A Dream I Had

I used to pray that he'd visit me in my dreams.

I'd heard of that.

Days went by.

He didn't.

Weeks went by.

He didn't.

Years went by.

He didn't.

And then last week I had a dream. I thought it was him. It was a little baby and I wondered if it was him~ And then the strangest thing happened. I looked to my right and I saw a little girl about three years old. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She had short blond hair and the most beautiful smile on her face. She was dancing. I saw her face. I knew in an instant it was her.

~E~

And she was smiling.

I felt such a love and peace that I wanted to stay there in that moment forever and just watch her. Smile at her. I know she saw me too and that filled me up in ways that I didn't think a simple dream could.

I saw her smiling and her hair spun around as she turned to go. First she waved as if to say, "I'll see you again mom." I wasn't sad to see her go. She was happy and I saw that and I knew that. I was happy she came to me.

Yes my love, I'll see you again.

I prayed to be visited in a dream but what I didn't know was it wasn't Andrew I needed to see, it was her. I didn't quite know what the dream meant. I wondered about it but just kept that warm feeling with me all day. I didn't share it. I kept it to myself. A little secret just between me and her.

But I wondered who that baby was... I didn't give it much thought until now...

I got some very sad news today. A very dear friend found out that she had lost her baby. When I first found out, I sat in disbelief. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I thought there must be some mistake... but no. I know (all too well) that the absence of a beating heart is not something that is mistaken.

I cried for my friend and memories came flooding back that day. To E.

I couldn't talk. I sent out a text that simply said, "Baby's gone." I wonder if others sat and felt the same way I did today. Shock. Disbelief and then sadness. Sadness for my dear friend.

And I, the one who seems to have words coming out of her pores has no words. I have no idea what to say. How to make it better. I wish I could make it better. You know I wish I could make it better.

As I sat and thought, and cried, and sat some more my thoughts went back to my dream. To that little blond girl that I knew without a doubt was my sweet E and I thought that perhaps that baby was your's, my friend. I wonder if somehow they came to me to let me know that it is OK. They are both there. They are both safe. I know it is hardly a comfort right now as the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens take you prisoner. But this I know~ they will eventually loosen their grip on you. And I do pray that one day you will feel that peace and perhaps be visited in a dream by a sweet babe that smiles and waves and lets you know from the depths of your soul that it is OK. They are OK. All will be well. I pray that that feeling will one day fill you up to overflowing.

Until that day I am thinking of you my friend and praying so very much.

You know I am here to talk (tonight, tomorrow, next, month, or next year). I am here to talk or listen or simply to sit in silence. Cry.

I love you.

(And others who you don't even know are praying for you too. Hopefully anyone who has read these words will also keep you in prayer. Even though you may not believe, I do hope you find that to be a comfort.)

(((Hugs)))

~L

Don't Should on Me!

Don't Should on Me

There is a tremendous value to talking to someone... talking with someone... someone who has been in your shoes, walked your walk.

I remember in early months looking to those women who had been attending group meetings for months, even years... watching them. They may have given me the same words as someone who had never walked my path, but their words I heard... Why? Because they knew. They understood what simply isn't understandable... unless you've walked that walk.

I could write pages on what not to say to someone who has lost a child. In short, my best advice would be "be slow to speak and quick to listen". We live in the days of Dr. Phil and reality television where problems seem to be wrapped up in 30 minutes. Solved. Better.

People want that for you. They want you to be better and when their calendar thinks you 'should' be better, they will start handing out their advice to you. Giving you their 'shoulds'.

You should be over this by now.
You should be able to go to that baby shower.
You should be thankful you can get pregnant.
You should...

Those shoulds may or may not be great advice but unless you have worn those shoes, your 'shoulds' may fall on deaf ears, on angry ears, on defensive ears. Ears that will take your shoulds, file them away and bring them out in a blog, meeting or coffee with those of this 'secret society'.

I heard some wonderful words from a friend at one of those recent meetings and she was sharing the words of another. Words that were great advice whether the speaker had walked our shoes or not...
DON'T SHOULD ON ME!

The thing is the people that you think 'should' be feeling better want to feel better, but they are not ready or they just can't and your shoulds will just push them further from discovering their own truth and finding their own peace.

Don't should on me!
Great advice! For everyone everywhere but particularly for those who don't need to hear your "should" anymore. So be a friend, be an ear, be a shoulder. But don't be a should-er.

A walk of faith (different shoes)

I've been thinking.

I've cried the last two Sundays in church while singing. Because I've been thinking of him... missing him...

When I hear from readers of this blog, it is usually for questions of faith. I know that those questions and emails are because people want to believe. They want it to be OK, but they just don't know how. The pain is too binding. The grief is too great.

I realize that my walk in faith has been in different shoes than most~ shoes I would have rather not put on. A nurse friend commented on it just last month. She would never forget meeting me. How she recalled me saying how blessed we were on those days that September... And knowing that I meant it. Different shoes.

The one thing I have always been certain of is that when I have talked, God has listened. That sounds incredibly self centered and perhaps it is. He heard me when I told all those that came into that room that we were blessed (and I meant it). He heard me as I screamed at him in the shower, cursing Him as the water washed away my tears (and I meant it). He heard me as I begged him for release. He heard me when I was silent. He has heard it all.

He hears me still.

He hears me share the story of Andrew. The boy that He gave me once upon a time that lives in the heavens. He hears me share the story of Andrew and how Andrew brought me closer to Him~ to a God that I thought I was close with... but it wasn't until I stripped down the wall and let Him in to see the entire me~ the broken me~ that I actually got it. Oh yes my babies are safe. Oh yes they are in heaven. Oh YES! And yes. One day I will join them.

Andrew has opened doors for me to share my faith. To let people know that I have felt hell. I have felt that absence and brokenness~ a physical pain~ a suffocating pain. But I too have felt the exhale. I have sat still, eyes closed~ and felt it cover me. Embrace me. A love like no other. A peace like no other. Once upon a time I prayed that my children would "Populate Heaven" now I thank God for answering that prayer with a "Yes!".

Andrew.

You've done that.

You've given me reason to share the story of God each time I say your name. To let them know that it can happen. They can find peace again. They can find peace again and then they too can share it. Share it with the world.

There are days it seems too big for me. Too enormous for words. And that is when I am still and let Him shine. For without Him I am nothing.

Like every woman who has a child I knew what a miracle it was. Ah~ when I became a mom. When I looked at him. When I looked at that beautiful baby and knew somehow in my soul that it was going to be OK.

I would be OK.

It was OK.

He was OK.

But still I think of him so often. I wonder if he thinks of me. I wonder if he knows how I share his story. I wonder if it makes him smile, like he makes me smile~ even through my tears.

But still I think of Him so often. I know He thinks of me. I know He hears me share His story. I think it makes Him smile~ perhaps through His own tears.

Thank you for the gift.

~Peace~

May it find you.

A Song for You

I remember in those early days finding songs that spoke to me. Made me think of him. And even now, I will hear those familiar notes and they will bring me back to that time and place~ those days where it was so raw and I wondered if I'd make it through another day.

But I did.

And when I think of those days and what got me through, I think of those mothers that went before me. The ones that gently told me to breathe in and breathe out. The mothers who took my hand, cried with me and told me I was not alone.

Today I was driving and I heard a song that made me think of those days, those people and those of you who may need it.

Wishing you peace,

L

To view this on YouTube click HERE.

Not to be.

After you have lost a child, it is so hard to be pregnant again.

We celebrated my daughter's seventh birthday last month and I was reminded of that. I was looking through some old pictures and I remembered it all...

I had lost Andrew in my first pregnancy and while the pregnancy itself was very uneventful, clearly the delivery was something that I would never have imagined. I desperately wanted to be pregnant again after Andrew~ Perhaps it was because that was the last time I was 'whole' and happy. I still look at that last picture that was taken of me pregnant and think, "She has NO idea how her life is going to change in just an hour..."

While I wanted desperately to feel a baby inside of me again, I was also terrified by the thought. I learned I was pregnant again on the day we buried my sweet Great Aunt, whom I was very close with. Even then~ every moment~ pregnancy was on my mind, but I would not let myself celebrate like I had when I saw that first pregnancy test~ would not let myself dream.

The disconnect continued. I remember thinking that this was wrong... I shouldn't be pregnant so soon... I should have Andrew. Joey should have Andrew. We should have Andrew~ not this other person.

It wasn't until I was in the garden writing Andrew that (that I wanted him back), that I felt a kick and knew. This was a new life that would teach me just like he had (and he would). I made the decision to love and to sing to this child just as I had Andrew and maybe even dream... albeit just a little.

I wouldn't buy a single thing when I was pregnant. When I spoke of the new baby I would say "IF" the baby comes home, you can get diapers and bring up clothes to be washed. Nothing was to be bought because nothing would be returned... I couldn't do that again.

So on the morning of the delivery (which would be three weeks early via c-section because of my growing anxiety of cord accidents and general fear), I didn't know what to expect. I got into the car and started sobbing. I wasn't quite sure then why I was crying and I am still not quite sure now. I could feel the baby kicking inside of me just as I had that first pregnancy though this time I knew it was from the one and only baby growing inside of me.

Once in the delivery room I was fine. It was brighter than I remember (though I am sure the room was just as light for that first emergency c-section). There was talk and laughter (something certainly absent from that first delivery). And there was hope. I knew that first delivery that the hope I was trying to hold on to was slowly falling through my fingers. This time there was hope and for the first time, lying on that delivery table, I knew... this was going to happen. I was finally going to be able to say that I had 'babies' at home.

After you lose a child it is so hard to be pregnant again, but it is more hard not to be.

Anytime I saw a pregnant person, I wanted to be her. In the back of my head there were always the thoughts, "Does she know how lucky she is?" "Does she know how fragile she is?" "Does she know how things can change in just a moment?" While I wanted to tell her, I also wanted to run from her. I hated being around pregnant people (unless I was one of them~ or it was someone from the Secret Society).

After delivering my daughter and experiencing what a delivery COULD be (pure happiness, the baby you came to deliver coming home with you), I wanted to do it again and again and again. I wanted to be those girls talking about pregnancy and pumps, complaining about aches and frequent potty breaks. I wanted to be "her" the pregnant girl. And it didn't matter if it was a few days after I delivered... I wanted to be "her" again. But even though I "was" her again (pregnant) I still wasn't. I was different. Changed.

What others didn't understand about me is that I somehow wanted them to know that I was a mom. I had done this. I had had twins. I think that somehow I felt Andrew's death was my fault. I had failed him. I had gone in too late, but I wouldn't do it again. I wanted to be pregnant again. I wanted to prove I could do it. For him. For me. For a baby that I would love more than anything.

I am someone though, who didn't have a hard time becoming pregnant, but I think that I had a similar desperation as those who did. I think that I had the same uneasy feeling around pregnant people. The same feeling that I wanted to run from the room when they came around. The same eyes that scanned the room and could find them. They were everywhere. And THAT was hard.

At the time for me baby showers were so very hard, because I knew what it felt like to have to return things~ things you had thought would be for your baby. Showers are still hard for me as I just find myself praying ~ please let these gifts not need to ever be returned... Like Andrew these things are always in the back of my mind. No one thinks they will lose a baby, until they do.

It is so hard to be pregnant, but it is more hard not to be.

Wishing you peace.

Dear Anonymous,

Dear Anonymous,

Fetus.

I hate the word.

Something about hearing it or seeing it makes my skin crawl. And like most things from that night back in September 2003, I completely understand why I feel that way and why I feel that way still...

When I was in that hospital (39 weeks pregnant) waiting to get my labor induced and they couldn't find heart tones on my babies, I thought nothing of it. I could feel kicks and by then I knew how cramped it probably was in there for my babies. I had had an ultrasound a few days earlier and all was well. Still, heart tones couldn't be found so that 'on-call doctor' (who changed my life in more ways than he'll ever know) brought in an ultra-sound machine.

He put it on my stomach and we all saw the picture.

I knew immediately what was wrong. That flicker from the heartbeat was gone. While I don't know if the magnitude of that picture set in at that precise moment, I do know that it registered with me... My baby is dead and has no heartbeat. He went to the other side of my stomach and same picture. Perhaps in a bit of a fog, or shock, or denial or perhaps all three~ What he said next is something I will NEVER forget. But it wasn't the message he was trying to communicate that struck me as much as his word choice.

"I am sorry, but it appears your fetuses are dead."

I did not hear his condolence or even the word "dead"~what I think screamed at me most was the word 'fetus,' and to this day I will never forget that feeling or that look on his face (or the faces of those I loved that were in that room).

I understand that as a doctor there are different stages in a child's development... embryo... fetus... but while I (as an educator and an early childhood educator at that) have had many classes about childhood development and those different stages, NOT ONCE in my pregnancy did I ever think I was having an embryo... or a fetus... Every time I looked at my stomach (even before the outside world could see) I knew that I was having a BABY!

There has been a lot of talk with the Duggars' recent announcement of her "miscarriage" (another word I hate) specifically regarding the pictures that were taken and the memorial (My thoughts on all that will probably come in another post soon). In one article that I read, an anonymous commenter was against the pictures and while she (or he) had other things that certainly shocked me, when I read 'fetus'... again my head went back to that night and that moment...

That damn word again...

That word that still manages to steal my breath.

That word that somehow means 'less than'.

"Less than" human.

"Less than" a child.

Had my son at six pounds 11 oz (the largest child I ever delivered) taken one little breath, he would have gone from being a fetus to a child and that makes me sick. To me he was more than that... more than some tissues and bone which to me is what I think of when I hear that dreaded word and even when my children were just little sparks inside of me, I knew then that they were bigger than that. They had purpose and they were "more than" anything I could ever imagine (and continue to be that... more than just a child even... to me... the mother...).

My "fetus" has taught me so much in this lifetime.

Perhaps he can teach you something too, "anonymous".

(Ah... exhale... I feel better now... Thanks for allowing me to pause for a moment~ and allowing me a little rant of sorts.)

Peace,

L

December Hurts.

"I just can't help but think that you look up at your mantle and think, 'There should be one more stocking up there...'"

That is what she said to me.

It was my first week back to work after delivering the boys. I had decided to come back to teach one week before the holidays to 'ease' my way back to the 'normalcy' of life... My life teaching children... The truth was I no longer knew normalcy~ the normalcy I had known had changed~ shifted~ disappeared.

The comment was rude. It caught me off guard and it was said as I was surrounded by second graders getting ready to start a school day. To say that it made it impossible to focus on my job would have been an understatement and yet somehow I managed. I went through the motions. I survived. Somehow we all survive.

"Laura, you are so strong."

How many times I have heard that... but the truth is~ what choice did I have? In the end I woke up each day, I breathed out and I breathed in and that world that I had thought had stopped kept spinning while my life as I had known it had stopped.

But it was the 'holidays'

And there was one less stocking upon my mantle.

What she said hurt and at the same time it validated me too. She knew that I was hurting and the acknowledgement (albeit strange) was also a comfort. I did look at my mantle and think it looked amiss. I had dreamed for 39 weeks that Christmas would contain four stockings and yet there were three~ I had dreamed of seeing little babes dressed in matching jammies... but when I opened my eyes, I didn't. And that hurt.

It doesn't matter if you lost your baby on January 1st, or December 26th, that first Christmas without your baby cuts and it feels as if it was yesterday~ as if yesterday you held him in your arms, closed your eyes and kissed him goodbye~ or perhaps only kissed that dream~ that dream of that 'first Christmas'~ goodbye.

It doesn't matter if your baby lived years, months in your womb or was just a spark. It hurts. Christmas is a child's holiday... it doesn't matter it's roots or the 'reason for the season', it is the time where children's eyes are wide, and the whole world seems to slow and have a magical glow about it... and when it doesn't... it hurts.

December hurts.

The truth was he had no stocking, but to me he was all I could think about. The elephant in the room that nobody talked about. I needed something. But what? I didn't know. My husband and I were out shopping, determined to get up, breathe, live. We found an angel. It sparkled and was beautiful and reminded me of my sweet one who was amongst the real angels.

It's been 9 Christmases.

And still I look at that mantle and wonder....

And that angel and sigh...

Andrew has more ornaments than our living children and they came from you. My friends. People who saw an ornament with his name, and angel, a letter (A), a star. Friends who had no words but wanted to do something. And as my living children placed them upon the tree I remembered where I was when I opened those ornaments, what it meant to me as I saw them and how each one seemed to heal my broken heart~ pick up one piece and try to glue its jagged pieces back together.

This year as my children hung them on the tree they said, "This one is for Andrew... And this one is for my sister..." and I sat and thought how lovely that they remember... how sad that they have to know.

And so I pause and think and remember how hard that first Christmas was~ how I never dreamt I would ever survive it... and here I am 9 Christmases later. The world has kept spinning and still his angel is there, watching over it all... and somehow I did. We did it.

Survived it.

Survived it without him.

Andrew.

Without her.

E.

Thank you Andrew.

Thank you E.

Thank you to all who remembered and remember still...

Thinking of your angels this holiday season and thinking of YOU.

I know others are too~ I just pray they let you know

Somehow.

In their own way.

And though it will never heal your broken heart, I hope you can see it for what it is, a medicine. A caring. A community. An attempt.

To show you love.

December hurts.

But you're not alone.

You never have been...

You never will be...