once conceived just weeks after a miscarriage and had twins 8 months later. I was elated. 

But that week went from bad to worse. Since I was pregnant I declined all sorts of bad foods, drinks, and did not ride the jet skis I had been looking forward to. I skipped the long horse back trail ride I had wanted to do with my two oldest...which meant they had to skip it too. And then, one night while miniature golfing, my body began to let me know something was going very wrong. I felt hot and then cold over and over. I felt clammy and dizzy and nauseous and had a head ache all at once. 

The next morning I found out from my OB that my progesterone, which had been taken four days earlier but no one had bothered to call with the results, was critically low. We spent and entire day of our vacation dealing with a huge battle at the pharmacy in town, spent over $100 out of pocket for the prescription, and a day later, Abel went home. 

Alleluia Abel...Praise the LORD, a breath. 

I sat on the bedroom floor with my knees drawn up to my chest, rocking back and forth and sobbing. I had just woken up and when I went to the restroom...well, Abel was gone. My family was already all up and eating breakfast with our friends on our last day of vacation and I didn't know what to do...go out and announce to everyone I was miscarrying? Try to get my husband's attention and take him back to the room to tell him? 

Instead I just sat there in the room crying until he came in to get dressed and found me there. By then the name had come to me. Alleluia was because the hymns I kept singing to comfort myself all seemed to have "Alleluia" in them (especially "Alleluia Song of Gladness, LSB 417) and I knew as one who grieves with hope I had to cling to "Alleluia". I chose Abel because I suddenly felt at the same time so angry and hopeless over this third loss of the year that for the first time I found myself really thinking on the story of Cain and Abel and my heart hurt for Eve...this woman who believes so strongly in the promise that at the birth of her first son she declares him to be the LORD, only to have her one son kill the other. When I looked up what Abel means it seemed even more fitting. 

Today my husband carried in a box from the mail as I busily prepared lunch. "What's that?" I asked. He smiled and handed it to me...I smiled back. I always smile when cards or packages from her show up. Why? Because it's not only a card or package, but it always shows up so humbly with no previous announcement, it's just there so sweetly with beautiful handwriting and even packaged with such great care. 

I immediately stopped lunch preparations to open it, wondering what I was forgetting that a package was showing up. Inside the package was a small cellophane bag with two sprigs of white silk lilies. I was completely stumped. I opened the card and before I could even read all the words my eyes fell on his name, my little Alleluia Abel. She remembered. This sweet friend and her husband, whom my husband and I had asked to be his Godparents before we lost him, first sent a crucifix on his due date and now, in remembrance of the week of his pregnancy and home-going, lilies to adorn his cross with as we all look forward with such hope and joy to our reunion in heaven. 

Now this cross is on a prominent wall in our living room, just above my and my husband's wedding photos, and I stare at it blooming in all its hope and feel as eager as a child on Christmas Eve. Abel! How I long to see you, touch you, and as a mother, rejoice in our reunion in Christ's Heavenly Kingdom. I love you my son. 

And to my dear friend and sister, you are a sweet pearl of a friend, your thoughtfulness and love remind me so dearly of the love of Christ. Thank you. 

It's that time of year

This week I have found myself randomly getting choked up and needing to cry. I thought it was the extra stress of watching someone else's child full time but it's strange how a Mama heart works.

This week last year I conceived our little Alleluia Abel and had just lost Amadeus two weeks prior. I remember how excited and giddy I was when I went for my post miscarriage visit with my OB and she advised that I wait one cycle before we allow conception and I chuckled and said, "um, you should have mentioned that last time, it might be too late." I knew I was pregnant. I'm four weeks away from when I lost Abel and, at the same time, our Easter Lily in the grave yard has decided to bloom...5 blooms. The memories of last summer are so strong even as I feel the constant kicks of the baby inside of me.

God has chosen for now to turn my mourning into dancing in expectation of this sweet baby we're carrying, but I don't suppose I'll ever stop crying for my babies gone so soon.

This next picture shows the two dead lilies we planted from this Easter that we're hoping, like the first one, will come back new next year. 

In Loving Memory: Amadeus Aurelia Haven

1 0 little flock, fear not the foe

Who madly seeks your overthrow;

Dread not his rage and pow'r.

And though your courage sometimes faints,

His seeming triumph o'er God's saints

Lasts but a little hour.

2 Be of good cheer; your cause belongs

To Him who can avenge your wrongs;

Leave it to Him, our Lord.

Though hidden yet from mortal eyes,

His Gideon shall for you arise,

Uphold you and His Word.

3 As true as God's own Word is true,

Not earth nor hell's satanic crew

Against us shall prevail.

Their might? A joke, a mere facade!

God is with us and we with god--

Our vict'ry cannot fail.

4 Amen, Lord Jesus, grant our prayer;

Great Captain, now Thine arm make bare,

Fight for us once again!

So shall Thy saints and martyrs raise

A mighty chorus to Thy praise,

Forevermore. Amen.

LSB #666 "O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe"

A year ago today I went in for a prenatal ultrasound after a couple weeks of awaiting what my doctor assured me would end in miscarriage only to have a lab come back saying that we had most likely been given a miracle and our baby would probably survive. Then, during the ultrasound it appeared I was in fact carrying twins. But, a closer look through internal ultrasound revealed that second "baby" was actually the hematoma that was attached to our deceased baby's placenta. I went from assuming baby was fine to thinking I had twins to hearing there were no twins, a large hematoma, and a deceased baby in a period of about 10 minutes. That night we induced because the hematoma was fooling my body into thinking I was still pregnant and 11 weeks along by taking blood and growing as a baby would. The miscarriage, as a result, was excruciating and just awful. 

I spent this morning weeding the garden where two of our babies are buried and all six are remembered. I planted two more Easter lily bulbs that were from two Easter lilies that adorned the altar area this Easter. I did this last spring for Anastasia and it came back this year and looks like it might bloom in a few weeks on her due date and what would be her first birth day. I am hoping all three will come back next spring. As I weeded and dug and planted I was taken back to each burial and with my kids all busy I was able to have a good cry. It started to rain so as my own tears fell on the stones other drops fell all around me. After a good hard cry I sang the above hymn and "Lord of our Life and God of our Salvation" LSB #659. Something about church militant hymns in the fight of the last year has just brought me so much comfort. 

One day at a time

I've been kind of avoiding this place lately. I'm not sure why. With spring and now summer like weather I have been very busy outside. I planted a large garden in early spring in a small greenhouse we set up and last weekend my husband and I spent the entire weekend taking the greenhouse down, tilling, planting, laying straw, building a fence around it, etc. It was a ton of work but so rewarding. I now have about 25 tomato plants growing (roma mostly) so that come harvest I can process and can salsa, home made ketchup, and spaghetti sauce. We eat a lot of all three so I want it to be home made and cheap!

We also re-landscaped our entire front garden. When we moved in 2 1/2 years ago, the garden had three MASSIVE shrubs and some bulbs that came up each year. Last summer we removed the largest shrub...with our van. We're cool like that. Then a few weeks ago my husband and his brother removed the other two with an ax and man muscle. So over the last few weeks I have planted over 50 bulbs around our 3/4 of an acre, most of them in the front garden, and we also planted two magnolia trees in the front and I laid about 20 bags of mulch. I'm pretty proud I've done all of this work while also being in the first and beginning of my second trimesters.

Today I spent the entire day out pulling weeds, tending my garden, and then I surprised my husband and seriously deep cleaned our garage and reorganized it. All of this I did by myself!

A lot of people have asked me if, now that I'm 16 weeks along, I am able to breathe easy and know everything will be OK with this baby. I can't help but laugh and sigh all at once. A dear friend of mine lost her baby at 38+ weeks. Even before my long run of losses, I was never the same after that. Of course now it runs much deeper but I do not think I will ever feel the same about pregnancy again. I will always until I am, God willing, able to hold the baby in my arms, be aware that at any moment the Lord could call my baby home. This is sobering, scary, gives me nightmares that I'm waking up hemorrhaging as I miscarry...and yet, those are just bad moments. I've had enough suffering in the last year plus to know that suffering is just suffering. Bad moments are just bad moments. Death is just death, but only because Jesus took what sin and the devil meant for our permanent destruction and swallowed it up with His own death.

Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands,
For our offenses given.
But now at God's right hand He stands,
and brings us life from heaven.
Therefore let us joyful be,
and sing to God right thankfully,
loud sonds of Alleluia, Alleluia!

It was a strange and dreadful strife,
when life and death contended;
The victory remained with life,
the reign of death was ended.
Holy Scripture plainly saith,
that death is swallowed up by death
It's sting is lost forever,
Alleluia!

I don't know what the future holds. I am so thankful for this rest from loss but I know that even if the Lord were to call this baby home, He would sustain me and my family. But for now we are able to rejoice and thank God for this miracle, praying fervently for this child's baptismal day to come in due time and that this child and the rest of our children will be sustained and granted earthly lives full of joy in their service to Christ and His church.

198 days...

198 days, or 11 wks and 5 days pregnant, is a very big number for me. That's how many days left I had in my pregnancy with Anastasia to get to her due date when I found out she was dead. That's where I am today with Genesis.

Instead of laying cold in a dark room while I stared at a lifeless body I continued to work through my nausea and pregnancy headaches. Instead of praying feverishly for wisdom on whether to let them rush me over for a d&c, I had trouble zipping up my coat over my expanding belly. Instead of not being able to eat from grief, I found myself with heartburn from allowing myself dessert.

I feel like I'm living a fantasy. I know that sounds dramatic, I've had 4 full term pregnancies and it's only been 2 1/2 years since giving birth to my youngest living child, but something about the last year and 4 months just seems like an eternity. I had given myself over to the reality that God was done growing our family in live births.

Part of this is not my fault. At my follow up apt after my miscarriage in January, after going over the details of the miscarriages all over again with my OB, who is a specialist in infertility/miscarriage, she furrowed her brow and said to me, "We can do all the tests if you want. But I don't think we're going to find anything. I think your 4 living children were the lucky ones." I really trust my OB. I adore her honestly. She is so kind and understanding and respectful of my faith. So when she said those words to me, I believed her. She thought there was something genetically wrong with either my husband or I (or both of us together) that was going to continue to make us miscarry and that the four we had were "lucky".

I went home and wrestled. I wrestled with the Lord, with my own perception of the meaning of life, of the meaning of MY life, with everything I thought I would be, with everything I thought my LIFE would be..... with my false gods.

Then I read Job. Oh Job. Thank you Jesus for giving us the book of Job. I cried my way through it, seeing myself and my sin and my idolatry.

We did the testing, the very expensive non insurance covered testing. I did not allow the genetic testing. The only testing I wanted was testing that would let me know if there was anything I needed to do to protect my littlest neighbor. There is nothing I can do about genetics. It all came back normal. This seemed to confirm what my OB had said.

So, we did a last resort. The only thing we hadn't tried. I asked my OB to prescribe progesterone for me to take from ovulation on so that if my progesterone was still low as it was during the summer miscarriages, I could at least provide that. I worried about using the progesterone. What if we really did have a genetic problem and I was prolonging a child's suffering in my womb by using it? But my OB assured me that the progesterone would not prolong the life of a baby that was struggling. And there, on the second cycle after my miscarriage, was the positive test. And here I am 11 weeks and 5 days later with a maternity shirt on.

I used to be proud when I walked through a store with my little ducks in a row and a growing belly. I walked around like it was a trophy. I had built up a false god under the same of quiverfull, believing myself more righteous for having a growing brood of children and proudly saying I would have as many as the Lord blessed me with.

I am not proud anymore. I am deeply in love with each of my children and see in them my opportunity to serve them as Christ serves me. And I am being given that opportunity again to give up my own body to serve the life of this unborn child. But it earns me no awards, no favor from God, no honors. I am not the Creator, I am simply a vessel. I am not the Savior, I am simply the boo boo kisser and the tushy wiper. The blessing comes not because the quiver is full or not full, the blessing is each and every child baptized into Christ because each and every child is the handiwork of God. I once read the quiverfull passage and thought, how very sad for those that are barren or have very few children. Where is the Gospel in this for them?

But now I understand. "Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth, how blessed is the man who's quiver is full of them." Arrows pierce the enemy. Baptized children of God pierce our enemy the devil with their child-like faith. Your quiver can still be full if you have not had a child spring from your own body. Your quiver is full any time you teach the young about Jesus. Your quiver is full any time you read the Gospel to a little child in your lap. Your quiver is full when you yourself continue in the faith you were raised in and remain steadfast in His Word.

The honor is not in me, it is in Jesus and His salvific work in all the little children that become His through Holy Baptism. THEY are the blessing because they are HIS. It's not We that are the blessing because we have lots of babies.

God has created Genesis and I long for this child's baptismal day where another arrow will be like a poisoned dart to the devil and will mock him as we await Christ's return.

Come soon Lord Jesus.

It's happening

This past week we honored our Abel as we remembered him on his expected due date- 4-8-14. A dear friend and her husband, who we had asked to be the God parents for this child before he died, had a package show up at my door the day before. I waited to open it with my husband that night on the eve of his due date. It was a beautiful gold crucifix. Now we have a crucifix in every room on the first floor. I love it. And now I will always have that crucifix to look at to remind me not only of Christ's sacrifice that atoned for the sins of the entire world, but for my Abel's as well.

After I wrote my last post I spent a long time that evening in prayer confessing all of my fears to God. I didn't try to...piefy (piefy: v. to make pious-OK, yes, I made that up) my prayers but instead just confessed and, with few words, simply asked God to please help me.

I don't know why it surprises me sometimes when He gives me exactly what I ask for in the simplest of ways. I woke up Monday morning and things were different. My fear was gone. poof. I realized it right away, mid-morning, and thanked God for His tender mercy and then got distracted in the first couple days of my week. Tuesday night I realized again how worry free I was and told a couple friends about the wonderful blessing. Then I had a nightmare Tuesday night that I was miscarrying. I woke up and thought it was real, thought I was covered in blood, and then the worry came crashing back. I immediately got onto my knees and confessed it all again, once again asking God to have mercy on me and help me in my meager faith. By mid morning I was once again fear-free.

It's not that I don't know I could still lose this baby. I'm not naive nor does being worry free mean bad things won't happen. It's just that I have met death face to face 6 times in my own body. The Lord saw fit to allow us a long year of very intimate and isolating grief. This cross the Lord mercifully allowed in our lives may or may not be over, but it doesn't matter ... the Lord Jesus Christ who has redeemed me and atoned for my sins, atoned for the sins of this child as well. This baby is bathed in God's Word each and every day and, come what may, Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Lord, I am yours, save me.

Tomorrow I turn 9 weeks pregnant. Happy 9 weeks Genesis Hope. xo- we love you sweet baby.

Stuck where I don't want to be

This morning in church just a couple words into the Old Testament reading for the day I had tears streaming down my face. It was the beloved passage in Ezekiel of the valley of the dry bones. When I was pregnant with Anastasia's dead body I read that passage out loud every day in faith that if the Lord wanted to He could raise my baby back to life.

The New Testament reading was the raising of Lazarus. Enter more tears.

It's strange being in the season of Lent at a different time of the year because I will always associate Lent now with finding out our baby was dead right before Ash Wednesday and then going through the first week of Lent plus a little of the next waiting to birth her, and then giving birth and waiting the rest of Lent to be able to bury her body because the ground was frozen. Now I'm in the season again but of course past all the dates of those events. Instead of being so close to Easter and finally being able to put flowers on my baby's grave, I'm waiting for the week after Easter when we are hoping to hear a heart beat on doppler. It was that 12 week appointment with our Anastasia where the doppler gave us nothing but stark silence.

It's an agonizing wait. I'll be brutally honest and say that even though I know I will be OK either way, by the grace of God, this wait, this not knowing, is torture. Every day I look for blood. Every time I'm not nauseous I worry. Every time I'm too nauseous I worry. I can't think about November or birth or feeling baby kick or newborn diapers or bringing up the maternity clothes or asking my neighbor for my arm's reach cosleeper back, because I don't believe any of it will be necessary/will happen.

If it weren't for Anastasia's death, I might not feel this way, but when a pregnancy is going textbook and one day, at 12 weeks for no apparent reason your baby dies...well, life doesn't feel like black and white anymore. Life in the womb seems like this grey area that can just slip away at any given moment. I suppose this is plenty true of life on earth too, but at least on earth we can usually point to a cause.

Back when I had my ultrasound with Anastasia we thought we had evidence of something drastically wrong with her. If you look back at my post around Feb 6 of 2013 where I show the ultrasound picture there was what looked like a "bubble" coming off of her head. The ultrasound tech assumed it was a head malformation that had caused her death. But when she was born, there was no sign of it and her head and face were perfect. We think whatever we saw was probably remaining yolk sac instead of a malformation.

I don't know how long Genesis will be with us. I don't know if her earthly life will only exist in the womb. I know no matter what I love and adore this child and am blessed beyond words to be this child's mother and protector for now. But this waiting time in pregnancy reminds me of what it's like to be stuck in grief.

I don't want to be here, but sometimes in life we have no choice. We don't choose grief and loss and death, it is simply the reality of existence in a fallen world. We cannot lift ourselves out of grief. We cannot choose for it to end. Only God, only our Lord Jesus Christ can lift us up in due time. In His time. And that is good. So very good. These inner workings in my body are not mine to know for now. They are Christ's.

So here I am. I'm in this strange existence between joy and grief. On the one hand I still miss my babies in heaven dreadfully and cry for the children that have all been housed in my body the past year. On the other, I think about this child that might still be alive in my womb right now, maybe even starting to move those tiny hand and feet plates that should be forming, and I smile a private small smile and pray so fervently for this child. I read God's Word out loud and sing God's hymns and read the Catechism out loud and receive God's body and blood, but then I must wait. Even if I had an ultrasound every week that doesn't mean that a day later my baby wouldn't die. So, I must just wait. And wait. And pray the day will come that I can actually feel this baby kicking and squirming inside of me. But then there's always still waiting and praying. And even if this child is granted an earthly life, there is still waiting and praying as the child grows and changes and lives.

Whether or not I parent this child here, the reality is, these children belong to the Lord. This is the walk we are called to as parents, as humans. We are not our own, we are the Lord's, as are our children, and so we wait. We wait and pray and keep our eyes on the horizon. He IS coming back. So in the mean time we muddle through as best we can. Our lives may be full of weeping and mourning, laughter and play, feasting and fasting, rest and sleeplessness, illness and health, isolation and company. We, by the grace of God, take it as it comes, do our best to strengthen our weak knees for this walk, but know all along that Christ goes before us, behind us, and within us.

O Little Flock, fear not the foe,
Who madly seeks your overthrow,
Dread not his rage and power,
and though your courage sometimes faints,
his seeming triumph o'er God's saints,
lasts but a little hour.

As true as God's own Word is true,
Not earth nor hell's satanic crew,
against us shall prevail,
their might? A joke, a mere facade!
God is with us, and we with God,
our victory cannot fail. (LSB vs 1,3 #666)

Christ keep us.

Reality

This morning I was coaching gymnastics to a slew of little kids in our home school group. I was teaching the children how to do cartwheels and was on my knees helping children one by one. I had been doing it for quite some time and was starting to work up a sweat helping lift the children's legs off the ground when, out of nowhere I felt a familiar hot rush of what I was sure was blood. In one moment the entire past year came rushing back. I couldn't breathe and felt like the floor had just vanished from under me. I held my breath and then took a few deep breaths while finishing up with the children. Then I excused myself and rushed to a private place to assess the damage. There was nothing. Not a drop. And ya'll? I felt it as real as real can be. And yet it wasn't real. Unbelievable.

It took the rest of the day to get my head screwed on straight again. When I got home I spent some time sitting on the couch with a heating pad on my tummy (don't worry, not too much heat) because that strange cold feeling in my womb had crept back in and then a dear Pastor friend who also happened to grow up in the same church as me and sing in the youth choir with me, messaged me randomly to tell me how much he is praying for me and this baby of ours and how overjoyed he is for me. I told him my fears and how hard it is right now and he comforted me by telling me to look up a few hymns. One of the hymns was side by side with a hymn that we sang while we were faced with losing Amadeus last year so it was sweet to see that hymn again.

The main hymn this pastor offered was this:

"Lord, it Belongs Not to My Care" LSB: 757

Lord, it belongs not to my care whether I die or live; To love and serve Thee is my share, And this Thy grace must give.

If life be long, I will be glad that I may long obey; if short, yet why should I be sad to soar to endless day?

Christ leads me through no darker rooms than He went through before; He that unto God's kingdom comes must enter by this door.

Come, Lord, when grace has made me meet Thy blessed face to see; For if thy work on earth be sweet, What will Thy glory be!

Then shall I end my sad complaints and weary, sinful days and join with the triumphant saints who sing my Savior's praise.

My knowledge of that life is small, the eye of faith is dim; but 'tis enough that Christ knows all, and I shall be with Him.

After messaging with this Pastor I ate a small lunch, put my kids down for a rest, and then spent some time in prayer followed by a nap. Then we got up and headed to church for the Lent service and soup supper. I don't know how many days this baby has been granted to have earthly life or if those days will be very few remaining, but all I can do is lean on the faith Christ has granted me and keep walking this road, however dark it is. For one sweet day, the darkness will forever be banished, come what may.

Genesis Hope

To my shepherd I'll be true.

Though he fill my cross's chalice,

I'll rest fully in His pleasure,

He stands in my sorrow near.

One day, surely, done my weeping,

Jesus' sun again will brighten.

To my Shepherd I'll be true.

-Johann Sebastian Bach

Sunday morning I was preparing my children and myself to leave for Divine Service and was praying for my unborn child. As I prayed and meditated on Christ I wondered what I would name the child if he or she goes home before birth. Without a moment's hesitation the name Genesis surfaced in my mind. Immediately afterwards I supplied Hope. From the beginning we have hope because in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. (John 1:1). 

So I named our child for his/her time in the womb, and if the child is brought to a healthy birth then we will rename our child for earthly life at the font of Holy Baptism. 

Today I received more good news about Genesis. Our little one's hcg levels rose from 137.9 to 445. We are excited, relieved, and thankful for one more day with our child here on earth and hopefully many more to come. 

But in all of this I am reminded all the more in my weakness, in my doubt, in my fear and grief and even anger, how very thankful I am that I need not look to the works or lack thereof of myself or those around me as my evidence for Christ and who He is. Because people and my own sinful self will always let me down. They are sinful through and through as I myself am, as all of us are.

Instead, in my suffering, I am so thankful I can look to a very physical and concrete manifestation of where Christ has promised to be. In His Body and Blood given and shed for me, He reminds me that my endurance is not a good work I must perform. Instead, it is a tender gift given by His own blood shed for us and poured out as a drink offering for our salvation and for our sustenance in this life. 

My Lord knows my suffering. As a dear friend lovingly pointed out: 6 times I have shed my blood for the children that grew and then died in my womb. But Jesus shed His blood for the sins of the entire world. And His blood was worth something because it was sinless: the atoning sacrifice. 

I do not have to muster up the ability to be who I think Christ or others want me to be. Christ alone unites Himself with me and creates in me a clean heart and renews a right spirit within me. Lord, restore unto me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Amen. 

The empty spot of darkness

Sometimes there are not words powerful enough to convey the anger, the fury, and the brokenness of death. And I've learned that death is always grotesque. Always.

And sometimes there is so much anger that it seems imperative to isolate oneself because you are certain there is no one that can possibly give enough care to your grief and the loss you have suffered without making you feel even angrier.

what was left of My Dad's plane

When my Dad died one of the most prominent places where his loss was felt head on was at the dinner table. I actually had to move his chair away, sit in it myself, or avoid the table all together to get through that emptiness of having the head of our home vanish before our eyes. But many times I was overcome with anger as I sat there staring at the emptiness. Even now, thinking about that empty chair and the absence of the person that I still so desperately needed, I can't help but feel like throwing something. What made me angriest was all the people that were friends with my Dad and how sad they would act around us to lose him, and they were sad, but then they would go home to their houses and their families and sit at their tables while we sat at ours, the only ones that had to face the loss constantly in our faces. It wasn't fair.

This is the side of grief that hurts the worst because it's not justified. And I wish it was. Anger is not justified because death is what we all deserve. I want to scream and break things and tell God it's not fair, ask Him to intervene, to help, to have mercy, to end this madness. But He has not. And I know what His answer would be. "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

For 10 days I walked around with a dead body inside of me. Unless you have experienced that, there is no way you can possibly understand what it feels like to have your body betray you and not be able to keep your precious baby alive. Sometimes having my womb turn into a house of death made me physically ill. It still does. The desperation and the plea of begging God to raise that baby back to life only to have my body so grotesquely expel my child 10 days later.

And for a year now I've been trapped in this hell. On the one hand I have my amazing husband and my 4 amazing children. A part of me wishes I could erase the last year. I wish I could erase it. What if I was like other people that have a few kids and decide to "be done"? What if, like we were tempted to do when our 4th was a baby, we had decided to stop having kids? I wonder what I would be doing now. I wonder how my life would be different if I had chosen the 4 I had and decided to just live. Obviously I would still be caring for my 4 children and home schooling, but what would I be thinking about? What project would I be excited about? What would my plans for this year and the next be? Instead of thinking about blood tests and whether I will conceive next month, what would my focus be?

And sometimes I'm just tired. I just want to be done. I want to forget the hell of pushing out a dead baby. I want to forget the nightmare of being told that my second child of the year was being murdered by a giant hematoma attached to his placenta. I want to forget watching his heart trying so hard to beat. I want to forget the Doctor offering to do a D&C on a living baby to spare him the suffering he was going through that was killing him. I want to forget the two weeks that I, again, pleaded for a life of another child. I want to forget standing in the grocery store when my cell phone rang and my Doctor told me, shouting, that we had "gotten our miracle". My baby, Amadeus, had been two weeks behind in development when I went in at 8 weeks for an ultrasound due to a spontaneous hemorrhage because a giant hematoma attached to his placenta was taking blood that should have been going to him. But two weeks later some labs showed that my hcg had skyrocketed as had my progesterone. My Doctor was certain the hematoma had reabsorbed and that my baby was just fine. I laughed and cried and shouted right there in the store. My baby was going to live. I was so certain everything was fine that I went to my ultrasound alone a couple days later. God had given us our miracle, healing! When the screen lit up I nearly stopped breathing. There in front of me was what looked like not one, but two sacs. Dear Lord, did we miss a baby behind that hematoma?! The ultrasound tech told me she needed to switch to an internal ultrasound to get a better look but that it looked like we were looking at twins. I went to the bathroom and for 5 minutes I thought I not only had one living baby, but two.

The ultrasound screen lit up but I could not see it. She was at my feet and needed to have the screen near her. She was far too quiet for far too long. Finally I said, "There's not two is there?"

"No."

"Is there one baby?"

"Yes."

"Is he alive?"

"No honey, he's not."

Instead, what looked like a second large sac where a baby would be, I had a hematoma that had grown so much that it had fooled my body into thinking I was still pregnant. The hematoma was so big we thought it was another sac. And because it was filled with "debris" it looked like it held a baby inside. The hematoma had become a giant leech. We finally found the baby and he looked like a swollen grape. There was no form to him at all. Just a dead heart.

6 weeks later I got another phone call. This time while on vacation. Our next baby was dead. I had to miscarry that baby while I was supposed to be enjoying jet skis with my kids and husband on the beach.

4 weeks after that I watched 4 positive pregnancy tests turn to negatives before I had even called my doctor.

And now, 4 weeks ago I watched the same thing.

I want to always be an example of faith, of courage and of trust in my loving Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Because I know He is love. I know He is mercy. I know He is truth. I know this was never His plan. And I know God is not to blame, but that wretched enemy of life and the stain of sin on all of us. That is the devil's trick, to turn the finger at God. To make us hate God. To make us take things in our own hands because we think things are better in our hands than in God's. Thanks be to God the Holy Spirit intervenes and protects us from ourselves.

But my heart is tired, broken, despairing, and angry. And so I pray, as my Daddy taught me, "Lord I believe, help me with my unbelief." And, "Lord, have mercy, please lift me up in due time."

And some how I breathe through one moment to the next. God have mercy.

Here I Stand, I Can Do No Other.

Note: There is an image of our 12 week little one further down in this post if you are sensitive to such imagery. 

Thursday I had my apt with my OB. If you know me well you know how hard that day was for me. This appointment signaled a last resort. The last leaf left unturned. I don't easily put my care into the hands of another. I am VERY possessive of me. But we are desperate to do everything humanly possible to "help and support our neighbor in every physical need". At first all of these tests were extreme and a burden too great to bear but now it was time. 

photo credit: Me. :)

Before I go any further I would like to share THIS and THIS. 

Friends, family, and strangers. I know sin is always present. And where there is sin, there is death. Period. But 55 MILLION lives viciously murdered from their mother's wombs is a WHOLE. NEW. LOW. 

I am angry. I AM FURIOUS. And this anger has me planted stubbornly in place. 

Feb. 6, 2013:

The jelly felt warm on my tummy. This surprised me. It’s normally so cold. I was about to tell the ultrasound tech this but she was beginning to spread the jelly with the wand and I held my breath. With a simple move she was turned and the screen was coming to life. I was so thankful that she did not turn the screen away from me to start like they normally do. I was already grieving and she knew it...there was nothing that needed to be kept from me. My breath caught in my throat as the most delicate sweet little hand caught my eye. It was reaching up to heaven. In my mind I reached down and held her sweet hand. My thumb rubbed the inside of her palm. I heard the ultrasound tech begin by exclaiming how perfect my baby was, after all her size was right on, and I waited still admiring my baby’s beautiful hand for her to realize what I already knew. No 12 week baby has a hand floating in the water above her head. The u.t. stopped mid sentence. She zoomed in on my baby’s chest. Our eyes met. I smiled weakly at her. “There’s no heartbeat is there?” I turned my eyes back to my baby as her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t understand, this baby is so big, I thought...” I saw my baby’s face for the first time. That sweet nose, turned up just the slightest bit. “Sweet baby. My sweet baby. You’re so beautiful.” I reached for the screen and gently touched her. Her little hand was still reaching up to me. “My precious baby.”

I looked at the u.t. “I’m sorry, I’m OK.” She looked at me. “Sweetheart, this baby just died...maybe two days ago. It just doesn’t make sense.” We both looked back to the baby. Time stood still. It was just me and my baby. I don’t remember the screen going dark. I asked her if I could call my husband and she left. My husband’s voice filled my phone, “Hey” I said. “Our baby is gone. Our baby is dead.” I was sobbing. His voice was broken. He was making his way into the hospital. We went back and forth, he tried to offer words of comfort while we both shattered to pieces. I instructed him how to find me and we hung up.

 I began by sending out a text to all my family and friends. “We just found out that our baby has gone home to be with Jesus. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Within seconds my phone was beeping responses and ringing. I spoke to my sister. As I hung up the door opened and the u.t. moved aside for my husband to enter. She left us. I was on my feet and his arms took me in. My weeping made no sound but turned my soul inside out. His arms were strong but weak. It was as if our one flesh was melting together into a pool of wax. Finally he asked if he could pray. I don’t remember the words he prayed. We prayed tears. We prayed brokenness. We cried for sin and its effects. Our one flesh had met face to face the wages of sin, but it’s toll was on our dear child. The u.t came back in the room. She looked at us hugging, cleared her throat and said, “I, um, need to take more pictures.” I thought, “No you don’t , you took 500!” Then her eyes met mine and I silently thanked her. She was trying to give us a gift, a chance to see our baby together and my husband’s first chance. I climbed back on the table and my husband took my hand. I could feel his prayer in his increasing grip on my hand even though his lips weren’t moving. Raise our baby Lord. I let him pray but blocked it from my hearing. Our baby was gone. I looked on the screen to where I would see her floating hand and it met my eyes. “Sweet baby.” I held her hand. We were three silent observers to the tiniest miracle of God. Time stood still as we all sat in awe. 

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Everything about what my husband and I are going through appears as absolute foolishness. Why subject yourself to loss, death, and affliction of your own health over and over? But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. You look at me and you don't understand the fuss. And fine, crazy lady, if you want to keep bringing this on yourself, at least keep it quiet or at least figure out how to not grieve over it.

But as long as the Lord gives, I will receive. As long as my babies fall to their death so young due to sin, I will weep. I will fast. I will pray. I will be broken. Because in my brokenness I make confession of faith, of life, and of truth. God is truth. And He creates, He speaks, and darkness gets broke and there is life where there was none. And every day it will make me angrier towards sin and murder and idolatry. Read the articles above and you will understand my fury.

My babies, these children who do not know that I already have 4 earthly children, are just as fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God as our earthly children and are just as important as if they were my first. And while people rave and weep happy tears over families murdering innocent lives, they can't believe it when a woman will willingly endure month after month of miscarriage seemingly to her own detriment.

Crosses are not chosen. They are given. I have prayed, I have fasted, I have wept until I've thrown up. I have soaked my bed with tears and clung to the Word of God with the only breath I had left. After all, crosses often have the effect of making your idols crash down and shatter all around you, which is always painful to the point of near despair. And still He has not taken this cup from me. And just when I start to feel burdened to the point of surrender to my flesh where I can choose to put an end to increasing my grief and choose instead to just rest, I see another article like the two first posted and my resolve comes back ten fold.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. And thanks be to God alone, so have my husband and I. 

Right now we are wading through the choices of tests that have been ordered for two weeks from now, assuming pregnancy does not occur. In the mean time we are going to be using a high dose of progesterone from ovulation on to support my body and any potential lives. If pregnancy does not occur I will discontinue the progesterone until I ovulate again. The doctor wants us to do all sorts of tests on me but also on my husband's and my genetics. We are praying and talking to decide which of these, if any, we will be able to do. But in the mean time, there is plenty of joy around here too. Plenty of joy, plenty of laughter, and plenty of carefree moments of pure bliss. 

Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again.