Friday, April 27, 2012

2 weeks

somehow 2 whole weeks have gone by since my nightmare began.

i cry less but hurt just the same.


all of the beautiful flowers people have sent are now dead.


....


this week i have had good and bad distractions. like jake being home for three days straight, good. solomon home with horribly swollen, infected tonsils, bad. in about two week i'll be stressing over my first born going in for (a very routine but still scary) surgery to remove nasty tonsils.


i am feeling a bit overwhelmed tonight.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

whats in a name?

on saturday i spent most of my day in bed. with my kindle by my side i decided i would research the name we gave our baby. Naomi Eve. it was pretty much right off the top of our heads and decision made in the depths of our grief and pain.

so i looked up the meaning of both names

Naomi=Beautiful

Eve=Life

Beautiful. Life. yes. her life was beautiful for the 3 months she swam around my belly. i enjoyed every nauseous second of it. my husband loved her already. my boys were already preparing to be big brothers. she was loved and her short life was beautiful.

i then went on to read the story of Naomi in the Bible. she was a beautiful woman who had it all a husband and two sons but they all died and when she traveled back to her hometown with just her one daughter-in-law someone said to her "hey is that you Naomi?"

"But she said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.  I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?” (Ruth 1:20-21 ESV)

wow. that kind of struck me. "the Almighty had dealt very bitterly with me" "the Almighty has afflicted me" not that i think the Lord dealt bitterly to my baby. but on saturday as i lay in bed with horrible crampy from what i endured the day before i felt like i had been dealt with bitterly. not saying that my experience will make me bitter-just that in the moment i felt like changing my name to Mara!!

the Lord showed me that we didn't pick this name for our baby but that He lead us to it.



*side note: when jake told moses what we named the baby he was a bit put off he said "HEY! i already named her "baby spider-man"!!" i told him he could still call her that.*

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

from joy to despair- and hopefully back again.

January 2012-after talking about having just one more baby for about 3 seconds we decided to start "trying" February 15th- "There is no try, only do" positive pregnancy test!!
February 22nd- first doctors appointment, everything was perfect: due date October 13th 2012
February 25th- before telling grandparents and other family we told our boys Moses (age 4) jaw dropped open, he gasped and then yelled "I WANT TO NAME HER SPIDER-MAN!"
March 21st- ultrasound appointment!! i brought along the hubby and both big brothers and we met our "baby spider-man"

11 week ultrasound where we saw and heard out baby's heartbeat:

even while fighting the normal morning sickness and fatigue we're were always on the go, birthdays, school events, work, normal life.
during spring break on our last "normal" weekend we took our kids with their bikes and just started driving, we headed towards the mountains and found a great place to ride bikes in the sun. it was a good day!

a quick self timer family picture in the mountains:

then our week went on as normal back to school, work and life. 

April 12th- after my weekly costco shopping trip it happened. i started bleeding. BADLY.

if there was "good" time for it to happen it was then. my 15 & 13 year old nieces were at my house after school as usual so i rushed out of the bathroom said quietly (so not to startle Moses) "i need to leave, i'll call Grammy she'll be here soon" and i RAN out the door, jumped in the car and drove the quick 3 blocks to the ER-blah, blah, blah-an hour later alone (Jake was on his way) in a small dark room with an unfriendly ultrasound tech she turned the screen toward me and said "this is your baby's tummy, there's no heartbeat. do you understand?" i just cried i wanted to yell "UNDERSTAND?! NO!! YOU'RE TELLING ME MY BABY IS DEAD!!!" but i just cried and blubbered that i wanted my husband.
back in my ER room he was waiting for me. on the way in the nurse had said to me "we've told him what is going on." so when i got in the room i just cried and said "i'm sorry" he fought back tears for a few minuets and then said "do they know anything for sure yet?" i was so stunned i almost didn't know how to respond. i thought he knew! so i broke the news-and watched my husbands heart break right in front of my eyes.
my (amazing) OB finally got there came in prayed with us, answered our questions, told us what to expect next and then went off to go look at the ultrasound pictures to see if he could see anything. just before we were ready to leave he popped back in to tell us that the baby only measured at 12 week size which means that it had probably been dead for two weeks. *again, i wanted to yell "TWO FLIPPING WEEKS?!?!? HOW DID I NOT KNOW?!?" but i just cried again. i was sent home with medicine to help the "natural" process.
we got home. sat down with our boys and jake broke the news. moses didn't understand and is still trying to figure it out. but it didn't take long for Solomon (age 9) to figure out what dad was saying and he immediately started sobbing. and my heart broke for the third time in one day.
then we just sat and waited for something to happen. i was so scared to start taking the pills to help pretty much induce labor, i was terrified for the next step in this nightmare and that night as we watched a movie together as a family i felt like one of those penguins on those documentaries where there egg doesn't hatch but they just sit there and wait for a baby to come out. that's how i felt- i was sitting on a defective egg.
April 13th- over 24 hours after the nightmare began i was on my way to my doctors office to get everything out. i had no idea what that would mean or how it would happen.
what ended up happening was the worst pain of my life and when it was over he left my husband and i in the room together for a few minuets the pain still radiated and we cried together & prayed and he said a few names i turned down the first two he said and then he said Naomi and just shook my head. he said "ok, just Naomi, no middle name" i said "Eve. only weird people don't have middle names" (no offence if you or your children don't have middle names) so there it was 6 months from the day she was suppose to join us, we named our baby Naomi Eve and she was safe in the arms of Jesus.

we have no answers for why this happened. after two weeks-it was hard to tell what happened to our little babe. so we just have to trust that God has a plan and try to heal. today is the first day i have not cried (although i did tear up pretty good while writing this) today i feel like we just might make it. i know there will be more bad days. but today is a good day.