Day 13

 

Day 13- Signs

My dear friends from CC. From left: Liz Adams, Kelly Stallone,
Cindy Eames, and Nora Huggins.

 

When I read the title for this day, I knew immediately who the subject would be. We've been involved in what I can best describe as a homeschool coop, Classical Conversations, for four years. I say all the time it's the best homeschooling decision we've ever made. I didn't know how God was going to use this community in our lives for even greater purposes. Our school year with CC ended in April 2011 just a couple of weeks before Joshua's diagnosis. After that fateful ultrasound and amnio, I sent an email to our director Nora and my kids tutors letting them know what we were facing and asking them to pray. From the very beginning, I was so encouraged by their emails and prayers, but at one of our summer beach outings, Nora approached me and shared about the loss of her baby girl, Sarah.  This was the first time I began to see the support network that God was weaving together. 

 

We had been back to class for 2 weeks when Joshua was born, but had not shared with the whole community about what we were facing. Nora sent out an email to all the families to let them know what had happened after his death, so I could avoid people asking me where the baby was. A week following his birth and death, we returned to CC in an effort to keep some normalcy for the kids, and after the opening Cindy Eames approached me and told me about the loss of her daughter, Molly and invited me to a support group she attended. I had a pamphlet for the group from the hospital, but only attended because of her personal invitation. Her friendship and support have been such a meaningful part of my healing process.

 

I walked Charlotte to her class that day after opening and sat in as I had previously done. Mrs. Stallone was new to the group and a new tutor that year. After finishing Charlotte's class, Kelly approached me and told me she had lost her baby boy, Scott. She was very emotional as she shared with me her experience. I was talking to someone that I knew really understood how I felt . She got it.

 

The next week following opening, one of the mom's I really didn't know  at all, Liz Adams, discreetly passed me a card. We had received many very thoughtful cards, and that's what I was expecting this one to be as well. Imagine my surprise when I opened it and read that she had lost her son, Michael.  I thanked her later and she shared her story with me. We were both in tears in the lunchroom.  In the months since, she always asks me how I'm doing. I know that I don't have to give her the answer I think most people want to hear. "I'm OK." I can tell her the truth.

 

I have no doubt that God's purposes for bringing all these amazing women together are many. It wasn't strictly for my benefit, but I am profoundly grateful that He placed each one of them on my path. I'm heartbroken to think of the loss of each of these precious babies and the grief each one of my friends have endured. Each of them are further along the winding road of grief than I am, but seeing them caring, smiling and surviving gave me a lot of hope on my worst days that I would get through it, and they always rightfully pointed me back to Christ through their words and deeds.  These mommies are perfect examples of the scripture I quoted in a previous blog:

 

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

 

Praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God

They are living, breathing proof- signs- of God's love, mercy and grace to me.

 

 

 

 

Day 21, 22, 23

Day 21- Altar, Shrine or Sacred Space

We don't have a specific space designated. We have framed pictures and his album placed around the house. His memory stone has a place in the butterfly garden. I keep everything that was his and all the cards we received in keepsake boxes in our room. I wear my necklace as a way to carry him with us wherever we're going. I want him to be everywhere.


Day 22- Caregivers

 

Dr. Mark McTammany, Kim, Susan, Lori and Norma. My nurse, Kim
 was out sick the day I went to take the picture. :(



I started going to Dr. McTammany at the beginning of my pregnancy with Joshua. My sister, Jocelyn,  has gone to him as a patient for years and worked with him at the hospital and my good friend, Kim, works in his office. I've learned from experience that you don't find out how good your doctor and his staff are when things are going well. How do they treat you and handle the situation when things are hard? I can say through the whole experience and some other very difficult times in the last few months, they have been wonderful. Doctor appointments were hard for me. We knew Joshua wasn't staying with us, but I was as pregnant as any other woman there, so monthly visits, gestational diabetes screens etc. were still necessary. I cried at every appointment. My friend, Kim,  would let me sit in her office and cry my eyes out until I thought I compose myself enough to walk back out through the waiting room.  My nurse, the other Kim, :) looked hard for a cute band aid on one of my low days in an effort to make me smile.  Sometimes I needed honesty and sometimes a laugh. Dr. McTammany never missed an appropriate opportunity to provide both, and I appreciate him for it. They have always been professional, but I know by their words and deeds they have always cared.  Love them!


Day 23- Your Baby's Name and Picture

Joshua Henry Eley

September 3rd to 4th, 2011

 

 

In this picture, he was laying on Nathan's lap having a little conversation with daddy  just about an hour before he left us.

Capture Your Grief: Days 14, 18, 19, 20

Day 14- Community

 

It's the club no one wants to join, but it's full of some the strongest, most loving women I know. I went to my first baby loss support group, Remembering through Sharing, just a couple of weeks after we lost Joshua. I was so hesitant to go. I knew I'd cry the whole time, but when I got back into the car after that meeting, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Grief, particularly the kind that accompanies the loss of an infant, is so isolating. It was such a huge relief to be in a room full of women who I could talk to about the realities of my "new normal." 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 18 - Family Portrait

 

 

 

This was taken just a few hours after Joshua was born. Our first photo as a family of 7. Our second and last photo was taken the next day after he died. It's beautiful too, but in a gut-wrenching way. I rarely look at that one, and we've never shared it.

 

I love the thumbs up! I'm profoundly grateful that we had a spunky 6 year old around for this experience. Charlotte really embraced the pregnancy and her new baby brother in a way I wished I'd been able to manage more frequently, able to just be in the moment and enjoy it to it's fullest. The kids knew how sick Joshua was. We chose to be completely honest with them and had even discussed the possibility of him being stillborn. She came up to me one afternoon and rubbed my belly. Looking at it, she cheerfully asked her baby brother, "Are you hanging in there, OK?" It made me chuckle. It made me cry. It made me want to give her a big squeeze.

 

 

 

Day 19- Project

 

Crochet is my therapy. I made hats for Joshua and for my friend Devany's baby, Violet and sometime in early 2012 I started making items for our local hospital. I honestly don't remember how I ended up making them, but seized upon it as a way to help other mommies and babies. I certainly wasn't at a place where I could handle much more than that, so I curled up on the couch at night and got creative making cute baby things. These little hats and pouches are for the babies who won't ever be going home with their families. Some of them are so tiny that I find a little lump forming in my throat while I'm stitching. I hope they minister to moms and dads who's hearts are broken and honor the lives of these little ones with the softest, cutest little items I can muster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 20- Charity/ Organization

 

 

 

 

The organization closest to my heart is Cherishing the Journey.  This group was forming around the time Joshua was born and held their first event in October of 2011. Under Jennifer Harden's leadership and with the help of some very dedicated BLM's, it has had a significant impact in this county. This organization has provided memory boxes to local hospitals, matched up mommies with similar experiences for the purpose of supporting one another, and referred for free 3D ultrasounds provided by Images of Life for mom's with a poor diagnosis. I know because I've heard it from their own lips, that the moms who received these services are profoundly grateful for them. It's also creating a meaningful dialogue between the baby loss community, hospitals and doctors in  the area on how parent's faced with a poor diagnosis and/or the loss of an infant can be better be served. Well done, CTJ!

Catch up

Day 8 - Jewelry

 

 

 

 

 

His tiny hand holding my necklace, a gift from my mom and sister.

 

 

 

Day 9- A Special Place

 

Definitely the beach. Summer of 2011 was a tough one, but we went to the beach about 3 or 4 times a week. The crashing waves, sand in my toes and the sun on my face allowed me to set aside the sadness a bit. For a mom worn out by worry and sadness, it was a great way to keep the kids busy during the day and tired at night. We had tried hard to talk about and include Joshua in our family from day one and one of my best memories at the beach was when Benjamin asked me if I would go boogie boarding, so that Joshua would get a chance to try it out. I think I was about 7 months pregnant at the time, so I'm sure it was a sight for the other sunbathers. Oh well, Joshua caught a wave that day. :)

 

Day 10- Symbol

 

A bird.  We didn't set out to choose it. There are beautiful tiny birds on his urn. The cake from his memorial service had little white doves. The guest book tree from the service has a little blue bird tucked into the branches. We decided it would be the perfect addition to his memorial stone as well.

 

Day 11- Supportive friends and family

 

I couldn't possibly list them all. I chose this picture of our "guest book" from Joshua's service as a visual representation of the overwhelming love and support we have felt. There are some very special people whose fingerprints aren't physically on this paper because distance prevented them from attending, but they are there in spirit.



 

 

 

Day 12 - Scents

 

I don't have a scent that reminds me of Joshua. I didn't think of it beforehand, but other moms I know have brought a lotion or candle to use when the baby arrives. Scent is a powerful trigger for memories. It took me a long time to decide to even wash some of his clothes after his death. I've never washed his hats.   I've tried to press my nose up against his things, but because of the short time he was with us and the length of time that's passed since, that part of my memory of him is lost.

 

Day 13- Signs and Day 14- Community

 

I'd like to have photos for these, so I'm going to hold off for now.

 

 

Day 17- Birthday

 

I went back and forth on what to do for his birthday. Should we do a big fundraiser? A quiet day at home? Some really fun outing?  In the end, we had sort of a family meeting to ask how each family member would like to celebrate Joshua's birthday. Audrey wanted to do a quiet day at home, as did Benjamin. Charlotte, as usual, is up for anything. :)  Jonah is still so little that everything is very concrete and nothing short of a birthday party would satisfy him. All the kids obliged and wore party hats to satisfy him. We ended up having a quiet day at home followed by a really nice dinner complete with cake. That week the kids each wrote a note or drew a picture and at sunset we went outside with letters attached to balloons and released them. It was sweet. It was simple. It was perfect.

 

Unfortunately, our photos are stuck on the laptop hard drive which crashed a couple of weeks ago. I hope we can recover them. It kind of breaks my heart.

Day 15 - Wave of Light

I took a needed hiatus this last week to travel to Indiana and celebrate the life of my grandpa, Bill Wendt. It was a sad occassion, but we had a very sweet time being with family, some of whom we hadn't seen in years. The Indiana cornfields and my grandparents house brought back a flood of warm memories of my grandpa, and the always positive influence he had on my life.

 

We came back from Indiana with another wonderful gift from my grandparents, a new memorial stone for Joshua. It's from an artists colony in  southern Indiana, and it took several months and a couple trips to the stonecutters by my mom and my Aunt Susan. Finally, it's found a spot in our backyard butterfly garden just in time for the Wave of Light. In honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, people all around the country and world lit candles from 7 pm to 8 pm last night, October 15.

 

 

 

The girls helped me place and light the candles. There were 25 tiny glowing wicks representing the 21 hours we had with Joshua, and in rememberence of the four precious babies our family has lost to miscarriage.  My thoughts and prayers were and are with all the other mommies and families honoring the lives of their little ones, breaking the silence on this very painful subject and bringing healing to hearts.

 

I've missed writing these last couple of weeks. I hope to go back and select a few topics that I absolutely don't want to skip over and get back on track.  Stay tuned. :)

I thought I'd start off today by explaining the title of the blog. Angie Smith, wife of the lead singer for the Christian group Selah wrote an honest and beautiful book, I Will Carry You about carrying to term their daughter, Audrey. The subtitle of the book is "The Sacred Dance of Joy and Grief." In the book, she so beautifully describes how these two seemingly conflicting emotions can exist simultaneously. She gives a very tender accounting of a baby shower she attended for a friend while pregnant with Audrey. After food and gifts, they had all gathered around to pray for safe delivery of the friend's baby. She describes the awesome weight of the grief she felt while still rejoicing for her friend, and the tears rolling down all the guests faces betrayed that everyone in the room was acutely aware of the same.

 

You would think that joy and grief are mutually exclusive emotions, but I've found through many experiences and in the everyday that they absolutely exist together. Throw away Merriam-Websters though. Joy is not neccessarily happiness. It's the Fruit of the Spirit. To me, it's the peace that comes from viewing a situation as closely to the way God's sees it as my feeble human eyes, heart and mind are able. I can't generate it, it's given by grace. I find that even now I'm still trying to learn how to dance, but I'm not sure God's overly concerned with the accuracy of my steps. Just that I trust Him, and try my best to keep up with the music.

 

 

 

Day 5 - Memorial

 

 

 

 

 

A few days after Joshua died, at the urging and generosity of Nathan's Uncle Greg, we packed up the kids and went to Disney. It's a little surreal being at the "happiest place on earth" when you're in a fog of grief, but we needed to distance ourselves from reality a little. It was great watching the kids smile and laugh, and just be kids for the day. 

 

Once we decided we were going, I immediately knew that I wanted this photo. I had seen one just like it in Angie Smith's book. Nathan was armed with his camera and a detemination to get the shot in the best lighting- sunset.  Later that day,we were standing in a store on Main Street picking out the appropriate sizes for the ears while Nathan and I tried to reconcile ourselves to the price tag for this venture. It soon became apparent that there was NO WAY Jonah was going to wear the ears, and the picture would be ruined. With the sun quickly setting and tears welling up in my eyes, I told Nathan to just let it go. As much as I desperately wanted this picture, it wasn't happening. My knight in shining armor told me to wait there, took off with Benjamin and, unbeknownst to me, literally ran down Main Street to a candy store. A few minutes later, he returned with an overpriced bag of lollipops and bribed Jonah, who now cheerfully consented to wearing the ears.

 

I wish I had a photo of Nathan getting this shot. He layed down in the road in front of Cinderalla's castle and hundreds of people  and took 25 or so pictures of kids with the wiggles and interrupting tourists in order to get this one treasured photo for me. When I look at it, tears roll because of that tiny pair of Mickey ears that will never be worn, but I'm so thankful for my four sweet kiddos here with me and my amazing husband that I love with all my heart. The sacred dance of joy and grief.

I've toyed with writing a blog many times the last year and half. The chief obstacle to actually following through was my own fear. The fear of being vulnerable, fear that people would find it self-indulgent, the fear of not being able to articulate myself (I'm still nervous about this one.)  So what's changed? The motivating factors for me now are that I don't really like where I'm at in my grief and feel like I need to fumble forward, and honestly I'm not sure how to do that. I've also come to the place where  think I can lay down the fear of the opinions of others. I'm doing this for me. I even dare to hope that it might help someone else. Another baby loss mom? Another person struggling with grief? Depression? Anxiety?  2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says, "Praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." 


I really don't know where to begin or what to write. I realize now that words and feelings want to pour out and for now, I can't really fathom how to organize all of them. Since I don't know where to begin, I'm jumping in 4 days to late to Carley Marie's Capture Your Grief Project.

 

 

Day 1- The photo was supposed to be the sunrise. Since I'm starting late, I blew this assignment.  I combed our photo files to see if I had one from Joshua's birthday like the one my friend Devany had posted from her daughter Violet's birthday, but didn't have any success. I press on. :)


Day 2- Before Loss Self-Portrait

I struggled to choose a photo for this day, not sure if I should choose a picture closer to his actual birth. I feel in many ways like the first loss came on Good Friday of 2011.  That's the day all the hopes and dreams I had for him were shattered by fuzzy images on a screen and a needle in my belly. One of my favorite photos I have of myself and our family was from our trip to Washington D.C., just a couple of months before the diagnosis. Everything seemed so promising, and we were so blissfully ignorant.

Day 3 - After Loss Self-Portrait

OK, this is actually a terrible picture of me. It's from a half marathon I did with my friend, Carrie, about 2 months after Joshua's death. I chose this photo because for me it symbolizes exactly what the race meant for me that morning- I wasn't going to let grief beat me. I'm NOT going to let grief beat me. In fact, I hope in time that the whole process will make me better, tougher. Always keenly aware of my limitations. Always thankful I don't run the race alone.

"Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)



Day 4- Treasured Item

If you've read this far you are a true friend. :) Everything Joshua touched or wore, or that was kindly given to us in memory of him is a treasured item. One of my BLM friends said it rightly, "you want every shred of anything that had to do with your baby." True. That having been said, my most treasured items are his hats. Of course because he wore them, but also for the comfort it gave me to make them. I couldn't fix his broken heart or his damaged spine, but I could absolutely try my hardest to make sure he was literally covered in love from head to toe. My first attempts were pitiful, but after many, many, many hours of trying I managed some hats that were as close to perfect as I could get for our perfect, sweet, little man.

I'm afraid if I read, re-read, and edit, I'll end up not actually posting at all. So here it is the good, the bad and the ugly. This felt good. :)