lil Genesis grows

Today I got to see a living baby on ultrasound. I had a couple little scares this week that warranted a nurse to schedule a same day ultrasound this morning and by 1pm my husband and I were driving over. My heart was pounding and I was terrified. I tried to think what to pray and what to think but found myself humming "Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me?" over and over softly. I comforted myself with a sweet sister's words today that so often we are tempted to hold God to our own parameters for how we want to be blessed and in what time frame rather than realizing the ways God has chosen to bless us. I reminded myself that God has chosen to bless us in the past in one way but that does not mean He will choose that for us now.

My husband and I made our way to the waiting room and cracked little jokes. Then we hugged and my husband prayed. He didn't say "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." as he normally does, instead he started his prayer as if he was in the middle of a prayer. I think he was. And is. He's a great guy, my husband.

We went back to joking little sweet jokes and then my husband told me, "I think this baby is OK." He smiled gently and then we were called back.

I liked the technician right away. She was young but tall, pretty, and extremely open as far as what we were doing. She was talkative but not overly. We started with the abdominal ultrasound and I told her how far along I was. She positioned the wand with the new warming gel that is so awesome and I held my breath. I hate those moments where you see womb but not the black hole of the sac and baby. But suddenly there was the sac...was it empty? For a moment I thought it was. She zoomed in and suddenly there was something...zoomed in more and then a flicker. A fast flicker. :) My baby had a beating heart. I cried. And laughed. And I shook the ultrasound. Finally we switched to internal in order to get the heart rate and date the pregnancy. We got a closer look and could just make out arm and leg buds and I thought I saw the slightest wiggle in them. The heart thundered at 132 bpm and the yolk sac was nice and big. Though my LMP dates the pregnancy at 6 wks 4 days, the ultrasound and my own foreknowledge of when the baby was conceived dated the baby at 7 wks. Right on date.

Today felt like stepping out into the sun on the beach. My happy place. Today God chose this particular blessing in this particular way for whatever reason and we are overjoyed. We don't know what the future holds, what form God's blessings will or will not take, but always, always, Jesus is still Jesus and we always have Him where He promises to be: Baptism, His Supper, His Holy Word, and Confession and Absolution.

Thank you Jesus for our sweet Genesis and for all 11 of our children. To God be the glory forever and ever.

Beauty

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"You cast your sins from yourself and onto Christ when you firmly believe that His wounds and sufferings are your sins, to be borne and paid for by Him, as we read in Isaiah 53:6, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." St. Peter says, "in His body has He borne our sins on the wood of the cross" [1Pet. 2:24]. St. Paul says, "God has made Him a sinner for us, so that through Him we would be made just" [ 11 Cor. 5:21]. You must stake everything on these and similar verses. The more your conscience torments you, the more tenaciously must you cling to them. If you do not do that, but presume to still your conscience with your contrition and penance, you will never obtain peace of mind, but will have to despair in the end. If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and [see it] overcome by His resurrection, and then boldly believe this, even it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by His resurrection." -Martin Luther


I read this writing with my children in yesterday's Treasury of Daily Prayer church father writing. I had to read it again and again. Never have I heard the true purpose of contrition and repentance explained so beautifully, so perfect. I've always struggled with confession and contrition. I've always wanted to rake myself over the coals as much as possible but then always come up knowing no good has been done. At times I've thought God cruel to leave us in such a state where we can not only not overcome sin but have to be face to face with its wretchedness every. single. day.

Read this part again:

"If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and [see it] overcome by His resurrection, and then boldly believe this, even it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by His resurrection."

Now contrition is sweet, is it not? Now it is beautiful. Now it is purposeful. Oh what a precious gift! We must continue to repent, to be immersed in contrition, over and over but only so that we can look from the depravity of our sins, the utter helplessness they leave us in and then look to the cross where we can see sin swallowed up forever. The moment we cease to drown ourselves in contrition and repentance is the moment we cease to see our need for Christ. So we repent and then we look to the cross where:

"Behold, He is making all things new!" Revelations 21:5

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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.

My Genesis

Dear Genesis Hope,

Today one of my OB's nurses called while I was on the phone with your grandma to let me know that you are growing beautifully. At this point I needed to have an hcg count of at least 5300 and instead it was 6,586. My progesterone was holding steady at 39. Up until today I have not even considered that you might actually stay. When I thought about you staying it was as if I wasn't even really pregnant and was pretending that I might have a baby.

Yesterday I watched a video that showed a baby conception through birth. I saw right where you are right now, tiny little tadpole like baby with a beating heart. I pray my blood flow is strong enough and healthy enough to give you every good thing that you need to grow. I've even started giving up sugar and grains and eating lots of good protein/fat and salads.

I think about the day I might let my lips kiss your sweet soft furry forehead and the day I will pull you up to my chest after giving birth.

I don't know if that will really happen but every morning I thank God for another night with you and every night I thank God for another day. I don't know if you will really be mine to raise but today you are and so I will eat for you, pray for you, read God's word to you, and rest for you. We love you sweet Genesis and I pray you have every good thing that you need this day and that you are warm and happy tucked down inside of me.

Christ keep you sweet baby.

The grind

As far as we know, I am still pregnant. Last Monday I went in for a draw and once again my numbers had shown exactly what they needed to. Today, I went in for another draw and should get the results by tomorrow. The length of this pregnancy has surpassed the last three pregnancies which gives us some cautious hope that this pregnancy will continue on.

I have to confess something though, the irony of all of this is striking. Sometimes in the past year when I have been grieving the loss of another child and at the same time struggling to get through my days with the 4 children I have, I look at my husband half laughing-half crying and say, "What is wrong with me?! I must be crazy to want more children! Why do I want more children when they are so very hard to raise?"

It is a very good question. Loving and nurturing four boys-four very manly (or as my husband and I call them: boybarian) boys is difficult. Oh my boys are very tender and sweet and oh so loving and caring, but they also have lungs, and a lot of brute force strength and energy. But add that I am the only one other than my husband that cares for my children-except for the rare occasion when the boys' uncle comes to babysit for a couple hours- and that I am the one responsible for schooling them and sometimes I wonder how long I have left before I march them all over to our church's school and say, "Here 'ya go!"

But the reason I keep on is the same reason I continue to be a vessel to whatever the Lord gives or does not give...I am not my own. And this realization, though hard and sobering, also is what has filled me with the true meaning of life: dying to myself in order to love and serve those around me. And now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go serve my littlest neighbor and take a nap!

During times of immense suffering and cross-bearing, it is far too easy to become trapped inside your own mind. Think of when you first feel a cold coming on. You notice it and think to yourself the things you should be doing to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. But by and large you are able to move outside of your suffering and go about the world around you. But then by the time the cold has progressed into that awful sensation of having rubber cement jammed into your sinuses and swallowing razor blades while fighting a terrible fever and aches, well, you are FORCED to fall away from the rest of the world and in on you and only you. The rest of the world falls away and in desperation your mind goes nuts for relief.

Now imagine if during this time you decided to do some soul searching. Here are the things you might soul search about: Were you eating well enough to begin with? Were you getting enough rest? Did you expose yourself to an illness you could have avoided? 

Now imagine if this was your 6th illness in a short period of time. Here are some questions that might follow then: (All of the above), Are you trying to be super woman in your life? Are you trying to prove something by over exerting yourself? What law are you fulfilling by working yourself to the point of illness?

But, of course, there's something wrong with this picture to the point of humor. First, none of the above may be true but observers may think they are simply because of your symptoms and your inability to speak clearly in your illness. But second, have you ever seen someone drastically ill with fever, searing pain, and the inability to breathe have the energy and/or ability to think these questions let alone have the power to comprehend them? No? 

Neither do the suffering. 

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. 

Honesty

I've always striven to be very honest in blogging. I don't blog because I think I have anything more valuable to say than any other Christian out there. I don't blog because I think I am pious or because I think I am smart or because I think I have any importance whatsoever that should make me an authority on anything. I blog because I have experiences that may serve my sisters.

My thoughts are not authoritative in a spiritual sense. I strive to always speak the truth as I have learned it from my faithful pastors over the years simply because I cannot talk about my experiences without talking about Christ. But I am a sinner. I am weak. I am not pious. I am somewhat rough around the edges I think. I am not graceful or meek. I'm just muddling through as best I can.

I want to record this because I don't know what the next 8 months do or do not hold. I'm waiting right now by the phone for my OB to call and let me know if my latest labs show that my baby is indeed growing. But I want to share some of the raw and maybe even ugly thoughts that have been accosting me on this extremely emotional week.

Lately it does not even seem to be about the babies anymore. It's becoming extremely personal. I'm struggling with the ways I have and have not responded over the past year and the ways I may or may not have been a blessing to those around me. I'm struggling with the appropriateness of grief.

I'm struggling with the massive train that ran me over and now seems to have left just as quickly and I'm supposed to just get up and dust myself off.

I'm struggling with death, with grieving, and its place in the Christian's life.

As the week has gone on I've become more troubled about grief. When is grief appropriate and when is it narcissism? On the one hand I have sisters in Christ gently telling me grief is OK to experience and deserves attention and time but on the other I have my two sisters and this new baby telling me life moves on. Telling me I can't control anything. Telling me God is still God. Telling me grief is just grief. And just as I was beginning to feel the need to throw my hands up in defeat and maybe take a rest, now here's this new little one and it's time to get strong again.

When I received my first good news this week that my levels were looking great it was met with excited and joyful greetings from everyone I told. I, too, was overjoyed and cried tears of thankfulness. I spent the first two days of knowing about this baby sobbing because I was certain this baby too would go, and soon. Then I got the good news and began feeling sick and suddenly it occurred to me that this chain of losses might be gone...maybe for good.

And in that moment the train that crushed me so vehemently disappeared just as quick and I was supposed to get up and walk away as if nothing happened. I was supposed to say, "Huh, wow, that sucked." And then brush off and keep moving.

I was 18 years old when I went to church the first Easter Sunday after he died. My Dad was my sole guardian and my mom had lived 5 hours away for the past 7 years before that. On top of that life-altering loss, the rest of my family was changing in many ways and breaking away into paths that we had not been raised in and I was facing graduation and realized  childhood and family were a mere facade.

I sat in my church's red upholstered chairs that all clipped together down the rows and looked up at the cross hanging over the window. I tried to hear the sound of my dad's voice coming from the choir that was warming up somewhere behind me and sounded so dead without him. I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended the voices were actually coming from heaven. I sunk so deep into my thoughts that it felt like I was removed from the room and dreaming. I imagined my Dad at the Lord's side.

But back to the train. That train that mauls us over in life, sometimes so quickly you look around to see what it was, and sometimes its relentless chain of cars beats you down for a year or more over and over.

But regardless in the end I suppose pain, death, and the effects of sin...it's all just pain, death, and sin. For those in Christ it is conquered. And like childhood, it makes you think it's real and eternal, and then in the blink of an eye it's all destroyed right in front of your eyes, except this time instead of that happening by a plane slamming into the ground at 400 miles per hour, or your body forcing you to double over in pain every few minutes until the dead body is expelled, well, this time it will happen with trumpets, the sky splitting, and Jesus coming back. And when He comes, we'll all be sitting at that final Easter, the illusion of this fallen world will crumble and be destroyed, and that blasted train will be gone forever.

Gospel pants

Late this morning I stood in front of my armoire trying to decide if it was a blue jeans kind of day or a long skirt kind of day.

Many years ago my husband and I nicknamed my pants "Gospel pants" due to a lot of pressure at the seminary from well meaning soon-to-be pastors' wives to define our stance against feminism by only wearing feminine and modest clothing: which meant long skirts. So I stood there feeling very indecisive and instead reached for the blinds to let the sun in. As I did I had to gasp, for the first time since early December, my baby girl's head stone stared up at me. "Hi mom!"

I don't know how long I stood there looking at her name staring up at me in the sunshine or even what I thought. Honestly I was paralyzed. All winter long she has been covered with a thick blanket of white and overnight that veil left.

I remember learning about the stages of grief in school on multiple occasions. But I think they missed one. What is it when you are just numb? When there is nothing left to feel or discuss because nothing will change and we have to trust that God is good? When you're embarrassed about the way you've grieved in the past year, ashamed of the lack of cheerful-happy-Christian-trust and ashamed of how you let grief hit you so hard?

My life is so full. It's full because of Christ. And as I said before, even if all is stripped away, Jesus is still Jesus.

Perhaps it's acceptance when you wake up, thanks to a couple friends that aren't afraid to ask hard questions, and realize life isn't about you or the past or your wretched inability to sail through grief gracefully.

So, I reached for my Gospel pants, stared at a picture of my dad for a moment, and left Anastasia's window.

Soul Adorn yourself with gladness,

Leave the gloomy haunts of sadness,

Come into the daylight's splendor,

There with joy your praises render.

Bless the one whose grace unbounded

This amazing banquet founded; He, though heavenly, high, and holy,

Deigns to dwell with you most lowly.

Shark bait: 11/14/2014

Our family found out earlier this week that our 11th child is on the way. Of course this discovery was met with much weeping and gnashing of teeth from me in absolute terror of what has been the past year. But, after falling face down on the ground and sobbing it all out and realizing no one could make this better or make me feel better I clung to the line "Jesus is still Jesus." And He is. And that's so good. So I wiped my face and got back to the laundry and kids.

Today we lovingly nicknamed this tiny one "Shark bait" after the new name given to Nemo in the movie "Finding Nemo". That movie has made me laugh recently even through the trials so "Sharkbait" it is.

And we are hopeful. My first labs came back. This pregnancy is unusual because first off, I ovulated very early this month, which enabled me to get a positive test at only 3 weeks 2 days. But second, because for the first time in a year my progesterone levels are awesome: 45. And at only 3 wks 2 days my hcg was 32. I'm getting more draws tomorrow to make sure it's doubling as it should.

So we wait, and pray, and hope. And in the end, Jesus is still Jesus. Nothing will snatch us out of His hands, and He loves us with an everlasting love.

Jesus

Lately the hardest part of, what?, not infertility, as obviously I am not infertile, but, I don't know, being a house of death, is being an eye witness of my own flesh.

I can see the symptoms, feel them, but despite what I see and feel, there are no positive results. There are no answers that any test can see. I may as well be a lunatic because no amount of seeing or feeling provides answers or healing but instead leaves my Doctor eyeing me wearily.

This leaves me, yet again, completely alone. It leaves me trapped inside a body of death. It leaves me watching helplessly, knowing something isn't right, and begging God fiercely to overcome the failure of my flesh for the sake of my children.

The awful thing about my symptoms is that they aren't symptoms that are causing me trouble or illness, symptoms that must be addressed for the sake of my own health, instead they are symptoms that seem to mock me, giant billboards that only I can see that serve to constantly remind me that my body is broken and will NOT protect my children, but will instead certainly discard them. The only purpose the symptoms seem to serve is to be a thorn in my flesh, a reminder that I am indeed handed over to this fate.

What is more, if it is not medicine that is failing me, it would then be finances.

I do not feel despair in this. I continue to do things I have been told to do, shots in the dark if you will. Instead, it is the reality of life.

Today, in Bible class, my husband spoke of when Uzza reached out to touch the ark of God and was immediately killed. It was not a punishment, it was reality. Just as it would not be a punishment handed out by the electric company if someone was killed by messing with a power line, so when Uzza piously reached out his hand to save the ark from falling, so it killed him simply because of what it was. Man is sinful, God is not, a sacrifice had not yet been given for the sins of the world that would allow man to preside in God's presence and God in man's. Therefore, when Uzza touched God, it killed him. Instantly. David turned it into an emotional affair, as humans often do, and was angry at God. But God cannot cease to be God simply to pamper human emotions.

My flesh will always fail. It is reality. If not here, then somewhere else. This does not express God's sentiments or affections towards me, it simply is the reality of being fallen.

Sometimes this causes me great grief, but other times it simply causes me to rush to God's Word and His sacraments. Those sacraments and that Word speak truth to all of my parts and remind me that the fight is not about me or my flesh, it is about Christ and His free salvation. It is about life that is mine. Children are indeed blessings, but they are not mandatory. If everything I own and all that are dear to me were swept away, Jesus is still Jesus.

My body is broken. What of it? My children are dead. What of it? A greater reality exists and is indeed the actual reality. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

And when He does, all of these things that seem so real (that is, the things that seem eternal because of the nature of our current existence) will not be real anymore. They are not real now, in that they are not eternal. Jesus, He is real. He makes us real. And He comforts, consumes, and takes away all of the things that are not real, but instead are a product of being fallen, and behold, we are a new creation. Forever.

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