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Archive for Loss

Still.

February 19th, 2013

Thank you all so much for your words of encouragement through comments or emails or Facebook messages. I appreciate the time you all took to share your heart with me. (although, the incessant, ignorant and, of course, anonymous commenter I could have done without, but that’s okay, that’s why I moderate my comments now.)

I know that news like that can shake you up. It still shakes me to my core, I’m still shocked by all that is happening, even though I’ve been living it minute by minute since last year. But it’s okay. I’m okay. We are all okay. I promise you.

I’m still the same person.

I still can’t wait to see my kids’ faces in the morning.

I still can’t wait to check on them before I head to bed.

I still love graham crackers.

I still love to photograph everything I possibly can.

I’m still grateful for every breath I take.

I’m still grieving the loss of our precious boys. (five years next week. That’s difficult for me to handle right now.)

I still eat as if it were my job. (quickly and with great focus.)

I still eat ice cream every night. (I did give that up for awhile but I needed it back.) (so it’s back) (forever)

I still work … a lot.

I’m still grateful for every person that hires me to photograph their family.
(always will be.)

I still laugh and joke. (how could I not?)

I still love Steel Magnolias and Brad Pitt.

I still love yellow.

And coffee.

I’m still grateful for all of you who check in and leave comments and share how you’ve been reading for awhile. (that’s one of my favorite things. This is truth.)

I still plan to be here. Writing. Sharing. Like always.

ReadySetGo

June 27th, 2011

e-and-t-

These last few weeks have been incredibly disappointing to me. By the time I wake up Monday morning, Gloom and Doom have arrived, not even giving me a chance to start off on the right foot. Each week I try to break myself free from it and it works, but only briefly. But last Friday, when I was officially diagnosed with strep throat, I thought, “that’s it, I give up.”

And not that I was giving up and hiding underneath the covers and crying and pouting, I was just giving up that I had to accept the bad with the good. I’m always to willing to open my arms up to great opportunities and warm hugs, beautiful things and good health. Well, I can open my arms to a little bit of pain, too.

Lately, there have been so many thunderstorms in my life and even during them, I’d know they were purposeful, I always believe in the brightness shining brighter after the darkness (and even during the darkness.) I just thought maybe this time, I need to stop. Sit in bed, do not work or write or email, allow Brian to bring me Tylenol and rub my feet, browse on Pinterest, eat ice cream, doze off, just accept that sometimes life seems really hard and you feel beat up.

I’m okay with that. Because at least I have the chance to get back up, to let the sun warm my shoulders and to wake up and do everything I can to at least attempt to kick ass every single day.

Sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I won’t. But sometimes, I will. And that will always leave me grateful because at least I have the choice.

This baby.

March 9th, 2010

I have this baby in my belly. He makes me nervous and anxious and fearful. Except he isn’t the one making me feel that way, it’s life and our past and I’m trying to move past those feelings except it’s hard because IT’S JUST HARD.

This baby, we found out yesterday, weighs 6 pounds 15 ounces already. I think it’s funny that Brian and I both kind of feel like he’s a tiny little peanut where everyone else, (doctor, ultrasound tech) says BIG BABY. He is set to arrive in 20 days.

20 days isn’t much considering it’s only twenty days and during that time the kids are off for spring break and that’s only like six American Idol episodes and only 19 more sleepless nights with ridiculous amounts of drool with tissue sticking to my face.

My doctor asked if the baby knows his name. ”Does Supervisor know his name?” We were caught off guard. Does he? I looked at Brian and we both sort of shrugged and said “Maybe? We don’t know.” And she said “teach him his name, call him by his name…everything is going to be alright.”

And that made me feel better, for a moment, because how does she really know?

{I’m working on trust. I’m trusting her. God. and James and Jake to continue to provide us with the faith they have so far.}

Last night, Brian, Anna, Noah and I sat on the couch watching Yo Gabba Gabba. (it was a good one with Weird Al Yankovic and Sarah Silverman…yes, I know some of you think it’s a strange show. I like strange…I like that my kids like strange, too.)

Anyway, we sat and Anna sat next to me and soon her arm sat on my belly in such a way, like she was just making sure that this baby was moving the way he was supposed to. and he was and she thinks that means that he likes her and can’t wait to meet her.

I’m sure she’s right.

We like him and can’t wait to meet him. In just 20 days.

{and right now, as I’m about to hit publish, this baby has the hiccups – those make me so happy.}

36 weels

Be glad for all that’s good.

January 6th, 2010

It honestly was not my intention to write that post about finding out we were having a boy and then just let it sit there at the top of my blog, letting it get stale.

But things happen. This morning, I posted over here and afterwards I was going to write a post reminding all of you to gather up your favorite photos from 2009 to share in tomorrow’s You Capture.

But then my phone rang and it was Arianne and I realized quickly that this phone call would be one we would never forget.

Her baby died, at 18 weeks.

My heart aches as I sit and think about what her heart feels like right now. There are 50 things I want to do but I don’t want to do these things now because they all seem so trivial. I can remember after losing James and Jake, reading a post by someone where she wrote about how she was thinking of me during our darkest moments. It meant so much to me because I felt so alone all of the time. And it’s not that she wrote about it, it was that she was thinking of me, really dedicating her private moments to me and my family.

It was so hard for me to hear that people’s lives went on as usual as mine STOPPED, dead in it’s track and the only real thing going on was the intense pain felt all over my body, the hot tears that flowed constantly and the pit of emptiness that sat within at every second.

After James and Jake’s memorial service, we all had dinner afterwards at my in-laws house. I can remember my two friends telling me a funny story about how they were together the night before at Bunco (where I usually was) and how silly they were and it felt like someone had punched me dead in the face….how could life be so normal for people so close to me but so completely flipped around and horrifying for me?

I didn’t blame them for continuing to live their lives because that’s how we move on – it was just so hard to comprehend how not too long before that, our lives were so similar and suddenly, they were not.

Arianne just recently moved to South Carolina which is making this so much more difficult for so many of us. I’d give anything to make her lasagna and muffins and bread and soup, I’d love for her to know that I could be at her house in seven minutes if she needed anything, even a glass of water. I want to reach out and physically care for her…but I can’t.

So, I pray. I give her my moments of peace. I pray for strength for her and Jacob, I pray for grace and understanding and hope to creep in over time. I want her to know how not alone she is even though that is what she is feeling right now.

Loneliness.

Fear.

After losing the twins, those precious boys that we miss SO MUCH all of the time, so many of you reached out to me with your words, your prayers, your wisdom. You helped me through my darkest hour and not just me but many of my family members that read my blog, they would say “your comments are amazing and uplifting” or “did you read this comment from so and so?” That’s how powerful you were and are to me – you left your words with me and they resonated throughout my entire family and continue to do so…everyday.

I hope you can take some time to do the same for Arianne.

I’ve been here before.

October 6th, 2009

The waiting. The unknown. This is familiar to me which sucks but then again, I also know that the wait will soon be over and we can begin the plan of action with our care.

In December of 2007, I had my first ultrasound with that pregnancy. It was then that I found out we were having twins, I was 8 weeks pregnant. I didn’t freak out, but I cried. It was the happiest cry I had ever cried. I couldn’t believe that I was so blessed to be pregnant with twins. I felt like the luckiest person in the world, like the sun was shining down on me, I couldn’t believe that God felt I could do this.

I was at the ultrasound alone, my parents were in the waiting room with my kids (who had no idea I was pregnant, the kids, not my parents), Brian was at work in Chicago. I was getting the ultrasound because I was having major cramping, it wasn’t a planned screening, otherwise, Brian would have been there with me.

I had to tell him this news, so after the ultrasound, barely dressed, in the dark room, I picked up my cell phone and called him. I said “there’s a heartbeat.“ He replied with “one heartbeat?”

“No, two.” I said.

He cried briefly, silently, sitting in his cubicle at work. He felt that same joy.

This was around 3 in the afternoon. Just before five, the nurse from my doctor’s office called and said the doctor had wanted to see me after my ultrasound but the tech failed to let me know. So, could I see the doctor first thing the next morning?

“Of course!”

God, I was so happy.

And then, I saw my doctor, where she grimly informed me that my two babies were in the same sac, this condition is called monochorionic and it was not good news. Essentially, over the course of the pregnancy, it was very likely that the twins’ cords would become entangled and their risk for twin to twin transfusion was increased. Their chances of survival were lessened greatly.

She did let me know that often, at this early stage, that diagnosis is incorrect, but we wouldn’t know for two more weeks when another ultrasound was done.

If it were correct, my care would be transferred to a specialist in Chicago.

I left and cried. I had planned to leave my doctor’s office and go buy a book about bring pregnant with twins but I felt like I shouldn’t because what if we lost them…

I went home.

For the next two weeks, we prayed and remained hopeful. And if the twins were, in fact, monochorionic, we would just pray EXTRA. Those two weeks were difficult because we just wanted answers RIGHT NOW. But it taught us patience and we made it through the two weeks.

Faith helped us through. Everyday I woke up pregnant with twins and that’s all we knew and that’s all we focused on.

And so that is where I’m at now.

I am pregnant with this miracle, who we love and we continue to love and we have hope, SO MUCH HOPE that not only will we hold this baby in the spring but that the doctors will be able to guide us through this pregnancy with their vast knowledge and experience.

The twins, we found out, were not monochorionic, what a moment that was to have that answer! And even though we eventually lost James and Jake to something unrelated; today, tomorrow, yesterday, we are reminded just how much we have learned from their little lives.

We are living it right now. And we are always grateful to them.

We are going to be okay.