Life After Miscarriage: Dear Selah

My dear Selah,

I certainly thought at the dawn of the new year that I'd either be holding you in my arms this week or anticipating your pending arrival. When you slipped into eternity after 12 weeks nestled in the depths of my womb, I was broken hearted and just plain broken.

I simply couldn't believe we'd lost you; I thought you'd call these arms, this family, this place here on Earth home for longer than your short life here. When I birthed you and held your tiny body, I marveled at your small but perfect form. We named you Selah because in the Psalms, the Psalmists often put a break in their Psalms with the word Selah -- a pregnant pause of sorts, a praise to God. But there really isn't an accurate direct translation ... Your name is fitting.

Because you, beautiful soul, have been just that for me -- a pregnant pause. A long, drawn-out pause amid the hectic nature of life, calling my attention to beauty and miracles and overflow.

For days turned weeks turned months, I longed for you; the empty inside of me screamed and the space where you once fit ached, the heaviest empty I've known in years. 

Truth be told, that empty wasn't yours to fill, and you know that because where you dwell there is no empty. There's only overflow. 

But your life -- it made me pause, long and slow and steady. It pushed me to the Filler of the Empty, asking, aching to be filled. It pushed me to consider the faith I've long clung to; it pushed me to claim the promise that whenever we seek, we find Him waiting, ready to take that ocean of empty I thought I could fill bucket full at a time, with His very self. Your life showed me that beauty and miracles and overflow are often born of pain and grief and empty. 

You are a praise to God from my lips.

You are not the baby we lost. We know you are; you dwell in very depths of goodness and in my heart. 

And because of your life and because of His goodness, you'll always live in the overflow there inside my chest instead of in the empty. 

I love you, 

Mommy

One Word 365: In Which I Intimately Understand Rejoicing

I thought we had turned the corner on that first brilliantly sunny day of the new year. 

I thought surely God had given me the word rejoice for my yearly word just a day before for wonderfully obvious reasons.

On that New Year's Day, I was feeling remarkably better than I had in years. Just a few weeks prior, I had let go of a really toxic relationship and the guilt that accompanied it was replaced by peace. And on that first day of the new year, we discovered I was carrying our long-desired baby after having had our hearts broken by two miscarriages.

I wasn't naive enough to think the year would be without challenges. I knew adding a baby to the family would bring trials in itself

But I thought I really understood why God had given me that word, rejoice. Because, indeed, there was a lot to rejoice about. And a new baby would naturally have us rejoicing.

When we lost the third baby just shy of 12 weeks into pregnancy I just couldn't understand why God had given me that word.

I honestly thought that the birth of our little one was a central reason for our rejoicing. 

And it has been -- just not in ways I could have ever dreamed.

The day I birthed our tiny baby into my hands, I had to make a decision. 

I could sink under the heavy weight of grief. I could swim against the relentlessly smashing waves of sorrow and anxiety.

Or I could throw my hands up and cry out for rescue.

I threw my hands up, wildly waving them that day, asking Jesus himself to pull me out of the storm. 

And almost every day since, I've thrown my hands into the air in still-surrender.

It's looked nothing like a sweet surrender and everything like a flagging down of the mother ship. 

During the first few months of the storm especially, I  angsted over and lamented the darkness overhead.  As I was pulled through those days, a small boat tethered to the Rescue Ship, I was tempted to sever myself and just sink into the angry waters.

And on those days I felt the rope become increasingly taut ... until I actually found the rope had given way to being in the arms of the Rescuer. 

I asked Him who He was. Really. Who was this Rescuer who came in my distress? And what was His heart for me,  He who could have just as easily quieted the wind and waves. 

He who instead He stilled me. 

Over and over He spoke that verse about being still and knowing he was God to my heart in ways I couldn't understand until I finally began letting go of the busy, the expectations, letting the noise and other voices around me fade.

Have you ever tried to rescue someone who thought they were drowning? I have. My oldest son has been extremely cautious of water his whole life. He once went in over his head and when I got to him his thrashing, his movement made it all the more difficult for him to realize I had him and he was safe.

It wasn't until I began coming before Him in silence that I really began to relax and clearly see I was safe in His arms.

In those long stretched out days of silence and stillness, He began revealing himself to me in more intimate ways than I had ever known. I began entering into times of conversation, where I could hear His heart for me. At first it was harder to distinguish, but the more time I spent listening, the more I recognized it as clearly as I could hear my boys calling me from the opposite end of a busy park.

When I began hearing His voice regularly, and it always lines up with the Word I'll add, I began hearing His heart for me. He called me daughter clearly one evening as I drove home beneath blue skies and puffy pink clouds after a therapy session. 

After I realized the storm I'd been in was a product of sifting from the king of lies, I asked Him to call me by my new name just as he had done for Simon when he renamed him Peter after denying Christ three times.

And he called me His lovely bride. I wrote down the truths that communicated about both me and also Jesus.

In this I realized I am valuable and loved, worthwhile and captivating while He is everything I've ever dreamed the most ideal husband to be: strong and patient, valiant and just, loving and merciful. 

And I realized it beyond the song and dance I've known. 

I realized it intimately and deeply, like I was truly hearing the lyrics to parts of the song I'd always just hummed over but enjoyed before. 

There's more. Because with Him, there is always more but theres only so much time to write today. 

The clouds seem like they are breaking apart now. The sun keeps poking out and streaming through these days. Not only is my body healing from the stress and regaining the physical balance that began faultering after the miscarriage; my heart and my mind and even our marriage has also been getting healthier, stronger.

Healing has been slow but drenching. 

That, indeed, is a reason to rejoice. 

Seven months ago at the start of the year I would have thought that our word for the year was finally holding true.

And it is. 

But for reasons I never expected.

I rejoice today because the Rescuer of the storms is far more complex and personable than what I ever knew or understood

And His heart for me goes far deeper than any depths I could sink.

 

Miscarriage: Labor and Delivery and Saying Goodbye

I don't often caution people against reading my posts because that seems counter productive, but I urge pregnant women or people who don't want to read about labor and delivery and baby loss during pregnancy to stop reading here. 

However, if you're dealing with the loss of a baby during pregnancy, I'm sharing this for you as well as for my own healing. I pray you find peace and comfort during this hard time. 

Last Friday, the morning after we found out our sweet baby stopped growing at our monthly check up at my midwife's office and the shock sort of wore off a bit, I began the process of saying goodbye to our baby and letting go.

Almost immediately, I began cramping intermittently and lightly spotting, but it wasn't until five days later and many repetitions to just let go that I delivered our tiny, precious little one into my hands after an hour of moderate-intensity labor-like cramps and contractions.

The birth of our 10 week and 5 day old baby at 12 weeks of pregnancy was quite a bit like labor and delivery had been with my two boys but with less intensity pain-wise. It was nothing like the two early first trimester losses at 5 and 7 weeks; those were like heavy periods.

I really wanted to labor and birth our baby at home for a few reasons even though I knew the baby would not be born alive.

First, I wanted to give my body an opportunity to let go instead of just having the baby and placenta removed by the d and c procedure that's pretty common during miscarriage. It was really important for me to not send my body into shock. I wanted my body to realize we needed to let go both emotionally and physically.

Second, I really wanted to deliver my baby. I spent nearly 11 weeks growing this baby and loving this baby and I carried this baby for 12 weeks and a few days. I needed to honor this baby's time with us and with me in particular by birthing him or her. And I needed to say goodbye.

We were granted all of that in that in unlikely grace.

My labor began around 3:45 and peaked at 4:50 p.m. when the baby was born into my hands. For baby only spanning the length of my pinky finger, I was surprised at how large the sac was -- about the size of a large grapefruit.

The baby itself was perfect and tiny. Little toes and tiny fingers were formed and baby looked small and delicate, just how I'd imagined.

About ten minutes after I birthed the baby, I began delivering pieces of placenta every ten minutes. After about an hour of delivering placenta pieces and passing blood clots, we noticed that the bleeding increased from a dripping faucet to a leaking faucet. At that point, when my midwife could not assess the blood loss via phone, we left our two boys with my mom and headed for the emergency room.

After being assessed at the ER and continuing to bleed, I was hooked up to a fluid IV and transported to a full-service ER where the on-call OB-GYN met us, listened to our story, checked me out and found that the bleeding hadn't stopped because my uterus was still retaining pieces of the placenta. My sweet in-laws met us there and began asking friends and family for prayer as my husband put out a plea on Facebook and via text message.

The OB explained that some women are able to complete a miscarriage without a d and c, but sometimes the body has a hard time expelling everything because mechanisms that are in place after a full-term birth are not necessarily activated during a miscarriage -- nursing for instance is one way the uterus is stimulated and activated to help expel the placenta; I obviously had no nursling. She also explained a few other reasons, but I was spacey and loopy from blood loss so I don't remember enough to explain well.

I'm thankful for medicine and doctors and surgery especially when it's needed, and though I didn't want to have a d and c, I listened to what my body was saying and knew it would help. I was tired and growing weaker.

I explained my concerns to the OB, and she was an amazing listener. I shared with her that we weren't sure if wanted to have another baby in the future, so we were concerned with my uterus' health and I shared that I was nervous about anesthesia.

So she went above and beyond to make sure I really needed the procedure. She actually scheduled an ultrasound so she could confirm pieces were still stuck inside the uterus before we went to the operating room.

And because there were rather large pieces still stuck in combination with the heavy bleeding, we agreed that a specific kind of d and c would be fitting in this situation; I then went straight to the OR for an ultra-sound guided d and c using suction and no scraping. A normal d and c, she'd explained, is often completed by feeling around inside the uterus and gently scraping pieces away from the uterus.

For experiencing something so sad and unpleasant as the loss of a baby during pregnancy, I felt God sent us a huge gift in having her be the on-call doctor. Her extra care and commitment to detail as well as her compassion were extremely helpful and healing.

Another amazing gift of mercy was when John's parents' friend from their neighborhood found out I was going in for an emergency d and c, she offered to come to the hospital and be with me during the procedure; she's a OR nurse at the hospital I'd been taken to, and though she'd never met me she offered to come be the hands and feet of Christ to me during a really stressful time.

Our friends and family have also been extraordinarily helpful and supportive, covering us with prayer from the very first night we found our baby had passed away to meeting our needs tangibly when all we could do was cry and process. The intercessions from the hearts of our friends and family were heard, and God showed us His love and His mercy and grace through the sending of the right people during our time of loss and suffering.

Though last night was a really difficult night for my whole family, I'm not sure I would have done much differently in hindsight. It was really healing for me to have the moments with my baby and to have delivered that baby I loved and grew and carried for nearly an entire first trimester.

I needed that closure.

I also overwhelmingly felt the strong urge to name this baby, and we've picked out names for our little one; we'll share with family and friends after we find out our baby's gender; my midwife picked up the baby this morning so we could run some tests to determine anything possible. At first, I was sort of sad that we wouldn't bury the baby, but I know our baby's soul is already with our Maker. Likely we'll plant a tree or bush in baby's memory once spring arrives -- beauty springing forth out of the soil and ashes.

Miscarriage: Waiting Rooms and Waiting Days

We are the only ones left in a waiting room long after all the well people normally leave the hospital.

This realization is what grounds the hope that's been swelled up like an inflated balloon in my lungs; I am holding my breathe and still somehow breathing.

But when she angled the computer monitor away from my face and stared grimly at the screen while pressing the wand against my belly, I knew something wasn't right.

I knew as I glanced inquisitively at my husband sitting across the room that when she was done snapping pictures, there'd be another waiting room waiting for us.

These past three months have been anchored in waiting.

We waited for the positive pregnancy test of our long-hoped for fifth pregnancy.

We waited for tests to come back confirming HCG levels were rising steadily.

We waited as each week rolled by to hear the heart beat of our baby as my stomach swelled and rounded.

All the while hoping the waiting would lead to our third child being born alive and well and beautiful in our arms.

But at the midwife's office there was no heartbeat found with the doppler. So we waited for an ultrasound later that evening.

And came full circle back to the waiting room.

Somewhere in the past week or so a feeling of peace had washed over my body -- peace I couldn't understand; I'm always thinking, sometimes anxious.

I prayed, though, in trust that God would take care of this baby and take care of me.

Peace, unexpected and abounding, in the surrender.

John and I hold hands, hopeful, but the balloon begins to deflate with every moment that passes, and I'm breathing deep breathes before she walks in and hands us the phone.

My midwife, she says she's sorry. The baby stopped growing. 10 weeks 5 days and I'm actually only 11 weeks 5 days and not the 13 we thought.

I don't hear anything else she says.

I birth heavy wet tears

in the midst of peace

I cannot explain.

I voice the injustice and I sob and I fall into my husband's arms with more questions than he could ever answer.

But underlying is this strange peace.

I don't sleep much that night

but I breath, and I tell my body

"it's ok. just let go. the baby is already in heaven. so let go."

I cry more through out the Day Two and notice cramping sneak into the lower parts of my abdomen,

heart still thick-coated in grief dancing closely with gratitude, each battling to take the lead

and un-understandable peace.

So we do what we know how to do:

We wait.

We pray.

Balloon of baby-hope deflated

deep breathing

as weeks of hopeful waiting

morph to

one night of waiting rooms and

bleed into waiting days.

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-6

The Words I Never Wanted to Write Again

Last night we found out our littlest seedling, planted in December, was harvested earlier than planned and differently than we expected.

Our littlest seedling will only bloom in Heaven, along with two other siblings we never met this of eternity.

And here on Earth, this morning, the sun is shining and I can't help but wonder how everything around me keeps going when the hope and life that was growing inside of my has so haltingly stopped. 

Here on Earth this morning, instead of growing the baby I would labor to deliver in September, I labor and birth grief. 

Grief and more tears than I thought I could cry. 

Grief at the loss of what this child would have been in our family, in the world. 

Grief at the prayers that weren't answered in the way we'd asked. 

Grief while watching our five year old cry to hold the baby {sister, he thinks} he wanted so badly. 

And waiting. 

More waiting. 

Waiting for my body to catch with the reality that I'm no longer growing a baby. 

Waiting to be healed ... again. 

Waiting to see the clearing as we walk another valley and cry out to the Shepherd to carry us. 

Because we just can't navigate this alone. 

Thinking, that's All: Letting Go

A generous thank you to Bounty for encouraging the pouring out of my heart by sponsoring this piece. 

I've let go of trying to figure out why.

Why I'm not waddling around in the final days of being large and swollen with child.

Why my earliest signs of pregnancy were my last ones. 

Why we've not been counting down the time left in my pregnancy week by week and day by day, especially now that we're in the thick of my due week.

Why we lost not just one baby in September, but then, you, too, in December.

I guess why doesn't matter so much anymore because a reason wouldn't make it feel right anyway.

A reason wouldn't make arms that wanted to hold you feel fuller, more satisfied.

It wouldn't make me more OK with the fact that sometimes pregnancies end unexpectedly and sometimes mothers don't get to hold their babies outside of the womb this side of Eternity.

And it wouldn't make my heart grieve any less the loss, the promise, the hope of you here in life as we know it.

The resignation to resting in the unknown doesn't mean, though, that I don't

give thought to whether your hair would shimmer coppery-red against dark locks when sunlight presses into it like mine, like your brothers'

that I don't long to see father, your brothers marvel over you

that I don't wonder what you could have given to a needy world.

Just because I'm no longer lingering in the why, small one, doesn't mean I don't remember.

It just means that I'm refusing to let you become synonymous with loss

because you haven't been lost.

You haven't been misplaced

or forgotten. 

I know you dwell in Light I can't yet imagine. 

And I know that instead of me welcoming you into my world today, this week

one day, you'll be there welcoming me into yours, His.

A generous thank you to Bounty for encouraging the pouring out of my heart by sponsoring this piece. 

Bigger Picture Moments: Rocks of Remembrance

I've been standing here at this riverbank, peering into the newness of this lush land, getting ready to cross.

But I can't move just yet because all I've had to mark this journey toward health, to celebrate this gift of healing is a few small stones I've picked up and turned over in my hands again and again with offers of thanks abundant on my lips.

I thought I'd take these small stones with me, thought the clanking in my pocket would act as reminders of the desert sands I've traveled through sickness and anxiety, heart pounding with fears, mind saturated with fog and body aching with exhaustion and discomfort toward freedom and healing.

But I need rocks for this -- not these small, smooth stones, like ones my boys bring in from the backyard, but large landscaping stones, solid and glistening and unmovable.

Though there is still road to be traveled, that which has been tread so far calls for me to stop and pile stones of remembrance here at the place of realization:

that for which I prayed feverently, unabashedly, loudly, that for which I clanked noisy cymbals and clanged on and on like a noisy gong doing rain dances in the middle of this desert beneath the vastness of heavens, has been given. I have been delivered from the desert and satisfied with manna and I now stand before lush green land.

It has been given -- this healing of body and most importantly this healing of spirit and mind and heart. And to mark the time and space in which it has been given is necessary; it's needed so that I can look back and remember the grace, the mercy, the love rained down on thirsty skin.

But more importantly, I need to push rocks of remembrance together, piled high, to not just celebrate the gift  of healing but to make an alter for remembering the goodness of the Giver. 

To remember the gift itself is wonderful and carrying stones in my pocket would have sufficed.

But seeing the Gift Giver Himself revealed requires rocks of remembrance and praise that reflects what my eyes have seen: a tall and towering, strong and solid, a faithful and lasting Almighty Healer, my God.

Editor's Note November 2012: If you are looking for information on restoring and healing your digestive system, please know that The Body Ecology Diet helped me, but it didn't completely restore my health. My body actually stalled out on the the diet, and I needed to go off it to heal other parts of my body. You can read about my last steps in healing by clicking here. 

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Just Write: Target

It's in the middle of Target

   the baby aisle

that it hits me hard

square in the gut

as I'm touching the  pink

soft cotton ruffles

of a tiny short-sleeved dress.

Warmer weather will bring the gifts of sun

and a beautiful, anticipated baby niece

who will wear the purple and pink garb.

It will bring songbirds that sing of spring

and long, hazy lake days with two sets

of little footprints embed in the sand.

But my arms won't cradle

new fruit from my womb

like I'd twice hoped during a long fall.

I remind myself that ripe fruit

tastes just as sweet as that

freshly picked from the vine,

cup E's smooth cheeks in my hands,

thankful.

But there

in the baby aisle of Target

my stomach somehow feels

all the flatter,

and the months I thought

that separated me from the grief

of releasing two small gifts

seem merely like

elongated minutes.

Thinking, that's all: Christmas is for the hurting, too

"The real beauty of Christmas is to understand the ugliness it cures." John MacArthur 

So we're in the thick of the Christmas season, a time of year that is laced with beauty and joy and celebration.

And I'm talking about how my heart hangs heavy after another loss.

I'm grappling, grapsing at how to remain authenticly true to sharing my story from where my feet are planted when there are so many deep emotions bound up in this loss during the celebration time of year.

Because I don't want to neglect the beauty, the good, the wonder.

I'm thankful.

I'm so thankful.

I'm thankful for Jesus' birth and what that means to my eternity, your eternity and my here in now, your here and now.

I stand in awe of the gift that came wrapped as a Baby King.

But I'm hurting, too. And it's real. And it's wounded-open. And it's burning. And it's sometimes out-of-my-mind sharp with pain.

She stops me dead in my thoughts to share that His birth wasn't wrapped up in shiny tinsel and big bows. That the birth that brought Him into this world was red-blood running and filled with the pangs of birthing a child. Samely, His death was that, too.

Lest I forget, as well, the wailing of mothers through the land after Herod claimed the lives of baby boys, attempting to steal the very breath out of the tiny king's lungs. And the betrayal Jospeh must have felt at Mary's pregnancy announcement. And the uncertainty Mary must have harbored about being pregnant, miraculously, with the world's Bright Hope.

"We are surrounded by uncertainty everyday, but there is a God that wants to go with us, who wants to lead us through the uncertainty of it, and that, too, is the message of Christmas." Joe Boerman

And so this Baby King, He offers this redemption for the suffering, this certainty in the face of uncertainty, this healing of hearts, this covering of blemishes, this promise of restoration, this hope of life forever within His perfect kingdom through both his birth and then with his death.

And Christmas is about that part, too, beyond the shine and tinsel-glow. It, too, is about the hurting and the hope gifted for hurting no more.

For the first time, through eyes that know tears as well as faint wrinkles from joy spread across my face, I recognize more than the wonder and the beauty and the awe of God breaking his 400-year silence with the cries of a Baby Savior echoing into the night from a stable, more than the majesty of a star shining so bright, foreshadowing the light that had been brought into the world through that birth.

Resoundingly, I see more and more why Christmas is for the hurting, too. And how the trials cannot be extracted from the joy and celebration, for they make Christmas all the more joyful.

And so I stand where my feet are planted knowing more than ever the joy.

Thinking, that's all: Hold the Light

There is great temptation in retreating into silence.

So many reasons - fear or shame or guilt or pride or minimizing - for concealing our wounds, quieting ourselves, never giving voice to the deep abrasions our hearts suffer.

I choked back the guilt swelling in my chest, asked my mom to take the day off Friday and come help while I rested and prayed and healed physically and John tried to order the house from an entire day of neglect and pay quality attention to our littles.

She reminds me that we have to accept help where help is freely given in love, embrace it with thanksgiving in our hearts.

We have to let the body function, be the body, if we are to really be a body united.

"From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." Ephesians 4:16

Hurting in the silent recesses of the heart doesn't allow for love to come from the other parts of the body, doesn't let the body come in response to the pain and help aid in the healing with love.

Words.

Prayers.

Encouragement.

Flowers.

Tea.

Poetry.

Phone messages.

Arms to love on two boys.

Arms strung around my neck.

Each a different but beautiful gift from a different and beautiful part of the body.

Through this second miscarriage and then our ER trip with E after he fell and hit his head last night, you, our friends and family, have really shown me what it is to hold the light when exhaustion and doubt and hurt really set in.

So thank you. Thank you for holding the light for us.

"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I {Jesus} with them." Matthew 18:20

If I can take your burdens to His feet, please don't hesitate to share.

Pregnancy Loss: So we meet again

And so we meet again, wet tears dripping over smiling cheeks.

I sit on the couch bathed in a cocktail of gratitude mixed with more spiked grief on an early Thursday morning the first of December, both loss and blessing vividly apparent while my oldest son wraps tightly his arms around his mother's shaking shoulders, my youngest snuggled securely in between my arm and body.

I woke up seven weeks pregnant this morning, a small babe nestled within the still-deep confines of a guarded womb.

And I'm going to sleep tonight having sent another baby into the arms of Jesus.

I thought, this time, I would still be growing the gift we'd been given; I had hopes we'd have an early Christmas present to share -- one wrapped tightly with in the safety of a growing abdomen, glowing mother set to be opened and exclaimed over and loved sometime in mid-July.

We don't always get to open our gifts in the ways we expect.

Our hearts are heavy.

But they are also free.

Because we're still celebrating the birth of a Baby King -- and because that Baby King grew into a man who lived and died to love and redeem, I know that on the other side of heaven I'll go to both of the souls we've bid farewell earlier than expected, arms opened for the holding.


And so we'll meet again.

{Please don't feel the need to say anything, but please do offer up prayers of healing on our family's behalf and prayers of thankfulness for the blessings we enjoy and the One that has given us the ultimate Joy. I'll be taking a break this weekend to catch my breath and heal.}

Life Unmasked: It

I'm standing in my bathroom, immersed in stillness, breathing in and out rhythmically, having a mental stand off with the second-floor bathroom sink.

Bathrooms in my house are regularly neglected because I find little motivation to keep cleaning them when these boys of mine just.keep.peeing all over them; but every week or so I get sick of them smelling like a urinal, arm myself with an entire bottle of vinegar, pull my gloves up to my elbows and I normally emerge victorious.

Except for the upstairs sink.

It remains only partially cleaned, haphazardly tidied.

Simply, I can't bear to be faced with the upstairs bathroom sink for too long or else I see them reflected in the mirror, half hidden, half exposed: three positive pregnancy tests tucked behind the white drawers atop the vanity that I'd taken before that red Friday in September when I miscarried.

And in really digging in, really cleaning the sink, I'd have to make a decision. A decision to allow them to remain stacked atop of each other behind the white drawers atop of the vanity next to the sink

or ....

Last week I saw a friend who felt the tense in my shoulders, the strain across my chest with her therapeutic hands.

And she wondered aloud as her hands felt the tightness "what are you holding onto in there?"

She'd breathed out a huge breath and she urged me to let.it.go.

I tried. I breathed and I relaxed and I prayed for the stress in my chest to lift, for my body, my mind to let go to whatever tightness both had been harboring.

While some of it melted away, she'd said, there was more that would eventually have to release, too, before the strain would relax into peace.

It's like peeling the layers of an onion, she'd said. There are more layers yet to go.

I'd left her house feeling better but still heavy.

And then, here, in the bathroom this morning*, it hits me amid my silent standoff in from of that sink.

I hear music humming softly through speakers, two little boys playing together on the wooden floor and I see reflected in the mirror the white bodies of the those tests.

Gloves pulled up to my elbows,eyes brimming with tears, I do it.

I clean the sink.


Not just haphazardly tidy -- but really, really deep clean the sink.

I make the decision, hold the pink lines in my steadied hands

and I let go, one more layer peeled back, away.


*a morning last week.

Five-Minute Friday: Catch

It takes me by surprise, catches my breath, steals it from my lungs in the midst of one of the most routine pit stops of the day.

Unexpected, uninvited, the first bright scarlet wave since the unexpected tsunami of red.unleashes the sinking-gut feeling of loss remembered, fear realized in the middle of my beige bathroom.

It's a reminder --

that bodies heal, resume normal often faster than the heart

that new beach stretched out before us doesn't erase the footprints where our feet have tread

that there is freshness in this stretch of sand

and hope of healing in calmed tides.

It takes me by surprise, catches my breath, steals it from my lungs in the midst of one of the most routine pit stops of the day.

And instead of holding it - my breath, the fear, the sadness, I breathe in, exhale, release.

Bigger Picture Moment: On Being Kind to Ourselves

Just days after I felt like my body had gone haywire, miscarrying the baby we'd hoped would be snuggled in our arms come May, I felt the need to snatch up some sort of control and make the best of things.

So I jumped right back into active dieting on the Curves Complete program, vowing to lose the last of my 10 pounds ... while I was still in the middle of miscarrying.

In retrospect, it was a poor attempt at trying to grasp onto some control over my body and its functioning.

Also it was a poor attempt at listening to what my body really needed: healing.

The last thing my body needed was to be thrust into living off of restricted calories and engulfed in so many added self-imposed "rules" while I was in the process of recovering from such an emotional and physical trauma.

It only {ha} took the stress of E shoving playdough up his nose followed by a super-sized panic attack complete with an entire weekend's worth of tightness running through my chest while my heart beat erratically, breaths short, mind and body exhausted to give me the hint that maybe I should just.let.go and rest.

I tweeted my intentions to allow my body rest, complete with the #EatPrayLose hashtag on Twitter.

Kamille, a soul-sister of sorts, a fellow sojourner on the very same unfortunate journey of loss, messaged me saying that she could sense a peace in that decision.

And that these next few weeks?

These next few weeks were about extending kindness to ourselves, bathing in grace and rest, not throwing all of the hard work of getting healthy by the waste side, but freeing ourselves from living under the stressors of more rules and expectations than what are actually necessary in our jobs as wives and mothers of small children.

And then, in an almost eerie but soul-refreshing fashion, another friend and then another  and then another {!} reminded me -- all in separate communications -- that I needed to be kind to myself, patient, gentle ... none of which I'm really all that great at acting out, especially toward my own body.

I demand a lot from these muscles, this mind, this heart, and demand must give way to rest, prolonged rest, especially after great strain and stress.

Probably, I won't be eating chocolate cake every night after dinner, but this past weekend when John and I were celebrating our anniversary, which actually turned out to be a restoration getaway, I said yes to tea and dessert together.

Sure, it was still relatively healthy-- greek yogurt ice cream and fresh blueberry sauce -- but what I really said yes to had nothing to do with food and everything to do with kindness toward myself; what I really said yes to was relaxing while sipping tea with my husband, enjoying his conversation amid candlelight and freshly-pressed white linen table cloths while letting go of the expectations I'd barraged against an ailing heart and body.

Just as we must know when to be self-disciplined for the good of giving ourselves health, we, too, must also know when to show our selves kindness to help our bodies heal.

And, actually, I don't know of anything that ever healed without it.

Have you seen a glimpse of the bigger picture through a simple moment this week? Share with a community of other women on the journey of intentional living by linking your moment at Lenae's!

Five-Minute Friday: Growing

I want to linger in summer, this year especially, the way I page through pictures in memory books, running my fingers over the softness of first haircuts, running my mind over first steps, first kisses, first heart thumps.

I want to soak in sun, thirsty skin drinking every ray before we move further from the source and days become longer, darker, damper, colder.

Last week today, I woke up ready to welcome in fall, ready to swell, full with new life, pull both feet out of summer and step into the newness of autumn, growing fuller, wider by the week.

But, with the dream of that fullness, wideness faded, instead, I grow deeper.

I grow roots deeper in His promise, into the soil of Truth and Life.

I grow deeper in love with the Creator of the souls I love so much.

I grow deeper into communion with the Healer, the Restorer.

I grow. Not how I expected, but nonetheless, I grow

and I step into autumn, with both feet, embrace what the newness of this dawn brings

and what is yet to come.

Bigger Picture Moment: Wholeness of Truth

I wonder how many of us grieve our losses -- however varied and different-- in silence.

How many of us smile, respond with OK when asked how we are doing while we feel anything and everything but fine. 

I wonder how many, and I wonder why. 

I wonder why my first thought was to tuck away my sadness, the loss, bury it deep down inside the deepest wells of my heart ... why I thought I could, well, rather, should walk this journey alone. And the more I thought, the more I questioned. 

Don't I know yet that there is comfort in arms wrapped around my shoulder, in words spoken, in stories shared, in love given freely?

That there is nothing more scarring than letting the battles wounds of life sit in the darkness of heart wells?

That there is healing in the Light?

I wrote my hurt into the pages here, etched the words of this piece of our story into the white and shared because I thought it would somehow maybe help someone else who felt like hiding her hurts way down deep. 

I thought maybe I would be a hand in the darkness of those wells in the heart stretched out offering to pull someone else out of those depths. 

But the wholeness of truth is, and I didn't quite know it until so many friends began showing up in so many ways, that sharing would continue the work He's already started in layering salves on a healing heart. I didn't know it, but I needed some other hands to reach out, clasp mine after I emerged from that darkness, sun blinded, a little shaky and raw. 

Thanks for being His hands and feet and His arms and mouth --pulling me up and embracing me in the steadying of my own two feet and walking beside me as I take baby steps forward into the light of a new day. 

I likely won't ever forget it. 

"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Matthew 18:20

Have you seen a glimpse of the bigger picture through a simple moment? Share at Melissa's this week.

Life Unmasked: Joy in the Mourning

At first my knee-jerk reaction was to let these words remain only in the black on white of an unpublished draft, let them fade into the archives, left unread, unspoken.. 


But this  weekend, in my sadness, in our loss, I've found comfort through the experiences of other women who've walked this same road of miscarriage  ... and this? It's been the elephant in the room of my mind for the past almost week as I've tried stepping around it.


And He moves me. He moves me from weakness to strength. So with caution to any pregnant mothers and those with very tender hearts to perhaps skip reading this one, I press the publish button for the prelude to what I wrote last Friday morning. 

I am watching two adorable little boys play trucks infusing their play with a side story of Finding Nemo.

I should be on the floor with them, playing, enjoying, living.

But I am bleeding, being initiated into a secret club I didn't want to join.

Bleeding. The tinge of pink darkening to red, after not one, not two but three positive pregnancy tests.

I am supposed to be closing in, wrapping up this week of being newly blessed with child.

I am supposed to be heavy with new life in my womb instead of heavy with emotion.

I am supposed to be ...

right where I am. I resign again, whisper that God is God, and I am not.

And because I don't understand why

why, why, why

I throw myself into a tailspin, turning and turning and turning, kicking up dust and sputtering on it.

There is guilt mixed with grief.

There is thankfulness interwoven into guilt.

And then there is guilt bleeding back into grief.

Everything bleeding -- the lines of positive tests, my body, my mind, my heart.

I have two adorable little boys playing trucks infusing their play with a side story of Finding Nemo nearby.

And I am thankful that they are still at my feet, able to be scooped up into my arms for kisses and cuddles and giggles.

I circle back around to grief, wishing May 2012 could somehow still bring a new tiny baby born fresh from my body and into our arms, snuggling in for kisses and cuddles and giggles.

And then swoop back to thankfulness for two little boys

and around to guilt again after thanking God for gifting us with their sweet little lives ...

I have two adorable little boys playing trucks infusing their play with a side story of Finding Nemo, and I slip onto the floor next to them and cry out for Him to break me out of the rounds I'm circling.

Because right now, that's taking me nowhere fast; I need to go somewhere good even faster.

I make the slightest cry, and He hears.

So, slowly, gently, He moves me from spinning in the circles of a dusty, dirty roundabout of fear and sadness back to the paved road through His truth and the truth spoken by my husband and the words shared from a friend ... He moves me, layering salves over a wounded, heaven-homesick heart, to the next rest area on a journey where there is grief, yes, there is sadness, yes, but, too, there is both joy in the morning and joy in the midst of mourning.

"My soul clings to the dust;
give me life according to your word!
...
Make me understand the way of your precepts,
and I will mediate on your wondrous works.
My soul melts away for sorrow;
strengthen me according to your word."
Psalm 119: 25, 27, 28