Have I Not Given You Promises?

365 days. 12 months. 52 weeks.

                             One year.

One full year has passed. For months now writing this blog has been on my heart. I could not decide how to write it. I could not decide what tone it should have. But I knew that I needed to write. And I knew that I needed to share.

              Then, October 22, 2014 I was sitting in church listening to a guest minister that, honestly, is not my favorite. But I was determined to listen and try to glean something. I knew that God had something for me that night. And I got it. The minister was talking about himself and his own situation- but he made one statement, asked one question that had been posed to him by God. That one question was my entire reason for being there that night. This minister had been going through a situation in which fear had caused him to question God and whether or not God was going to take this man’s son from him. In his prayer and desperation he heard one question in his Spirit-

Have I not given you promises for him?

This one question pierced my heart and stole my breath. And instantly I knew what to write. Or, at least, how to start writing.

              Since the beginning of this journey I have always known it would be very necessary to share our story. Not to glorify the enemy’s work or wallow in our loss, but in the full desire of giving someone else hope. Hope… What a powerful and yet taken-for-granted word. But my prayer, if you are reading this, is to show and instill hope in your heart. This is the first of two parts that I will be publishing. This is simply our story. The happenings of one year ago. This is only the beginning. Please look for Part 2 before the end of the week.

              Laying in the hospital less than 24 hours after my first child was born by cesarean section someone asked me if I was ready for another baby. I looked down at my sleeping girl and without a second thought said “YES!” Of course, physically I had a little ways to go! But from that moment on it became my prayer and my confession to become pregnant again and announce it at my daughter’s first birthday party. On September 2, 2013 my prayer was answered and at her party, right before she got covered head to toe in icing from her smash cake we announced that our sweet Ariyah would be a big sister in May of the next year. I’ve always wanted a large family and I’ve loved the idea of my babies being close in age so that they would grow up as playmates and friends. With our projected due date our babies would be 20 months apart. Perfection! I felt great and we were so excited! We told the whole world! I even acquired a new friendship with a girl from church when we discovered our similar due dates.

              A week and a half after Ariyah’s party things got a little scary. I started bleeding, and while I knew that bleeding in the first trimester can be very common, I’d never had it with Ariyah and it threw me. My mom and husband took me to the er and after hours of waiting, blood tests, and ultrasounds we were relieved to find that baby (whom by this time we were certain was a boy) had a strong heartbeat. I had several follow-up visits with my OB and my midwife and we saw his heart beating on several more ultrasounds in the office. One of which I was given pictures. We went back to normal, once a month checkups.

              The enemy always seems to know where to attack us and our thoughts, so when, a week before my 13 week checkup, I had a bad feeling in my belly about that appointment I chalked it up to an attack on my mind and brushed it aside. I didn’t want to give it space in my brain to I asked my friend, Shana, to pray about it and went about my business. Monday, November 11, 2013 I got up, got Ariyah ready and settled at my mom’s and kissed my husband goodnight, as he was working midnights and slept during the day. This was a simple appointment to check my blood glucose tolerance and listen to baby’s heartbeat. There was no reason for him to miss sleep to go with me. So I headed to the office alone. I had completely forgotten about my previous bad feeling and was excited to be in the office. My midwife came in and we talked and talked like we normally did. Then she had me sit on the exam table and set out with the Doppler to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. When she didn’t find it right away she didn’t panic. Baby was still pretty tiny at this point. But to be sure she got out the ultrasound machine. She gelled my belly up and looked. And looked… Silence. She assured me that I shouldn’t be too worried. This machine isn’t anywhere near as good as the one at the hospital and she was going to send me over there to check on everything. She smiled at me and I knew she had hope. I called my mom to tell her what was going on and I couldn’t control the tears that started as soon as I heard her voice. She began to pray over the phone, asked if I needed her to come to me. I think one of the biggest regrets of my life is the fact that I told her I could go alone.

              My midwife came back into the office with the printed order for an ultrasound at the hospital and I tried to put on a brave face. She hugged me and I headed out to my car. The short 2 minute drive around the corner to the hospital was the longest of my life. I got inside, registered with the nurses and was taken back to ultrasound. A client of my mom’s was working and, seeing my distress, allowed me to wait behind the desk in a small office. And then it was time. The tech doing the scan was a girl that I’d seen many times while pregnant with Ariyah. She began the ultrasound and I laid there in silence while she took measurements. Ariyah had had a 2 vessel umbilical cord, so during her pregnancy I’d endured something like 17 ultrasounds. So when the tech zoomed in on my baby’s heart, I knew what I was looking at. And I knew there was no movement. I knew that I had lost my baby. The tech, however was, of course, not allowed to tell me anything. She lead me to a very small dressing room where I could wait until the radiologist read the results and called my midwife, and in turn my midwife could call me. I waited and waited, shut into that tiny room by myself, without so much as a single bar of cell phone service to reach out to anyone. I waited for the call that would tell me what I already knew. When it came, even though I knew what she was going to say, I wasn’t ready for it. The baby was only measuring at 12 weeks. He’d been gone for a week already and my body hadn’t had a clue. She wanted me to go home, rest, and she would call me later with more information and my options.

              I didn’t cry right then. I was cold. But I took a breath and headed back towards the desk. It wasn’t until I saw our client’s face behind that desk that I couldn’t keep it in. She took me back into that same office and let me attempt to collect myself. I called my mom from their phone and as soon as she saw the call coming from the hospital she knew why I was calling. I told her that our customer was leaving work early to bring me to her house. The ride home is a blur. Wonderful Gail had no idea what to say and I couldn’t produce words so we rode in silence. My mom met me outside in the driveway and kept me from collapsing to the ground. She held me and we cried. There were customers in our home salon but I had to walk through. I couldn’t even look at my daughter at that moment. I couldn’t think about the fact that I needed to call my husband. I had to wake him up to tell him this horrible news. My mom did it for me. I called my dad at work. My mom called my brother and sister-in-law. Within a half of an hour my mom’s house was full of people I love. The pain in their faces will be with me always. This wasn’t just mine and my husband’s baby. This baby was already a part of our family, loved and cherished… And grieved for.

              At a time when I thought I would have preferred to be alone in my grief, being so surrounded by my family began an immediate healing. Having my niece and my daughter there was part of that as well. Within minutes of the two of them being together, they were able to make me smile. Hours after I’d received the worst news of my entire life, I was able to look at them and enjoy watching whatever game they were playing and smile. My daughter would come to me after I’d had to make yet another phone call or text to family members, and she would love on me, and I would be able to breathe again.

              A few hours after I’d gotten to my mom’s house my midwife called. She spoke so gently to me and explained a few things. She told me what options I had but assured me that I didn’t have to make this awful decision right away. She made sure that I had her personal cell phone number so if I needed anything at all or had any questions, I could reach her. Originally I had wanted to do things naturally and let my body miscarry on its own. But it had already been a week. I could take my body up to another month to figure it out and start the process. I knew that I couldn’t handle the constant mind game of waiting. Would it happen tomorrow? The next day? The next week? And I knew that I could not be induced and go through physical labor to deliver a baby I would never bring home. I was still early enough along that a D&C was an option, and that is the option that I chose. For a while I felt immense guilt over that decision. I felt like a horrible person that I was choosing to never see my baby. But my midwife even had help for that. In choosing to not be faced with seeing my baby as he was, I was allowing myself to keep hold of the picture that I have of him in my head, a beautiful, healthy, perfect baby boy with his Daddy’s dark hair. And I found comfort there.

              We received our awful news on a Monday and on Tuesday morning I called my midwife with my decision. We were able to schedule for the next morning. On Wednesday, November 13, 2013 I went into the hospital with my mom and my husband by my side. My OB came into my room before surgery and hugged me. She hugged me for a long time and she cried with me. We composed ourselves as much as we could and she explained what was about to happen. She answered all of my questions, including how long we needed to wait to start trying to get pregnant again. She told me that an autopsy would be performed but that no genetic testing would be done unless I requested it, which I declined. She didn’t expect to find anything out of the ordinary. I somehow found solace when she told me that “This was just the destiny for this baby.”

              I was in and out of the hospital so quickly that I don’t even truly remember waking up after surgery. I only remember Dr. Wright telling me that everything went well and specifically that I had dilated very easily for the procedure. I was released and went back to my mom’s house where I stayed for several days. My husband stayed at home for the most part since he would still be sleeping during the day for work in the evenings but Ariyah was with me. And Chris would come before he left for work and sit with me and hold me. When we did have quiet time together he would hold me and we would cry. We never pulled away from each other. I am so glad. He was, and is, such a rock for me. That evening after I’d rested some from surgery my mom and dad blessed me greatly with a new notebook, colored pencils, and a charm bracelet with November’s birthstone on it. My baby who should have come in May now had a November birthstone. I put the bracelet on and I do not think I took it off, even to shower, for several weeks.

              We did not plan a memorial or service. Even though the whole world knew our good news, and now our bad, it felt too personal… And though we had named our baby I wasn’t ready to make his name public. Even though we kept to ourselves quite a bit in the weeks that followed, there was so much love poured out on us that it was almost overwhelming. I did reveal our baby’s name to my family on Thanksgiving. That was our memorial. To speak of him, and acknowledge him among our family, and to let them know the name we had chosen for him. And we began to live again. I was finally sleeping in my own house again and while the first few nights were incredibly difficult, there was so much comfort being there. I could put my daughter to bed and get on my face before God and pour out my heart in a way that I just couldn’t anywhere else.

              When so many people wanted and still want us to believe that God took our baby from us, that is one thing that I cannot and will not accept. My God is love and He is the giver of life. It is the enemy who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I do know that my Heavenly Father allowed this to happen. Some people do not see a difference. I do. I know that He has known I would have this journey since before the earth was formed. Before I was born He knew I would endure this heartache. And He chose to still let me bear it. He gave me strength to do so. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully understand why He allowed us to walk through this, but I know that there is a purpose. I know that because of His grace I am far more healed and whole than I have any right to be. I know that in those darkest days of my life He never left my side. He allowed my husband and I to turn to each other in our grief instead of allowing it to separate us. He allowed me to question and be angry and He never walked away. He held me. And He is still holding and healing me. And He gave me promises, through all of my sorrow, that He is still providing on. One of those promises is that I will see my baby. When my time on this earth is through I will be swept into Glory and he will be waiting there for me. Being patient for that day to come is hard, but the promises that He has given me for my time left here on this planet make it easier. And the relationships that have been forged out of this pain help make it easier.

              This is our story. But this is not the end. There is so much more to be told. There is so much more to do. There are so many more people to touch. I am writing a second part to this post. It will be published on November 13, 2014. In the meantime, thank you so much for allowing me to share this story with you.