Everything’s (not always) Coming Up Roses…

 It’s a month until I turn “29” again. I remember my first 29th birthday. Heading into that birthday, I dealt with a lot of sadness because so much of what I thought life would look like hadn’t come to fruition. Hindsight is often so beautiful, though. I can look back on these last ten years and see that my Jesus has moved so many mountains in my life. The story that has played out in these last ten years is so much greater than anything I could have ever hoped for. Has it all been rosey? Certainly not! We have experienced some of the deepest hurt and grief in these last ten years, but I can see God’s hand on every page of our story. 

As I get ready for this next birthday, I am filled with some of those same feelings from ten years ago. I was so excited about celebrating this upcoming birthday knowing that new life was coming later this year. It honestly makes me dread going into this next month with things so much different than what I had anticipated…this isn’t one of those rosey stages. But something happened this week that reminded me that even the most beautiful things have unlovely moments…

Some friends recently gifted me some beautiful flowers, and my mom and DH planted them and others for me after I had my D&C. It’s been very therapeutic for me to water them each day and to see them bloom. Gabriel had even been asking to plant some things, so we he’s excitedly seeing the progress of his sunflowers each day.

 I love seeing all of the vibrant colors peeking through my flower bed now. I have a miniature rose bush that has such a gorgeous deep pink hue,

but in the last few weeks, the blooms started shriveling up and lost their vibrant color. I’ll admit that it stung a bit to see them die off. I’m not the best with flowers, so I worried maybe I had killed my plant. I eventually pulled off the dried up petals some time last week, and a few days later, when I went out to water my flowers, I saw that one, tiny bud had begun to bloom again. New life was growing right before my eyes, and I was reminded that more is to come…if I can be patient and continue tending to it each day. 

I’m reminded that God is at work, my friends. Even in the moments when it seems like all of the good has shriveled up and the beauty has died, He is still tending to it, and He is able to make something beautiful from it. I see how He has done it in my life before, time and again. So many times I have felt forgotten or unseen, but my God is EVER at work. I so desperately desire a different outcome many times, but I will choose to trust Him even when my heart is broken. This isn’t one of those “rosey” moments in my life, but I can feel my Jesus raining down on my broken heart. He’s the Master Gardener, and this is one of those necessary seasons of pruning. The honest truth is that I feel so broken right now. My heart aches. But I’m choosing to trust in the process because He isn’t done yet. And even if I never get to see the blooms that come from all of this, I will still choose to trust Him, because I know He IS able, He IS good, and He IS worthy! 

Yes to the Yes’s and to the No’s…

 I remember Mother’s Day of 2007. We had just found out we were expecting Lucy, and we were beyond excited. We went out to eat after church and ran into the surgeon who had done dh’s surgery on New Year’s Eve and just a week later broke the news that DH had cancer. I remember the dr being hesitantly happy for us since it was very early on in my pregnancy. We pretty much shouted our pregnancy out to the world, though. We had prayed so long for a baby, and we were so thankful that God answered “yes” to that request. 

That summer, my daddy passed away. We found out during rehearsal at church early on a Sunday morning. It was the most intense grief I had ever felt before, and I had so many questions for the Lord. I didn’t know if my Daddy knew Jesus or not. I had prayed for him daily for so long, and I had conversations with him about the Lord, but I never saw the change in him that I prayed for. I’ll never forget my home church pastor talking to me the days leading up to his funeral. “Paula-Beth, God has heard your prayers all this time. He said yes to you when your husband was diagnosed with cancer and you asked for him to be okay, and you praised Him for that. He said yes to you when you prayed and asked Him for a child, and you praised Him for His answer. But this time, God said no. Will you still praise Him even when His answer isn’t what you want it to be?” His words have stuck with me through every joy and every trial I have faced since then. 

This past year has been full of a lot of life changes. God has said yes so many times to us. We have been called to an amazing church where we’ve made sweet friendships and we get to serve together. I am beyond thankful for the group of ladies I work with at Mother’s Day Out and the precious children I get to love on. Our kids are thriving in school and in life in general. Our two oldest have surrendered their hearts to Jesus. We love our neighborhood and have an incredible home…I could go on and on. But the Lord has also said no to us. In the past year, we’ve lost my grandmother, my brother, and our baby. I have again pounded my fists into the floor and cried out to my Jesus asking why, and begging Him for a different answer. But in those moments, I’ve been reminded of dear Pastor John’s words: I praised Him for the yes’s, but will I still praise Him for the no’s?

My God is so good. He’s so good that His goodness doesn’t depend on a single one of my circumstances. And He’s so good that He can even accept my broken and grief-stricken praise. I can’t understand His ways—they are so much higher than my own. But I can trust Him. 

Mothers Day 2022 looks a lot different than it did 15 years ago. I have so many reasons to celebrate, but I also have reasons to grieve. And in the midst of all of the sweet snuggles and the deep grief there is the steadiness of my Heavenly Father. His goodness is constant, His mercy is ever new, and His ways are PERFECT. I can’t understand them, but I can still praise Him. 

So today I celebrate that the Lord has given and that He has taken away. My flesh fights the why’s and the what if’s, but my heart holds fast to Him. 

Baby KiKi...

You were a bit of a mic drop moment for us;-) I carried you for 12 weeks and 2 days, and it was one of the best surprises of my life.

When I found out about you, I finally understood the story in the Bible where Sarah laughs at God saying He’s going to give her and Abraham a child in their old age. I'm not quite as old as Sarah was, mind you, but by the time you've hit your SEVERALth 29'th birthday, you're considered of "advanced maternal age," and on Thursday, February 24th, I found out that I was going to be referred to as a "geriatric pregnant patient." We were PREGNANT! I think the color drained from DH's face when I first told him. We couldn't believe that all of those years of joking that our first and last child would be 14-15 years a part would come to fruition. (It's a common occurrence amongst several members on my husband's side.) It took the shock a few days to wear off, but then I became extremely excited. We would get to have another baby!  And our kids, holy cow were they over the moon with love and anticipation for meeting their new baby brother or sister. Lucy cried happy tears, Gabriel ran around the room shouting out different sayings and questions in a total happy tizzy, Annie claimed she would not be changing any diapers ;-), and Evangeline wasn't quite sure what it all meant. It didn't take too long for them to all get aboard the Baby Express, though. They would often come up to me and lovingly pat or rub my tummy, giving kisses and talking to "Baby KiKi" which Evangeline had affectionally named her sibling. Every day, they would come up and ask me, "What size is the baby today??"

The extreme nausea started in at 6 weeks and never eased up. I took it as a good sign that baby was growing and developing as needed...and I also took a LOT of naps! Every appointment had gone great. At my first appointment, they did an ultrasound where we got to see and hear baby's heartbeat, flickering away. At my second appointment, we got to hear that joyous sound once again on a doppler. That was last Wednesday. I opted out of the traditional genetic testing (it seemed irresponsible to spend $400 on something that would only give me a list of statistics…now I wish I had done it so we could have known baby’s gender…) and decided to go with the nuchal translucency scan instead. I was excited to go for that scan on Monday and get to see how much baby had grown and watch them wiggle around. I was also a bit anxious as I knew the likelihood of them finding something wrong was much higher given my age. Regardless, we were all absolutely in love with this precious little one.

The scan was very awkward. The tech hardly spoke to us at all, asked if I'd had any bleeding during my pregnancy (I hadn't) and ended the ultrasound pretty abruptly after just about 5-10 minutes. (It's supposed to be a 30 minute to hour long scan.) She said she needed to talk to the radiologist to make sure she got the images she needed, and then she'd come back and do a transvaginal ultrasound. For this one, she didn't speak at all and had the screen turned away from me. I could see the worried look on DH's face as he tried to figure out what was on the screen. Once again, it was a very short scan, and she told me I could get dressed. In my heart, something didn't feel right. I was disappointed I didn't get to 'see" my baby, and I was worried that something was possibly wrong. I kept trying to reassure myself by knowing that I'd never done that type of scan, so it could be my confusion was from not being familiar with the procedure. 

She had us wait in a room where Michael and I stared worryingly at one another. He told me, "Paula-Beth, I don't think I saw the heartbeat, and I always can spot it on a sonogram. I don't think the baby was moving." When the tech came back for us, she just said we were free to go. I asked her where I needed to go for my bloodwork. She said I didn’t need to do it today and would hear back from my doctor about the results because they would be calling me "VERY soon." I could immediately feel a lump grow in my throat as I tried to choke back tears. "Something's wrong, isn't it? We can tell by your face that something is wrong..." DH said. She replied, "I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to say anything, but your doctor will be calling you VERY soon."

Michael had to push me past the reception desk because I was determined to get my bloodwork. When we left the office, the tears immediately began to flow. I felt like I couldn't breath, and right then, I knew in my heart that something was wrong with my baby and they weren't going to make it.

My doctor called within minutes and set up an appointment with me for that afternoon to discuss the "abnormal" results of the scan. I think I cried the whole time in the car, but in my head I kept repeating to myself, "God is sovereign. He's in control, and even if the worst happens, He is still good."

When we met with my doctor, he shared with us the news we feared. The baby's heart was no longer beating. I was 12 weeks 2 days, and that's what baby was measuring, so it literally had just happened. He was so compassionate and kind, spoke some important truths over us, and allowed us to mourn the news. He let me know they also found a subchorionic hematoma, and we already knew my thyroid had gone completely wacky, but he assured me he didn’t feel any of these were the cause of this loss. He then said he needed to shift his attention to my care and future reproductivity, and he explained the options I had for removing the pregnancy. Since the baby was completely formed at this point, delivering at home sounded extremely traumatic to me. I could not wrap my head around delivering my dead baby into my hands over a toilet. The doctor agreed that at this stage of pregnancy, a surgical D&C was my best option. They called the following morning (Tuesday) to let me know the surgery was scheduled for Wednesday morning. I would go in for pre-op the day before.

But before we could totally wrap our heads around the surgery, we had something else that had to be done: figuring out how to break the news to our children that we would not get to hold and love this baby and see them grow. This may have been one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but God clearly gave me the words He wanted me to say to them. What was even harder about the situation was they knew I had gone for a sonogram, and they had so been hoping they'd be able to tell us the baby's gender. As we gathered them up together, they were all asking questions like, "Is it a boy or a girl? Did they find twins??" I choked back the tears and calmly told them no, we weren't having twins, and I didn't find out the gender." But as soon as everyone sat down and I began to speak, my voice started cracking and the tears began flowing hard.

"I want each of you to know how much Mommy and Daddy love you, and how thankful we are that we get to be your parents and watch you grow. I also want you to know that God is ALWAYS good. He is sovereign and He is in control. Even when bad things happen that we don't understand, we can trust in His goodness...today, at the sonogram, we found out that the baby's heart isn't beating anymore, so we aren't going to get to bring this baby home to us. But we have great hope in Jesus, because we know your brother or sister is with the Lord now, and one day, if we each have a relationship with Him, we will get to spend eternity with them praising and worshipping God."

Evangeline had so many questions as she tried to wrap her brain around what we were saying. "How can the baby be in heaven when it's still in your belly, Mommy?" I responded, "Well, when we get to heaven, we get a new body. The baby's soul is in heaven, but Mommy will have to have surgery to get the baby's body out of my belly so that I don't get sick. It's not safe to leave the body in there." Lucy then asked, "Why would God give us this baby that we were so excited about and then take it away?" At this point, all of our kids were wailing, and this went on for a VERY long time. We held each other and weeped with one another. And DH told Lucy as he reminded all of us of the story of Job who lost EVERYTHING, yet he was able to proclaim these words: "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. BLESSED be the name of the Lord!"

The past few days have been a struggle. Before the surgery, every time I dozed off I would wake up with the sudden realization that my baby was no longer growing inside of me, and yet I still felt every bit of exhaustion and nausea that I'd been having all along. My body still felt pregnant, my tummy was still hard, and my heart so badly wanted to still be pregnant. The day before the surgery was also Annie's birthday though, and while it wasn't the typical celebration we try to have, we were determined to make sure she felt special. She started the day off with her telling her Daddy, "You know, it IS my birthday, but I also feel kind of sad..." And she has continually told me, "Mommy, I hope we can have another baby...I really wanted to see the baby. Can you show it to me?" We ate lunch with her at school and brought donuts for her classmates. And some PRECIOUS friends came over to the house and decked it out with huge balloons, a delicious cake, and gifts. People stepped in so quickly and with a true desire to help us. It blessed my heart more than I can fully express. 

That was Tuesday, and then yesterday (Wednesday) was my surgery. It wasn't a super smooth day--they blew out my vein trying to get the IV in which took at least 5 tries. The 10-20 minute procedure I was supposed to have turned into at least an hour and half. Apparently, I lost about 650 ml of blood. Those numbers don't mean much to me, but I was told that's not desirable lol. Thankfully, I didn't end up needing a transfusion, but I'm a bit anemic now. Because I was in the OR for so long, they had to add another IV and intubate me.

Here's a little intermission with a funny story from my enroute to the OR--you never know what you're going to say when they pump you full of drugs at the hospital. As they wheeled me off in the opposite direction of my husband, apparently I yelled out, "EAT A CARROT!!" Dh said he cackled at that. (This is our family's special--and silly!--way we say "I love you" to one another.) I am sure the nurses thought I’d lost it. 

I woke up from surgery feeling an emptiness I haven't ever felt before. My baby was no longer inside of me. My stomach felt empty, and there is a hole in my heart unlike anything I can explain. No, I didn't get to know this baby--I didn't know if they were a boy or girl, what color hair they would have and whose features they would end up with. I never got to hear them cry or snuggle them up close to me and breathe in that magical baby smell at the crown of their head. But I got to carry them and love them for 12 weeks.

Physically, my pain isn't too bad right now. I'm hurting, and it's a weird physical pain, but its managable, and the bleeding hasn't been bad yet either. But, oh my heart. It aches in a way I know many of you know all too well. And yet, each time the tears begin to flow, the Lord whispers to me a Truth that covers me in a peace that only He can give: 

As I grieve over not holding my baby in my arms, I remember that my baby is with Jesus, and that I have the assurance that I will get to meet them one day in Heaven. Not only that, but as Daddy-God holds my baby, He is also holding me through this at the same time. 

As I find myself having to answer the tough questions from my children, I realize how much love my kids truly have for one another. They were SO excited for this baby and already loved them so very much. It's a blessing to get to experience that kind of love, and it gives us opportunities to have eternal conversations with our kids. 

As I question why God allowed this to happen, I realize I'm still thankful for it, despite the outcome not being what I wanted. I got to experience growing this precious life inside of me, and I experienced so many joys and hopes and so much love and excitement as a result. I wouldn't trade for those 12 weeks of getting to carry my baby.

And as our family continues to find our way through the valley, friends and family have swarmed in to lighten the load. The encouraging notes, the sweet gifts and meals, and most of all the PRAYERS...The family of God is such a precious and beautiful thing. God knows exactly what His children need, and He never fails to provide it for us.

I'm choosing to trust His perfect plan, and I'm choosing to stand on the Truth that He is ALWAYS good, and when I don't have the strength to stand anymore, I find myself surrounded by dear brothers and sisters who will hold me up. In Exodus 17, we read about how the Israelites were being attacked by the Amalekites. As long as Moses held his arms and staff up, they would succeed in the battle, but whenever he tired and put his hands down, they would fall behind. So they put a rock underneath him so he could sit, and Aaron and Hur held up his arms for him, and the Israelites were victorious. Isn't this a beautiful picture of what brothers and sisters in Christ do for each of us? Countless times this week, I've found a rock placed for me to sit on, and I've felt the power of friends lifting my weary heart back up. I will NOT let this experience defeat me or take away the joy I have in Christ. Rather, my desire is to allow it to mold me into who He has for me to be. I know I will always grieve over losing this baby, but I also know that I don't have to grieve as the world does. I have hope, and I'm choosing to stand firm on It.