Signing off, officially....

When I started this blog, I did it because I felt lead and I figured it would help me grieve. I also thought it would help my friends and family to better understand what this loss feels like and to know how I was doing. It's been over a year since we lost Jonathan and I no longer feel the need to blog about the loss. I'm not over it. I never really will be, but I'm moving on and enjoying the lives I have around me. Thanks for reading and thanks for sharing in my journey this far.

The last couple of weeks have been alright. Even though the 10 month anniversary and Easter fell in the same week. Easter was a bit tough. The church we were at had a big door on the stage for those who had decided to follow Jesus in the past year to walk through, symbolizing the new door they have walked through in their life. That sort of thing gets me a bit teary eyed anyway, just seeing all the new believers. BUT, toward the end of the procession a mom walked through with her little boy. He was maybe 6 or 8 years old. Old enough to decide to follow Jesus or possibly just going through with his mother. My thoughts circled around how special for that mom to walk through with her son and I pray that we will be celebrating decisions like that with our girls in the next few years. I couldn't help but wander to the part of my brain that holds all the "I'll never get to do that with my son." thoughts.
I think one of the things that I mourn the most is not having that mother/son relationship. I know, I wouldn't have had that anyway, we have three girls. But somehow, expecting a son and all that joys that come with that, makes it harder to think that I won't have that. I've often heard how special that relationship is and when I didn't think I'd ever have that (pre-pregnancy with Jonathan), I didn't mind. But now, it hurts my heart.

At church tonight our pastor spoke about persistance in prayer. He mentioned that sometimes God answer is no. When he said that I realized that God's answer to our prayer to keep Jonathan safe when I was not doing well was "no". It has really helped me begin to frame our loss and what I've learned on a foundation on sorts. Of course the firm foundation is always Jesus and what he has done for us, but that's pretty broad in some ways. I feel like this part of my life starts with answering the question of what happens when God says no, to a big prayer.
I think this will help me frame my story for sharing with others. My friend Shelley said that maybe when I was scheduled to speak at church, but was too sick to do it was God saying not now. I think she was right. I never felt like what I had prepared was just the right way to say it. Maybe now, it will come together more naturally.

Please Pray for me!

I may be sharing Jonathan's story and what God has taught me through all of this at church tomorrow night. Please pray that if I do share that I would hold it together enough for people to understand me! Also, that something in my story would would cause others to see that even when our life is horrible and painful and it seems like God is absent, he is there and he loves us. Thanks so much. The services are later posted on the church's website. When it's posted I'll include a link so you all can hear how it went. If, that is I do indeed share.
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I won't be sharing tonight. I am sick. no voice. no talking. bummer.

Things that make me happy

I'm stealing this idea from my friend, but I needed a list tonight to help turn my grouchiness around!

rice krispie bars
purple
hot chocolate with marshmellows
comfy clothes
watching my kids laugh (laughing with them too)
listening to my five year old read
spending time with my husband
shopping
great memories of roomies gone by
hanging out with friends
good coffee
magazines
alone time at the coffee shop
bike rides
walking to the park
flying kites with the girls
scrapbooking
seeing MOPS grow at Faith
helping at the food outreach
watching FRIENDS everyday on syndication!
Movies: Pretty Woman, While You Were Sleeping
sleeping in
getting ready in the morning with out interruption
choc. chip cookie dough
hearing the bird that lives in the birdhouse outside my window chirp
playing pretend with the girls
watching the squirrels play
flowers in the garden
snowmen
Sandra Boyton songs

It's a good start.....

A breakthrough

I've hung up pictures of Jonathan in our house. I've wanted to do this since I got the pictures from Julie with NILMDTS, but never felt ready. I've put two pictures in a collage frame. The frame holds about 40 pictures. It's a great frame, I love it! The pictures of Jonathan are in two corners and are not obvious. The frame hangs in our downstairs family room/playroom. Not a lot of non-family traffic. It's a small step, a breakthrough.

I want to put up pictures in the hallway where I have a few other great pictures of my girls. It's the hallway that we use about 27 times a day, so I would see them more often, anyone who comes to my house and uses my bathroom would see them. I'm not ready for that yet, but I'll get there.

Oh that I would reveal my craziness....

My emotions have taken over. The past week has been difficult. We should have been marveling over a beautiful 9 month old boy last week. I'm sure that was the start of my emotional roller coaster. I've been more irritable, crying more easily, I've cared less about, well, anything. I've gotten overly emotional about stupid things.
Over that past 9 months I've had moments when I've thought perhaps I do have depression. Like the kind that is diagnosed. I have told myself that because it doesn't interfere with my daily life, that I don't meet the criteria. Maybe I should check my DSM again. I'm meeting with our church's counseling pastor tomorrow. I think that being a trained clinical social worker, I know when to stop sharing my feelings or down play them so as to not cause worry. Pray that I will be brave enough to reveal my honest feelings and not present a brave "healthy" front. I'm good at that.
Why do I care if I were labeled with depression? After all, I am living out most people's worst nightmare. What does it really matter?

added: I met with our pastor today. It was very good. I feel certain that I am moving toward health and am tackling what is coming at me. I think the depression days come and go and that is to be expected. Yesterday was a down day, today is better. The girls have a book by Kevin Henkes called Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, in the book the teacher says to Lilly, "today was a tough day, tomorrow will be better." I am living out that statement!

Jonthan's Little Footprint

My 5 year old, Bria, had a play date today. As we were chatting about families, my darling said, "We have 6 people in our family. Our baby brother is in heaven." Her friend gave a bit of an odd look. Then, my 3 year old, Adriann said "Yeah, he's heaven. I don't know why."
Bria: he was born to early
friend: my mommy's cousin had a baby who is in heaven too.
my thought: oh good, she has some sort of context to put this in!

When the friends mom came to pick her up I felt I needed to share a bit about the conversation, just in case it comes up at the dinner table at their house.

It's amazing the stuff kids come up with. Bria hardly ever brings up Jonathan. She doesn't draw him in family pictures or anything. But here she felt the need. Maybe it's because her friend has two brothers, she may have felt the need to let it be known that she has a brother too. Good for her. Claim him proudly, he deserves it.

I was sharing with a friend yesterday, actually, she was encouraging me, about the pride we do have in our babies. My friend, Shaina, has also lost a baby. She was right. I am so proud of Jonathan. Every time I see his picture I beam with pride, just like a do with my girls. I still feel the sense of sadness and loss, but I feel the pride taking over. He was just so precious and has made a huge impact in our lives. He never saw us, we never saw his eyes, but I feel like I have looked deeply into them. I feel like I really do know him, despite the little that we did know.

I know that he was a thumb sucker, he was sucking his thumb in a couple of ultra sounds (when you have an IUD in a goofy place, you get a lot of ultra sounds). It is fun to know this partially because only one of our girls is a thumb sucker, Kyla, and she was also sucking away in the ultra sound. I know that he had the cutest nose and lips and in one picture of him and I can absolutely see the family resemblance to the girls.

In my mind he has a personality more like our middle daughter. She is more of an introvert. I have always had the sense that she lost a real buddy in Jonathan. I picture him as more of a book reader like Adriann, an observer. I don't know why. Maybe because that would be more descriptive of my husband. Maybe because the first and third girls are more extroverted like I am, so of course they would be evenly divided.

In one of my ultra sounds, the doctor was in the room and has he looked the image on the screen he said that this baby was going to do great things. The intern, the nurse and I began to speculate what those things could be. Tangible things like finding the cure for cancer, professional sports, Computer genius (Steve Jobs with Apple, not the other guy). All the kinds of things that the world values and would support his parents in our old age! Well, the doctor was right, Jonathan will do great things. He will have an impact.

Guilt and Anger

This is from my prayer journal yesterday. As was I was writing it out I felt compelled to share it. I'm not sure why. A little back story before you read it. We were not trying to get pregnant. We were trying not to get pregnant. I had an IUD put in the spring before. However, the IUD was pushed too far and was sitting far from where it needed to be to do any good. We didn't know that and were quite surprised by the results of the pregnancy test....so to sum up, we were pregnant because of a midwife's mistake. I also want to tell you why we were planning on being done. I get terrible varicose veins when I am pregnant. Extremely painful almost from the start of the pregnancy. In fact that is what made me suspect pregnancy this time. Anyway, we knew the pain in my legs would be horrible, so we planned on stopping with number three.

"Father today I bring to you the guilt that I feel. I feel guilty Lord for not wanting to be pregnant with a fourth baby. I feel guilty for being angry about it, for not being excited right away and for not realizing the blessing that he was immediately. Forgive me Father for being ungrateful for your gift. Is that why Lord? Was it because I was ungrateful? Was it because I wasn't excited? Was it something I did? I'm angry at myself. I'm angry that I was mad. I'm angry I wasn't excited. I'm angry that I didn't see the blessing right away. I knew in my mind that he was a blessing and I knew that I would get excited, but there were those first few weeks, where I just wasn't excited and wasn't happy. Am I being punished? Father I don't think that is the kind of God you are. I don't think you would do that. I guess I won't know that answers, but asking somehow helps."

So, now I'm asking myself if I could do it again would I? I mean if I could make it so that I didn't ever experience my pregnancy with Jonathan would I? I don't know how answer that.

This Secret Club

It has been said often that those of us who have lost a child are a part of the club. The club is a very secretive club. I have no clue who all is in this club. I know a few, those who have identified themselves. We don't have matching t-shirts or brightly colored hats. We don't see a stranger at the mall and know that because of color of her purse, she in the club. It isn't part of our introduction of ourselves. "Hello, I'm Naomi, I have 3 beautiful girls, an amazing husband and a baby in heaven." We just don't say it.

I was recently at my MOPS meeting and wondered, how many in the room were part of this club? How many of them, somewhere inside were hurting and not talking about it? Why is it that something that happens to so many of us, isn't talked about? Are we protecting others and ourselves? Death is never easy to talk about. We also don't include in our introductions, "Hello, I'm ____, I have 3 kids, a wonderful husband, my mom died when I was 20 years old." So I guess it's normal to not talk about my loss too. Actually, it might be an awfully sad world if we all did! Never mind, forget I said anything.

I have found some basic ribbon pins online that would be a discrete way to let others know of infant loss without broadcasting my sorrows. Shoot, I'm already broadcasting my sorrows, maybe I should just go for the goofy hat.

The Boy Potty Book

We were at the library today. My 5 year old wanted to bring home a book about teaching boys to go potty. I said, "No. We don't need that book. We don't have a boy to teach about going potty, so put it back. We'll leave it here for someone who needs it" I could sense the bitterness in my voice. I'm not sure if anyone else would have noticed, but I knew it was there. There was a librarian near by. She probably thought I was an uptight mom who didn't want her little girl looking at the pictures in the boy book. In reality, that is probably what my 5 y.o. wanted. She don't see boys all that often, she is quite curious. But I just didn't want the book in my house right now.

It's funny that I really never know when it's going to hit me. I guess it's reasonable for a boy's potty book to bother me though. I would need it, after having 3 girls and growing up with a sister, I have no clue how teach a boy to go potty! That would have been Tim's job! But, as it is, I will teach 3 girls to use the bathroom and I will have the BIG TALK with 3 girls. Oh Lord help me!

The Grief of Our Parents

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how all of this has affected our parents. We hear over and over that the greatest loss is losing your own child. I also know that none of us want bad things to happen to our children and we grieve when they do. So I have tried to imagine how painful this all must be for my parents and Tim's parents. They have lost a grandson, which by it's self is painful no doubt, but to also watch Tim and I go through this horrible pain. So how do they deal with grieving their own loss and the hurt that comes with watching us go through our loss and try to be the supportive parent? At least no one expected me to be supportive!

So to our parents, thank you. Thank you for being brave for us, thank you for crying for us and with us. While your tears do hurt me, they also heal. Thank you letting us talk about Jonathan and for not making us talk about him. Mostly, thank you for your prayers. They are being answered everyday.

Please remember him

I think one thing, that I want most, is for people to remember my son. He's going to be forgotten in this world. I know, most of us are, we're not all Mozart's or George Washington's. But my fear is that when Tim and I are gone from this earth, no one will remember him. Bria, his oldest sister, does remember, but for how long will she? Adriann and Kyla, his next older two sisters, certainly don't remember him.

I've made him a scrapbook, just like my three girls have. They each have one that is much like a traditional baby book, documenting the first year of their lives. His holds the story of my pregnancy, his birth story and the amazing, wonderful pictures that Julie, from NILMDTS took. I've put many of the sympathy cards in there, as well as some that I have gotten more recently. The sermon that Tim shared at his memorial service is in the book. That is his life here. His entire life on earth is in one 12x12 book. I guess the book is my way of keeping his memory.

** I want to share that I wrote the above two paragraphs about 2 weeks ago, but didn't feel it was the right time to post them. Tonight, as I was rereading them, I felt God's comfort, peace, and reassurance as he told me what I have written below**

But Jonathan's life is eternal. We have eternal life with Christ! The joys of his days can not be counted (only joys, no tears in heaven, no sadness!). The bible does say that we will know each other in heaven. I guess that means that not only will Tim and I know him, but others will too. He is not forgotten in heaven.

Random Ramblings

Jonathan would have turned 8 months old this week. The other day, on his birthday, I met two new babies. One was 9 months and the other 7 months. Each time I thought to myself (no need to say these things out loud and freak out moms) 'He's about Jonathan's age, of course, Jonathan would not have been that big yet. If he had survived that May birthdate, he would still be a tiny peanut for his age.'

I've been following a CaringBridge site for a little guy that was born at about 24 weeks. It has been incredible to watch this little guy grow. It's been amazing to read the faith of the parents as they watch their son go through the daily ups and downs in the NICU. Someone asked me if it was hard to see him growing and surviving. No, not really. It's encouraging. I feel like I am watching him beat death. He is surviving and thriving. He is doing exactly what I certainly wish Jonathan had the opportunity to do, but that's not how it worked out. Sure, I'm sad for us, but I am delighted for this couple. If you think of it, you could pray for him, his name is Sam.

Ok, on the don't say things to new moms note. I really have watched too many movies and Without a Trace episodes. Sometimes I really do think that if I were to tell one of these women what happened to me, they would get all nervous that I would take their baby! Can't you just picture it. I reveal my life and they clutch their baby closer, not so much out of joy that they have their baby, but fear of the crazy lady they just met. Have a laugh at my expense!

Hope

Psalm 40:1-3, the verse that I have held on to since we lost Jonathan, says in verse 3 "He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord."

Since that time I have been asking the Lord to heal my heart and give me joy, a new song to sing. (but don't worry, I won't literally sing) I have waited for him to answer this prayer. I have felt despair, as though the Lord was not hearing me. I have wavered in the confidence that I have that he does listen.

BUT today I have hope! Today I read this verse: Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy. No shadow of shame will darken their faces. In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened; he saved me from all my troubles. Psalm 34:5-6

I want a new song to sing so that others will be amazed at what the Lord has done. Then they will put their trust in the Lord. Others coming to Christ is the only really Glory that I can see in this. I don't know that I can say "it would all be worth it" but I it would help me see how God uses all things to his glory.

Prayer

I'm leading a bible study on prayer. I think I may not be the best person to do this since I'm a bit cynical about prayer right now. I know in my heart of hearts that God answers prayer. I know that he only does the best for us. BUT, I did pray for my son. I prayed like crazy. Lots and lots of people prayed. I was anointed with oil while in the ICU and God did not answer my prayer. I asked him to protect my son and allow us to have a healthy child. So when I lead a study on prayer I feel a bit odd.

I did share this with the women in the group. I think they understand and will pray with me trough this. Interesting that the only real way to have my heart healed by the great creator is to pray, yet, sometimes I don't want to pray. I think to myself, I did that and it didn't work. Why do it again? God doesn't hear me.

So, I have to tell myself that God does hear me. He hears my cries and will answer me. The Bible promises me that over and over. He will heal my heart and restore our relationship. But when?

In 1 Samuel, I believe it is, King David has closed himself away with worry and grief over the illness of his infant son. When he hears that his son (with Bathsheba) died, he gets up and basically goes back to work (this is the Naomi paraphrase, it's much better in the actual book). He says something to the affect of, I will not be with him here, but will see him there. Meaning heaven of course. I think of this often and am hopeful of the day when, not only do I meet Jesus but also will hold or see my son. I wish we could have gotten Bathsheba's viewpoint on this one. Oh well, another question for when I get to heaven. Ohh, maybe I can get Francine Rivers to write a fictional novel, maybe she already has!

Faithful to Complete It

As I was chatting with a friend yesterday about some upcoming changes in her life, we briefly discussed some of the possibilities and listed a few. Then I said, but anything can happen. An outcome may appear that we never saw coming. I think that is a newer realization for me. Anything can happen. We really don't know what God has planned for us. I've learned that I don't know all the possible reasons or choices available or outcomes of any situation. I've learned to be open. I think this is something that some people are born with. They are just able to go with the flow. I tend to like to know what is happening next. So, even when I don't know, I pick a possibility and take the attitude of "that's probably what will happen or what we'll do, etc etc." Not so much now. I know anything is possible.

The rare case seemed to alway be the case where my pregnancy with Jonathan is concerned. It's extremely rare for the practitioner to push an IUD threw the uterus, but mine did. It's not generally the case that a complete placenta previa results in such heavy hemorrhaging, but my did. The doctors said that usually the bleeding will stop its self. Not mine. No one, not the admitting doctor or the nurses expected the outcome we had. It was all too rare. Since then when ever someone says to Tim or I that such and such is pretty rare, we look at each other with the knowing look, that says, "We are the rare case."

Anything is possible and the rare case occurring are times when we often see God at work. (Anything is possible - a virgin giving birth to God's son! Rare case- Jesus raising the little girl and Lazarus from the dead!) I trust that God is at work in me. He is faithful to complete it. God is faithful to complete his work in us. He wants the best for me (and you). I am still not sure how this brings the best for me, but I continue to trust in him. I may never see the best for me in this, but I know that God is a God who keeps his promises. He will complete a good work in me.

**Just a little side note. Generally when I get a little preaching in here, it really is more to remind myself or inform myself rather then me preaching to you the reader. The truths certainly apply to you too though!**