No Beads? No Worries!

Can't find your rosary?

No problem!  Babies have teeny tiny toes which are perfect in lieu of those lost rosary beads. 

Hail Mary.....

That Time God Took Away My Ability to Write

As an introspective and emotional person, I have always found solace in writing.  Growing up as the sixth child of seven in a very busy, and sometimes frequently always loud home, when I would lose myself in the chaos, it only took putting ink to paper to find myself again.  I filled journals with my thoughts, poetry, tears. It was how I handled the difficult or major things. I never felt much of a need to write down my feelings otherwise.  This practice served me well as I grew, and I carried it into my adult life. As I contemplated marriage, had babies, moved. As my husband lost jobs, I lost babies, we lost family... I wrote.

Writing is my outlet.  Whether it’s good writing or not, gibberish or coherent, it allows me to freely and safely express myself, my deepest longings, thoughts and fears.  Through it I unpack, sort through and face it all, and I am more apt to transition to a place of healing from the painful things, or a better understanding of anything major.  Writing out what’s in my mind and heart has always been much easier than speaking it, and has served as the means by which I am able to process life as I see it.

This past December I had my seventh baby.  I was three and a half weeks from my expected due date and suddenly was facing high blood pressure, HELLP syndrome and an induction.  I had a scare an hour after my baby was born where I was unresponsive for some time, and in that time I had somewhat of an interesting experience I am still trying to understand.  The whole twenty-four hour + event left me raw, exhausted to my bones, and completely unable to process anything the way I normally would. Moreso, I was unable to write. Anything.

I was quite numb for the first two months after.  Emotion spilled out less than a handful of times, briefly, but even then I could not write.  I remember lying in bed one night, balancing my baby on my legs, staring at her and crying. She had just recently become less of a stranger to me, and I was marveling at her beauty, our growing bond, and the grace of God.  It was one of only a few times I had been able to look at her without numbness at that point.

It wasn’t until the next day or so that I realized something.  I had been striving for several weeks to somehow write an article about my labor that I didn’t remember, and I had been completely unable to. I’d start, then stop. Erase it all.  Begin again. There were too many holes, too many gray areas. There was too much I felt but couldn’t express. Too much sifting through murkiness, only to end up with hands as raw and empty as I felt inside.  I was grieving hard the fact that I could not write, that I couldn’t go through the process I normally do. I hadn’t been able to journal at all about it, and could not take from that what I needed to write the article.  What I realized was that the Lord had been whispering to me in various ways all this time to come to Him. To find my outlet in Him.

I didn’t have an ‘aha’ moment with that or even a great spiritual event afterward leading me to my state of ability to write.  Nothing like that. It was a slow progression over the next week or so, realizing that though I usually prayed and wrote (and often wrote my prayers as my means of processing), this time, with this, the Lord wanted me to pray only.  To come to rest at the foot of His cross and abide there for a time. I didn’t have anything I needed to be able to process otherwise and there was no way of obtaining it without that time with Him.

When I finally surrendered to that idea, putting aside my notebook and my laptop, something in me started to crack open.  Whenever I felt any sort of pain or became aware of the lingering numbness within me, I consistently returned to Him. Again and again, I prayed and cried, and I felt reassurance dawn over and over, tip-toeing ever so gently into my heart. Pieces of the puzzle began to take shape, their smooth edges fitting just so with others.  The ones that were still hazy with jagged edges unable to be clearly defined had to be set aside. I had to accept that I would never have the whole picture. But what I did have, I was able to take from. I was able to write about my feelings, my ordeal, and from there I was able to form the article I eventually ended up submitting to a magazine.

Now I am 14 1/2 weeks out from having had my precious baby.  I don’t necessarily feel healed completely. But I do sense a shift in direction on my path.  I suspect that in the next few weeks and months, more things will present themselves to me to sort through.  What I went through was no small thing and I am learning more and more how dangerous HELLP syndrome is and could have been for me and my baby.  Although I am more able to function and deal, some days are harder to grasp the light of than others. Some days still leave me somewhat raw.  But I know that no matter what, any ability I have...to heal, to write, to laugh, to love, comes from Him and Him alone, and I am nothing...I can do nothing, even write my feelings...without Him.

Pregnancy And Infant Loss - You Are Not Alone

I have six children. Six precious, amazing gifts who grow older each day and still continue to set my heart ablaze with their wide-eyed wonder, their sincerity, their crazy antics, and their unconditional love.  But I also have two other little souls who I never got to meet.  Lost early in pregnancy, their sweet faces never got to see this side of the womb.  I never got to hold them, or kiss them.  I never got to sing them a lullaby or watch them grow up with their siblings.  One might say that I should focus on the six here with me, and not ever think of those other two who stole my heart and then unknowingly shattered it to pieces.

But they’d be wrong.

Now, I don’t live my days wandering from room to room, wringing my hands and crying for my lost babies.  We live our life pretty normally- homeschooling, playing, reading, weekly Mass, bedtime routines, prayer. We snuggle close and push each other away.  We love and we fight. We visit friends and family, celebrate holidays.  Sibling rivalry is the theme of most days, especially as the kids get older and grow into their own identities and personalities, desperately trying to snatch one more square inch of personal space to themselves. Our household atmosphere is very much like one might expect a large family’s household to seem.  Loud. Chaotic.  But definitely full of love.

So why the mention of the other two? Where are they in this dynamic?

 

My children know there are two children missing from our family photos.  They know they have a brother and a sister praying for them in heaven.  One was the twin of my second oldest.  One would have been born after my fourth.  Sometimes my children randomly mention these lost siblings of theirs, and in their innocence, still convey a level of grief most adults these days can’t begin to understand.  Some days, it jars me.  It strikes me in moments when my older son runs through the house, his shadow not followed by another kid with his same face.  Or when he has a distant look in his eyes just after he tells me he’s been feeling lonely.  Or when a niggling feeling in the back of my mind says there is someone else not gathered with us for school in the mornings or family prayer in the evenings.  It sneaks in as I stumble over the number of children in our family when meeting someone new.  It rushes through me some days, in moments of despair, and I remember the ache, the loss, the empty spaces in the photographs of our family where those children would have been.  Don’t get me wrong, most days, that ache is a dull drumming deep within me, buried enough so that I am capable of going about my life in a relatively normal manner.  But the other days (thankfully numbering less than they used to) still come in waves, the familiar grief depositing itself within my heart.

The truth is, no matter how many babies I have, there will always be two missing from our dynamic. There will always be an ache deep in my heart for the loss experienced not just by myself, but my children and husband as well.   And there will always be tender parts of my womb where those two little souls were once being knit;  unseen and untouched, they are not so much physical as they are mental, spiritual even.  They were the site of my babies’ first moments of life, the source of attachment to me, their mother.  They were where God Himself began to knit them tenderly, knowing them far deeper than I ever would or could.

A few years ago we named our babies.  Someone asked me why.  My response was that it brought us a little more closure; some comfort, but even then I knew there was something much deeper to it.  We named our babies because they lived, however briefly.  They lived tucked inside the secret of my womb, part of me.  They had a value and a purpose.  God knew them.  I knew them, even though I didn’t even realize it until they were gone.  We named them because they were ours, even for a short time, and because they deserved to be named.  A name gave them a huge piece of their identity, surpassing that of ‘those babies I lost,’ or ‘my miscarriages.’

It’s their memory which reminds me to have hope, even though we live in a cultural climate thick with the darkness of deception.  One deception is that children are an afterthought and can be thrown away; destroyed if we don’t want them.  Just like that.  We live in a culture of death.  We live in a time when the world has turned its focus inward, instead of extending its capable hands outward to welcome even the most innocent and vulnerable creatures into.  We live in a society who scoffs at families with more than 2 or 3 children, and thinks of lost babies as a taboo subject.  Because abortion and child abuse and neglect are so looming, the uncontrolled loss of a child seems to mean almost nothing.  So when a woman is grieving her loss, there are few who will validate that loss, and support the woman.

This month is dedicated to, among other things, pregnancy and infant loss awareness.   But even with a whole month dedicated to it, it is still not often openly discussed.  I think it is important in a society which views babies as a commodity and grief, taboo, to recognize that women are often left by the wayside to struggle through the aftermath of their loss in silence, because the subject of such a loss is not important enough for others to acknowledge.  But grieving mamas need help navigating those murky waters.  We need to be told that our baby is important, that our loss is real.  We need encouragement and support and understanding.  We need shoulders to cry on, listening ears, prayers, meals.  We need our space, too, of course.  And we need time.  We don’t need people telling us to move on.  We don’t need friends and family abandoning us because they feel it’s been too long to still be grieving. We need to be able to be vulnerable in our grief while feeling protected.  We need to talk, and no matter how long after we lost our child, we need to be allowed to keep talking, to remember them, to acknowledge their place in our family.  

Statistics show that one in four women lose their baby in pregnancy or infancy. One in four! If you know someone who has lost a child- and it’s likely you do, please, reach out to them, let them know you are there for them, and mean it. Even if you don't know what it's like to lose a child. Acknowledge their baby’s life, however short it was.  And allow them to shuffle through their grief at whatever pace they need to go, with the freedom they deserve, without expectations placed on their already-burdened shoulders.  Let them lay their hearts bare, no matter how uncomfortable it is for you; let their brokenness bless and change you.  Help them carry their cross. In doing so, you diminish the stigma that often overshadows grief, and you break the cycle of indifference.  You bring love in a time of pain, and hope in a time of despair.  Think about it. You very well could change not just their life and your own, but the entire world. 

PS. If you are reading this and you have suffered a loss and would like me to pray for you, please leave a comment or find my email here. I would love to pray for you.  You are not alone!

Uncharted Territory

I've crossed into uncharted territory.  Never in my vocation of motherhood have I ever been here.  It's strange, new, exciting.  And...sort of terrifying.  I'm almost unsure what to do with myself.

Where am I?

I've found myself in the part of this longest labor of motherhood where I am not nursing.  I am not pregnant.  I do not have a newborn.

For a little over twelve years, those three things have been my life.  But now... Now my baby is almost two.  In the blink of an eye, her cooing and grunting have turned into actual words, her wriggling has turned into running, and her small hand lets go of mine a lot more than it used to.

And my arms are empty more often than they have ever been.

It's strange here in this place.  And I'm quite unsure how I feel.

There have been moments over the last twelve years when I've longed to have my body back to myself. To sleep more than a few broken hours during the night.  When I've felt so completely "touched out" and run down that 'heaven' to me was five minutes completely alone hidden in my closet eating a donut that I didn't have to share, while simultaneously resting my eyes.  But never in those moments did I actually understand or even dream of the reality of this one.

How long will I tarry here in this place?  Will there ever be another baby for me?  Or..is this just the beginning of a new stage in my life?

If you don't know this by now, my husband and I are open to life.  While the last year has seen me in some devastating places emotionally and physically which led us to opt to abstain at times, it was not a permanent decision and was always governed by open communication and prayer. There very well could be another baby.  But there hasn't been so far, and this is where I am right now, floating on these unfamiliar waves, wondering if they're taking me back to the shoreline that I've been so used to, or further out into unknown depths.

My sister just had a baby a few days ago.  I got to see him when he was twelve hours old. I held him and focused on his sweet face serene in slumber.  He was swaddled up in his little cocoon, abiding there in his perfection, completely unaware of me. I never saw his eyes flutter, much less open. In the last year or so, holding other people's newborns has not lent that well-known "twinge" of longing I usually feel when my own babies have gotten just a little too big.  I have not felt that I necessarily wanted another baby, but was content to love on someone else's and hand them right back.  To be honest, at that moment, I still did not feel that twinge.  Don't get me wrong, I was instantly in love with this little boy, his smallness, his soft skin, the sweet smell of new baby, and the promises he embodied for my sister and her family.  Holding him gave me such joy.  But this joy was only partially mine, and most of it I had to give back.  So I laid it down along with him, in the little bassinet in the hospital room. And then I left.

I went home to my own brood, to my sweet little two year old who came running to me, screaming "Mommmmm" and covering me with kisses as I walked in the door.  I kissed her soft hair, smoothing a wispy curl between my fingers, and drank in her scent as deeply as I could.  This is my life now, and every moment will continue to change, moving me along gently- and sometimes not so gently- into the next.  Whether it carries me back out to deep waters where I will be holding and nursing another sweet new babe of my own, or keeps me along the shoreline, resting content holding someone else's, it matters not.  Right now, my journey looks quite different than it has these last twelve years, but I trust in its purpose, and in mine.

Trust

A thousand times I've felt the weight of my laboring through this season of my life, felt its jagged edges scrape against me, the burden of carrying six souls through this world, hoping that they make it relatively unscathed. Hoping that they are not marred too much by its ugliness, and in particular, not by the failings of their haggard, desperate mother.

A thousand miles I've tread the path in stark silence, memories aching to be expelled, worries drowning out my inability to just do the next thing. Just staring into blank space.  With joyful feet around me, kid-noise echoing, and I, too unwell to even crack a smile through my pain.

I wrote once that I used to think God made a huge mistake in giving mothers just two arms to care for their babies.  I wrote this at a time in my life where that weight and the shifting grief within me over a life I had to let go of, was heavy on my mind.  When the few children I had then already felt like too much for me, and I wasn't sure if I was capable of living the life I was called to. 

Motherhood.

Of course I could live it.  Of course.  But could I live it well?

I look behind me and see the tiny toes in the sand which follow their mother's path out to sea, to the raging waters of this life where the world is vast and often dark, the depth of knowledge and understanding and love not quite known..  Those little toes stepping lightly into the weathered boat made in the crooks of arms encircling, trusting and seeking and ready.  And I, unable to shove off, to let go.  To take their small hands in mine and set sail.

I cry out:

What if I lose sight of the beacon?  What if even in the calm, angry gray clouds threaten on the horizon, and I become lost? What happens to these babies of mine?

The Lord's answer:
 

Ah! But I do not make mistakes, and it only takes two arms to clasp your hands in prayer.  Stop wringing them in worry, stop faltering upon the shoreline and focusing on the horizon, imagining things that have not yet even come.  My lighthouse looms, always in the peripheral, the light of My Love a clear direction even against the raging waters.  The silence is for rest, rejuvenation. It is not for staring into the darkness, seeking out the jagged edges felt sweeping past raw feet in the surf.  Never mind those.  Never mind the hastiness and urgency welling up inside. Let go and realize that the I, the One who made those babies and called them out to sea, also made you, their mama, strong enough to bring them safely back to Me.

A Mother's Love

Dear Mama,

The other day when I visited you, I climbed into the recliner, smooshing myself in next to you, and laid my head against your chest. Instantly transported back to my childhood, I sighed deeply as the familiar comfort of your scent washed over me.  I listened to your breathing, to your heartbeat and there was something so tangible about the love emanating from your body as you let me squeeze your sides like I used to, and you rested your cheek on the crown of my head.

I listened to your voice as you talked to my sister, reverberating through your body, into my ear, like music.  You were all around me then, just like when I was small.  As you patted my back, I remembered the rhythm from another time, perhaps the long hours you carried me as a baby, walking the hall in the wee hours of the morning, shoosh-shooshing me back to sleep.  I felt that if I could just stay there, all would be right with the world.

Mama, I almost cried then, as I realized how much I miss you.  How much I wish that I could climb not just into the chair beside you, but into your lap, into your arms as often as I wanted, as much as I needed. I realized how old I am and how, at 33 years old, I don't think I've ever felt more helpless than I do right now, and yet I know that you can't walk the halls cradling me, comforting me in the same way you used to do.  I realized, as I looked up into your face, my eyes tracing familiar lines as you talked, that you have grown older and yet you are still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. 

I cradle my babies now, my own number six almost always in my arms, and I wonder if they'll still want to sit with me when they're grown, and if it will comfort them the way it does now as babes, the way it did me just the other day as I folded myself into your embrace and listened to your heartbeat and voice.  I hope that if they do, I can comfort them at a rough time in their own life, the way you did me the other day, when you let me climb into the recliner next to you and fill my empty places with the rhythm of your love.

The Treasure of Nurslings

It's these moments that paralyze me.  But not in a bad way.  I want to stay in this moment forever.  Not move.  Not even dare breathe.  Drink it all in.

I'm nursing my baby and I want to freeze time.

She is my number six and she just turned a year old.  I can't decide how I feel about it.  Do I need to feel anything at all?

Her big brown eyes keep closing, opening.  Closing once more.  She grabs gently with her tiny fingers against my skin.  The other kids want my attention, I can tell, even if they aren't daring to open my bedroom door again.  But I'm hiding out in this room, the hum of the AC in the window, the entire measure of the moment with a single thought: Stay right here.

I tried earlier to get her to sleep.  Noise in the house and a barrage of constant interruptions kept her from making that last slip into peaceful slumber.  She had been on the cusp but wouldn't unlatch or she'd fitfully wake and reach out for me with her pursed lips and desperate cry. It continued on and on like this and there was no getting past it. I had no choice at one point but to let her stay up, let her play, hope she got tired again soon.

After lunch, she had had it.  She was in my arms and nursing in the living room. I moved back to the bedroom once more to see if she'd finally let sleep steal her away.  As I listened to her breathing change, her small chest rising and falling ever more slowly, I realized that yes, this would be that moment.  I stroked her forehead and watched her face change.

In this season of life, I don't think there is anything sweeter than the slow fluttering of the eyes of a nursling as she tries to steal one last look at her mama, the soft cooing and that sweet gentle smile as she drifts off to sleep at my breast.

And I can't help but wonder if she will be my last.  Will she be the last baby I nurse to sleep?  Will these be my last moments with her in this part of our relationship?  How soon will it change?  This one feels different somehow, our moments together more weighty; the urgency to slow down and treasure them, fierce.  It wasn't quite the same with my other babies.  With them, there was more of an urgency to break away, to be impatient. To get the job done, tuck them in, roll away and dash.  Much to do, other kids to take care of.

She has changed me.  Time has changed me.

As I review the last year, gone far more lickety-split than the first years of my other babes, I am convicted.  I'm convicted to slow down. To focus. To watch. To treasure.  This season of my life is fleeting.  Fast.  Some day too soon, she will have nurslings of her own.  And I will have but memories, dusty in my mind.