In My Humanness

I have been reading the blog Raising Arrows, and in it she had a post titled the same as mine where she talked about her struggle with the longings that come from being human, while still clinging to God and His plan.  I loved how raw, open, and honest she was in her post, and I wanted to share some of my raw self with you too.  I think its important to acknowledge the normalcy of grief, and share it. 

I am having one of my "hard nights" tonight.  They come about once a week and I grieve for my lost baby.  They always catch me off guard, but I always embrace them as it feels good to grieve.  The only thing I can do for our lost babe is grieve it, and remember.  So tonight, I do. 

In my humanness, I ACHE to feel a baby move inside me. 

In my humanness, I know how many weeks I'd be if I was still pregnant.  I know what stage of growth the baby would be at.  I don't need to read books to know what I'd be feeling and how the baby would have grown by now.  I've done it enough times that my body innately knows those milestones.  I grieve those milestone weeks passed and unmet.

In my humanness, I sometimes feel a sharp twinge when I'm counting heads at the park and feel like I'm missing someone even once I count to 3.  And then there in the park, it all floods back.

In my humanness, I love when my daughter asks again why the baby in my tummy died, because then I get to talk about it....acknowledge it.....know it was there.....know it happened.....say it existed.

In my humanness, hearing "you've got your hands full" for the umpteenth time feels a bit sad, as they really do feel emptier than I had expected.

In my humanness, I want to hear people ask when we plan to have more, like they asked after Logan was born, and like a few asked after Felicity was born.  This is the longest stretch we've had between babies but no one notices like when you only had one or two.  People assume you don't want more.  And I want more.

In my humanness, I long to be pregnant again.

In my humanness, I want it to happen this month.

God, forgive me for my humanness.  Forgive me for wanting.  Please help me to remain patient for Your perfect timing and Your perfect plan.  And thank you for so many daily reminders of the one forever in my heart.

Healing

Last Wednesday I got my blood drawn again and my midwife called me that evening with the results.  Not only had my hCGs finally lowered, they had plummeted.  Because of how low my numbers were, she said everything was done.  But how can that be?  Nothing had happened.  She had no idea.  Weeks ago, after having an ultrasound that showed a gestational sack in my womb, I was sent home to miscarry.  I was told what to expect and what to take for the pain.  We waited for that "nightmare" to occur and knew that afterwards, we'd start to focus on healing and moving forward, which of course we couldn't do while in that limbo stage.  We waited....and waited....and waited.  Nothing.  Then, I get a phone call saying its done. 
This was very shocking.  I felt like I was suddenly just told to move forward and I was shoved into a new phase of this journey because my midwife on the phone told me so.  I was so confused as here I've been sitting around waiting for the typical miscarriage. Though, nothing about this miscarriage has been typical. She said that she knew it was hard to hear, but they have no idea why this happened the way it did.  I asked if I could have miscarried when I originally thought I had, but my numbers continue to rise as my body thought I was still pregnant.  She couldn't say for sure.  Though that wouldn't explain why the gestational sack showed up on the ultra sound a week after that.  She said a very small percentage of women's bodies will reabsorb the pregnancy.   But she honestly could not tell me what happened.
We put so much faith and trust in medical professionals to know what's best for us, to know exactly how the body works, and to know what we need.  But truly, our complete faith needs to be with the ultimate Healer. God knows EXACTLY what happened inside my womb, and why. He knows the EXACT moment my little one left my womb and entered Heaven. And the lack of this knowledge from the medical professionals makes me see God's power even more.

So, we've now started healing and learning how to move forward.

The other day, as I watched my husband play with our kids in the pool, I thought about what a wonderful father he is.  I thought about how blessed my kids are to be held in his arms.  Later that night, I realized that yes, my children here with me on earth have an amazing father to hold them.  And they are so blessed!  But our sweet Heaven baby has the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, our Father in Heaven, holding him or her in His arms.  Our Heaven baby is the one who is blessed most, for he or she is being cradled in the arms of The Father. 

An Update

After having a horrible night earlier this week filled with panic attacks and fear, I decided to call my midwife and talk to her about what was going on.  I hadn't seen my midwives yet because they don't work on Fridays and it just so happened that my labs from last week were received on a Friday and the OB who oversees the midwives was the one to read them and have me come in.  I don't know much about this man and he was very nice, but everything he said sounded scary to me as I sat at home and pondered it more.  Everything sounded like a problem.  The fears overwhelmed me and I was having legitimate panic attacks the morning after that long night so I decided to call my midwife and speak to her about her take on all this.  I'm SO glad I did. 

She explained to me what was going on.  Basically, the pregnancy is ending (I know that sounds horrible....there's no nice way to say it.....I've tried to think of a better way) but until it finally does, my hCG levels will slowly rise.  Once everything is over, my hCG levels will drop.  That drop in hormones is what will trigger my body to miscarry.  And until then......I wait.

The waiting is horrible.  It feels weird to look at a calendar and know how many weeks I'm pregnant.  The weeks keep going......and I'm still pregnant.....but those weeks don't measure anything except strung out loss now.

Knowing to expect a miscarriage is unexplainable.  Its like preparing for a nightmare.  But its the preparing part that feels so weird.  I have an urgent need to clean my house and keep it clean knowing that at some point, my family will be in and out, caring for my children when I will be physically unavailable to them and my husband will be supporting me.  I think of things such as the need to get some disposable diapers for Kian so that my family doesn't have to deal with cloth.  I want to wash and fold laundry so my mom won't have to if she's taking care of the kids.  Sadly, these feelings are nesting.  In no way do they feel different from when I nested before the births of our other 3 children.  I wanted the house ready for people to be coming in and out.  I wanted things organized and easy to find because I knew other people would be caring for our kids.  Its very sad to feel this nesting feeling....a feeling I know VERY well.....but know that this time around, it comes because we're preparing for a loss and not an addition. 

You may wonder why I write these things....why I am fine about being open with this intimate state of life we are in right now.  For one, I am not ashamed one bit about this.  I am honored to carry this baby, even knowing what the outcome will be.  Knowing I will never see it or touch it.  It has left a mark on my heart that will never leave, and for that I am proud and honored.  I want to tell people of that mark on my heart because I love it.  Another reason is that I want this journaled.  This is my life, recorded for my children.  This is their sibling.  This is part of their story and I want them to know it.  And lastly, if anyone gains from my writings, I'll be happy.  I hate how miscarriage is perceived a lot of the time.  Early miscarriages are often considered a "medical problem" and this view makes women suffering this great loss feel as if they shouldn't be feeling loss at all.  An early loss IS a true loss.  Its a loss of dreams.  Its a loss of a child.  And no one should feel that their loss isn't significant or valid. 
The Lord knew this child's name before he or she entered my womb, and a child named by God is certainly NOT a medical problem.

Isaiah 49:1 Before I was born the LORD called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.

Around The Urban Homestead

Sara over at one of my FAVORITE blogs, Farmama, does a weekly post every Thursday about what's growing on her farm.  She invites readers to join her weekly and do their own Around the Garden/Farm/Homestead posts as well.  I've been wanting to join in lately but......life......oh my.  But today, I'm glad to join.

Let me first say thank you for your sweet comments (and FaceBook messages) on my last post.  I am still sitting in limbo.  After waking one morning after a terrible night full of fears of hemorrhaging, I called my midwife in a panic.  She was able to calm my fears, explained to me most likely what was going on (way better than the OB did), and tell me what to expect when I do start to miscarry.  That helped, though I still feel very strange....like I'm sitting here awaiting a nightmare and not knowing when it will come.  So that's my little update.  I wanted to join in Farmama's post today because working on our little urban homestead has really brought me a lot of peace, healing, and time to just breathe.  It is hard to distract myself from the loss and fear I'm feeling right now.  Its hard to keep it at bay so it doesn't consume me.  And honestly, I am not always successful.  But whenever I work in my garden, everything goes away.  I don't know why but I don't question it.  The garden MUST be watered every night.  We do it mostly by hand.  And we do it after the kids go down, when it's dusk, so that the plants have all night to soak everything up.  So I go out and I water, and pluck weeds, and admire the growth, and make future plans for next years garden.....and in the quiet of my cul de sac, things seem to melt away.

So....in honor of my therapeutic garden....here it is.

These are the two of the three areas we have planted in the front yard.  Obviously, we didn't plant enough seeds this year.  But its our first year going from a small kitchen garden in the back to a full planted yard with an urban homesteading vision.  Next year we will pack more in.  The trees have created shade issues so we have been cutting them way back, which is helping.   In some cases it was too late but again, we'll know better for next year and we actually plan on taking one of them out completely soon. 

LOTS of tomatoes.  They grow well around here.  The big plant was a store bought one.  We have a few of those because I gave up on my seedlings.  But that bottom picture is one of my seedlings and it grows inches each week so I may have given up on them too early.

The nasturtium and peas, though ready to harvest, have never made it to the dinner table.  The kids graze on them while we play outside.  They have tried to entice the neighborhood kids to eat nasturtium flowers but the kids look at them like they are crazy.  :)  Next year, we need to grow more peas and put them in a different location because they're having a hard time.  Not enough sun. 

Garlic, onions, corn, squash, and lavender are all doing great.

This is our new baby apple tree that we plan to train as an espalier on the beautiful trellis my husband made me.

And one of our apple trees in the back is exploding.  If no more branches break from the sheer weight of their harvest, this may be my first apple sauce year!

Also in the back, our baby grape is now as tall as I am.  I swear you could probably watch it grow if you sat a while.

And our sweet girls keep making us loads of super fertilizer.  Trying to keep them cool in our extreme heat is a chore, but they continue to supply us with lots of love and comic relief.  Bumble Bee is again currently living under our house.  I swear I'm going to change her name to Houdini.  She'll come out for water soon and join her sister and in the mean time, we continue to try to figure out how she's escaping.

Life Now

.....is crazy.   Bottom line.   Period.

I have started a post about our "news" 2 other times now.  First it was a pregnancy announcement post.  Then is was a post on loss as I started to miscarry.  Now, I don't know WHAT it is.

We found out I was expecting our fourth baby near the end of May.  We were beyond thrilled.  The kids were beyond thrilled.  But by mid June, problems started.  I was loosing the baby.  The grief was horrible.  We spent a weekend holed up in our house...just us....just dealing.  It was really good and by the beginning of the next week, I was feeling like I was coming up for air.  Things moved forward, the physical pains went away, I helped work on plans for my Nana's memorial.  The loss was still quite near, but I could function.   But by the end of the week, things went wrong again.  The Dr. called to tell me I was still pregnant, but something was very wrong.  My HCG levels (which measure the pregnancy hormones in women) were not declining as is normal in a miscarriage.  But they were also not doubling as in a normal pregnancy.  They were consistently rising, but painfully slowly.  Dr. feared an ectopic pregnancy and wanted me in for an ultrasound.  He told me it could be "life threatening".  Of course, I got off the phone with him in shear panic.  My husband was on the road somewhere about 3 hours away from us.  I was just leaving for the church as it was the day before my Nana's memorial.  And there stood my 3 sweet kids.  One with a fever.  

"Life threatening"......it rang in my head like an alarm that I couldn't stop.  I called Zac, who was stuck in construction traffic.  I called my mom.  She dropped everything, told me to drop the kids with the family at the church and she'd go to the ultrasound with me.  How would I ever drop the kids?  I didn't know.  "Life threatening" was still ringing in my ears and I was more scared than I may have ever been before.

Not knowing what to expect I threw diapers, lovies, clothes, and jammies into a bag for the kids.  I somehow said goodbye to them at the church.  It helped that my pastor's wife whisked them away for ice cream and toys.  We are a good drive from the hospital, which was followed by a good wait for the ultrasound.  Of course the tech isn't allowed to say anything so that was followed by a long wait at my midwives' office at closing time.  Thankfully, because of all that waiting, Zac arrived minutes before the Dr. walked in with the news.

And what was the news?   .......  He didn't know.  He felt comfortable to send me home thinking that I wasn't in danger.  It did not look ectopic though he couldn't rule that out completely.  I was told to return with any abnormal pain on one side.  Technically, I'm still pregnant, with what the Dr. thinks is an "abnormal pregnancy" based on my HCG levels.  He thinks I will most likely miscarry.  He believes my body has been trying to already, which is why I thought I already had.  Could there be a chance the pregnancy will survive?  Yes....slightly..... but he really doesn't think so.

That happened the day before my Nana's memorial service....on our 11th wedding anniversary.

So here I sit.   I feel like a ticking bomb.  Without going into too much personal nitty gritty info, every symptom, or every end of a symptom, is confusing.  I heard miscarriages are painful and initially thought I had been lucky with minor symptoms.  Now, knowing it hasn't even really started yet, I fear the worst is yet to come.  I keep bracing myself.  I also fear my body won't do what it needs to and intervention will be needed.  I also wonder what will happen if my HCG levels continue to slowly creep up at my next draw later this week.  I try to not get my hopes up that a miracle will happen and against most odds my HCG levels will suddenly double.  But its hard to not get hope when I also can't yet mourn.   Or mourn again....since we already went through all those emotions once.  I feel like I'm sitting in limbo.

We so wanted this child.  And whatever the outcome, we feel blessed to have had this child, even if for a short time.  We don't question what God's doing.  We feel our children are really His.  We have faith and peace with His plan.  We know He knows this child's name already, and that brings me more comfort than anything.  And while in this limbo time, I pray He gives me strength and prepares me for the end of this journey.