One month

I never really understood why some parents celebrated both a 4 week "birthday" and a 1 month "birthday" with their babies.  I kinda get it now.  There is a distinction, no matter how small.  So here we are, at 1 month.

I started writing the story of it all tonight, but realized I was rushing through it, and wasn't doing it the justice it deserves.  So I'll save that for another day.  

We still don't really know much about why all of this happened, and it's seeming like we never will.  We're not dealing with an incompetent cervix, and the pathology on the placenta came back normal.  I really, really wish we would have had an autopsy done on Nathan, but after the nurse mentioned it to us as a possibility (a few hours before he was even born), no one else brought it up again.  Ever.  And though it crossed my mind a few times during my hospital stay, it wasn't ever when there was someone in the room.  

I know some of you are probably thinking I'm an idiot...forgot to mention autopsy, forgot to take pictures....but please take my word for it....there are just things you don't think of when you're in such a horribly stressful and sad situation.

My OB (who is actually an NP, but she's the one I've seen the most since the beginning, and she's seen me through both losses) is going to talk to one of the doctors to see if she thinks I should undergo any testing myself.  She's also just taken it upon herself to really be an advocate for us, and is trying to find out if there are any pics of Nathan, and if they have a blanket similar to the one he was wrapped in that we can have.  She's also trying to piece together the notes from the day to get a better idea of what may have happened, if that's possible.  We're really lucky to have someone fighting on our side.

I honestly don't know what else to say tonight, but I couldn't let the day go by without recognizing its significance.  I just miss both of my babies so much.

It's like an ambush

Yesterday was the first day that we have been to church since we lost Nathan.  Our pastor and his wife, very sadly, went through a similar experience a few weeks before us, so he and I chatted a bit about it all.  He started off by asking how I was doing, and I went through my typical "I'm mostly good, it just hits out of the blue sometimes" and he replied with something that really hit me...."Yeah, it's like an ambush".  And it is.

I'll be doing fine for hours, sometimes even (almost) an entire day and then WHAM.  It hits.  Yesterday, while I had a few smaller moments, I did really well until we were done decorating the tree.  Jeremy said that the top of the tree didn't look as green as the bottom, which made me worry that the tree may go brown and die, and I started crying.  Ambushed.  It then spiraled downhill into other sad thoughts ("I miss Nathan, he and Jordan will never get to help us decorate a tree..." and things along those lines).  I rebounded fairly quickly for the most part, and thankfully Jeremy didn't call the mental institute.  But still.  Those ambush-y feelings are quite possibly the worst.

Today is 4 weeks.  It feels like it can't have been that long while simultaneously feeling like it was forever ago.  Sometimes the hours feel like days, and the days like weeks.  Sometimes it's comforting to be around people who don't know...especially those who never knew I was pregnant.  But then there are days where I just want to tell everyone what I've been through, as if it would excuse the fact that I'm unable to concentrate/participate/whatever.

I found this website today, thanks to a friend, and I spent way too much time during lunch and my breaks reading it today.  I only say that because I was then on the verge of tears all day.  It's comforting to see that there are women going through this too.  Most of my friends who have been through a miscarriage have either only been through one, have only been through an early loss, and/or have living children also.  Regardless of whether or not they had kids when their miscarriage happened, I still find it a little bit harder to relate because they did, in fact, end up with a living kid or two (or three).  Now, of course that's fantastic for them, and I would never want anything else....but when I'm sitting here childless, it's nice knowing there are other women also sitting childless--though it breaks my heart for them, obviously.  I guess the main thing is not feeling alone, which is how I feel so often.

So far, we still have no answers as to why this happened.  Why my water broke at 17 weeks.  I don't think I was ever EXPECTING answers, but just hoping.  I've not given up yet, as my OB is still doing some investigating, but I'm trying to resign myself to the fact that I probably won't know until the good Lord tells me himself one day.

I'm running behind my self-imposed traditional 7:40pm posting, but I wanted to share a few pictures.  The angel ornament was a gift to us from a sweet friend of mine from high school, and it has Nathan's name and the year.  (We plan on ordering one for Jordan, too)  Then yesterday at Target we found the "n" and "j" ornaments.  We felt it was a nice way to include them in on Christmas, especially since Jordan would be here with us already if he/she had stuck around.

3 weeks

Today I have nothing eloquent or graceful to say.  I'm mad.  I knew I'd get to the angry stage at one point or another, and here I am.  I'm mad at myself, I'm mad at God, I'm mad at the doctors and nurses, I'm mad at the hospital, I'm pretty much mad at everyone who was involved in this at all.  It's not practical, it's not particularly helpful, but it's the truth.  It's my current reality.

I'm mad that I was sick before I got pregnant and didn't know it.  I'm mad that that could have possibly caused this to happen.  I'm mad that God let us get so far into the pregnancy before we lost him.  Why couldn't it have been another early loss?  Any loss is painful, trust me, I'm racking them up.  But I really have had a much harder time with Nathan.  Maybe because he really, truly looked like a baby.  Jordan barely began to live before he or she was taken to heaven, but Nathan was around for 4 whole months.  I'm simultaneously mad and grateful that I had to actually give birth to him.  It was awful and wonderful all at the same time.  I'm mad that I still had to go through surgery, and that the doctors waited so long that I needed 4 units of blood (that's quite a bit, apparently).  I'm mad that the hospital was so incredibly unorganized when dealing with me.  I'm mad that Jeremy had to sit and watch the hospital staff freak out because they didn't know how to use the blood warming machines when they were trying to give me blood.

But I know that the anger will subside at some point.  Right now, it just turns into sadness.  And I guess if I have the choice between being angry and sad, right now, I'd choose angry.

I think what I'm mad about the most right now, is that sometimes I actually forget that this has all happened.  For brief, fleeting moments I touch my stomach and then remember he's gone.  That's what I'm mad about the most.  And sad about the most.  

Another Monday.  7:40pm.  

Standing on a road I didn't plan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ylnx0NA9X4

I've loved this song from the first time I heard it several weeks ago.  It's honest and it's desperate.  It touched my heart in a way no song had in a while.  

What most people don't know is that, at 8 weeks, I was diagnosed with a very unexpected condition.  I was bombarded with a TON of information, which included the possible "damage" to my baby.  Immediate and drastic lifestyle changes began that very day.  To be honest, it SUCKED.  It wasn't anything I couldn't handle, of course, but to have to make any sort of huge changes that rapidly isn't fun.

At 9 weeks, I went for a non-OB doctor's appointment and immediately rushed to my OB due to heavy bleeding.  We just knew it was another miscarriage, and the 40 minutes in the OB's waiting room were torture.  Of course, you have correctly guessed that they found the heartbeat just fine, and our little Nathan was moving all over the place.  At the time, I took a guess that we might be having a girl since "she" was causing such a fuss just to get "her" picture taken again :)

From that point up until November 5th, the pregnancy itself was non-eventful, but the changes I had to make were still annoying.  I would complain about this or that, and some days just didn't want to keep working so hard.  I had to keep thinking about my little baby and how the changes were good for him.

It was in the midst of this frustration that I first heard this song.  I was definitely standing on a road I didn't plan.  Of course I had always planned to be pregnant, but just wasn't expecting it to be so difficult.  Little did I know...

Today (at this moment--7:40pm) marks 2 weeks since we lost Nathan.  While day-to-day life has resumed, and I don't spend every waking moment thinking about him any more, I do get hit with paralyzing pain at random points during the day.  Points that honestly feel like I need to ask God for the strength to just take that next breath.  And even if I don't see it in the moment, I know He will give me the strength for that, and for so much more.

(And if you didn't listen to the song before reading this, go back and listen now.  Seriously.)

Love you, my little Nathan <3

The right words are hard to find

I've been trying for the past 10 days to find the words to explain what happened last Monday.  I want to remember everything, or at least as much as I can, since it was the day our little boy was born and the day he went to be with Jesus.  But every time I try to write things down, I just can't find the right words.  I'm trying to at least capture the details, the events, the timeline so that I can fill it in later.  What I do want to share tonight might be TMI, so proceed with that knowledge:

He had the most perfect little nose.  I don't remember much else about his tiny face (and I don't think the hospital took pictures of him like they said they would, but I'm still holding out a little hope), but his nose was tiny and perfect.

He was really, really small....but he just looked like a super-tiny baby.  Not an alien like I was afraid of.

I wish I had looked at his hands and feet...but I was afraid to unwrap him.  He was so tiny...only weighed 5 ounces.  Jeremy saw him before he was all wrapped up and said he had 10 perfect little fingers, and 10 perfect little toes.

I am so glad that, even if we don't end up with pictures of him, we took pictures of us holding him.  These were taken at about 4:30am on Tuesday, after my surgery (that will be part of the big story) when we were moved to a recovery room.  That should help explain the incredibly tired looks on our faces.

I wish we had thought to take the beautiful crochet blanket with us, but we forgot.  There's a lot of things you don't think of when you've been through something like this.  As morbid as it sounds, I am totally going to make a list in case, God forbid, this ever happens again.  

Even though we didn't remember to keep it, I'm thankful for the organizations that make blankets for these--and other--medical situations.  I worked with one in Asheville, and plan to start working with one again here in the next few weeks.

I am incredibly thankful that Jeremy thought to grab the little teddy bear that was with Nathan.  It may sound silly, but this little bear has been an incredible source of comfort for me over the past several days.  Laugh if you want, but he even came to work with me today and sat on my desk.  Made me smile every time I looked at him.

I am thankful that we decided to name the baby.  It really has helped to have a name.  Nathan Jeremiah.  Jeremy picked the first name, and I picked the middle name.  It just fits.  In fact, it provided so much comfort that we decided to name our first baby, too.  We never found out the gender of that baby, but looked through some "unisex" names, and chose Jordan.  (Possibly Jordan Christian, but we've mainly just been calling him/her Jordan)

Even though it was painful, I am so glad that I was able to physically give birth to Nathan.  This ensured that we would get to see and hold him.  I hate that the rest of the delivery did NOT go so well, and I ended up in surgery, but being able to see and hold him meant the world.

I'm glad my parents could come down, and that my mom stayed with us for a few days.  She is pretty much the only reason we had real, balanced meals for those days, because Lord knows I had no energy or desire to cook.

I'm glad that Nathan stayed with us in our room until we were discharged.  It was comforting to have him there.

Both of us are insanely grateful for all the prayers, emails, notes, calls, visits, meals, etc.  God has really provided an incredible network of folks for us, and once we actually swallowed our pride and allowed folks to help, we realized how much of a blessing it really is.

I'm thankful for those who donate blood.  I lost a lot of blood during surgery, and needed a transfusion.  Without blood donors, I would definitely not be as healthy as I am now.  Once I'm allowed, I can guarantee you I'll be donating blood much more often!

There's so much more to be thankful for, but this is all I've got for now.  The delicious chicken and dumplings that a friend brought us tonight are calling to me.  I promise there will be more (or maybe that's more of a "threat", hahaha).  But for now....

It's been a while!

But what better time to post than on our 3 year anniversary!  It simultaneously feels like I've been with him forever, and that we have forever left to spend.  I know without a doubt that this is the man God made just for me (and hopefully he feels the same :)).  There's no one I'd rather spend my life with, though I can't wait until the day when our work schedules coincide and I actually get to see him more.  :)

We also thought that there was no better time than today, as we begin our 4th year of marriage, to let all of our friends know that 2013 will bring with it a new little Drake :)  We're into the 2nd trimester now, and are so excited!  It's been a bit of a bumpy ride so far, and will likely continue to be that way due to some health issues that were just discovered a few weeks back, but we are trying so hard to trust that God's will will be done in all of this regardless of the outcome.  

So watch out--a little Jeremy or Amanda is coming in April!

Back in the saddle again...

We're almost 3 months past the miscarriage.  And while that is NOT what this post is intended to be about, I did just want to acknowledge that we still covet all of the prayers that we KNOW are being said for us.  There are still some hard days--mother's day and father's day as examples--but God is definitely working in our lives, and we hope that we can have a "take-home" baby soon :)

So, the title of this post refers to the fact that, once again, we are looking for a church home.  We were very hopeful that we had found that with the church we have been attending since September, but after a discussion with the music director, it became apparent that this church isn't where God wants me to serve.  And, just to make it clear, there are absolutely no hard feelings there.  His vision for the music team just doesn't include involving background singers more than once every few months, and I feel called to serve more often than that.  So, with that said, we start this process again almost exactly one year after we began it last year.  The saddest part to me is that I had just started connecting with some ladies at the church, and that's what I am going to miss the most by far.

So far we've been to two different churches, one of them two weekends in a row, and I think we like one of them (the one we've been to twice).  I've already emailed the music director to just check and see if they're open to new members if we decide to hang around, and they are, so....so far so good :)

We've heard two of their pastors speak, and so far so good.  The music is pretty good, too....doesn't hurt that they've played one of my favorite worship songs both weeks that we've been there :)  We're not sure if this is "it" yet, but I think we're pretty content to keep going and see how it goes.

Time for bed, if for no other reason than our downstairs neighbor is being obnoxiously loud as always.  Have I mentioned only 29 days 'til our projected closing date?  :-D