My New Picture

I was at my parents house earlier this week. It was a very fun time. I got to work out in the garage with my dad for a little bit, he helped me make a gift for Ken. (AND I've got a few more wood working projects that I've decided I need to do, Dad doesn't know it yet, but we are going to spend some more time out in the garage :) I love my Dad. I love my Mom too, and this next part is because of her ) After finishing up my little project I found my Mom down in her little craft area. That place is full of interesting things, it's never the same place twice. This time I was looking at a stack of pictures and things and I came across this picture.

It's a picture of depicting this short, yet very meaningful to me, story from the New Testament-Matthew Chapter 9.

 20 And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an ^aissue of^bblood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment:

 21 For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be ^awhole.

 22 But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee ^awhole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.

( I copied and pasted that from an online version of the New Testament)

So- I saw this picture and I knew the story, but in the moment, my heart wanted that woman to be me. I still feel so broken. I don't know what was wrong, or if anything was wrong, with me, with those little babies I wanted so badly to help to make. I have moments when I feel whole and normal and even hopeful. But then there are other times when I feel so very empty. I want to feel full of life again, I want to feel like me. It's my "issue". 

I loved this picture and I decided I needed it. My Mom said that it was the only one at the store near her house BUT I have the same type store near me, so today I went down to that store and looked hopefully through their unframed pictures and I FOUND IT! Then I went down to the local thrift sore and I found a frame that I thought would look nice with it. Now, it is on my living room wall. I will look at it and remember that I can and will be whole. 

Thanks Mom!

Anesthesia and Me

There is something I've learned over the past 7 months of my life, Anesthesia and me are pretty much frenemies (or frienemies- how every you spell a made up word). I am grateful for anesthesia because it is very, very helpful during surgeries. BUT I get some side effects that I am not to pleased with. nausea and vomiting- I can deal with, but I get insomnia. BOOO, Booo to you insomnia. The fact that you come after a bad nights sleep (can you sleep before surgery?) only makes it that much worse. I Googled insomnia after surgery and sure enough, totally real, and good news- it should clear up within 2-3 weeks. yeah......  Is that enough complaining? I think so.

So, yeah, I had surgery yesterday, there were no signs of anything happening anytime soon with the loss of the pregnancy. It had been over a week since we found out that the baby no longer had a heartbeat and so on Wednesday, Ken and I went to a follow up appointment with my doctor. Nothing was happening, no cramps, no signs of impending anything. So we set up an appointment for a d&c at the hospital for the next day. The doctor hoped that we could still avoid the surgery and he had me try taking some large doses of Misoprostol (aka Cytotec) on Wednesday night in the hopes that it would get everything going and we could cancel the d&c. I spent a long night not feeling so great- first it was nausea, then 3 hours of something close to labor and then......pretty much nothing. In the morning I told the doctor how the night had gone and he said he would meet us at the hospital. So off we went, and everything went fine.

I was very well taken care of. My Anesthesiologist, after explaining all that would go on anesthesia-wise, took a moment to let me know that it was totally okay for me to cry after it was all over- I'm really not explaining that right. What did he say, he said something about how sometimes people feel very agitated after any anesthesia, but when you add the loss of a pregnancy on top of that, well, there is a very good chance for a lot of tears and that I shouldn't feel self-conscious if I should feel like crying, in fact if I did the doctors and nurses would cry right along with me. That really touched me (considering that I had already been crying as I lay on my gurney outside the surgical suite.)

It had been a long week, I had done a lot of grieving. I don't know if I've been through all the stages or if I took them in any order in particular, but I was sad, then I was angry, I don't know if bargained- I don't know what I would bargain for, then I was in denial (on Wednesday I knew the doctor would do another ultrasound and part of my heart really wanted to believe that he would start cheering and say he saw a heartbeat- yep, there's denial for you) and at a point last week I felt acceptance- I was really confused as to why I had to wait and wait and wait, never knowing where I would be when I started to physically lose the baby. I was angry for a little bit and then I realized I was angry at this poor little body inside me, when just days before I had been so grateful for that sweet little baby. I felt weird, I felt like I was a walking tomb. This  thought made me feel even weirder, for about 30 seconds, and then I thought about a tomb, about Christ, my savior, he rose from the tomb, I thought about how tombs are sacred places and I know it's really, really odd, BUT, I didn't feel so weird anymore and I kind of felt a little sacred myself. I had been blessed to be able to cherish this baby for the few weeks that it grew inside me and I was blessed to be able to continue to cradle its little body until I was ready to let go. And I was ready to let go.

All night on Wednesday night I prayed that whatever happened, it would be the right thing. If the pills worked I prayed that everything would go smoothly and I would  be able handle whatever happened. If the pills didn't work, I prayed that the procedure wouldn't be horrible, I had no idea what it would be like, what I would like, during and after either situation. Like I said earlier, I cried while I waited to be taken in for the procedure, but I really felt at ease after talking to the Anesthesiologist and my Doctor, my nurses were all very nice and comforting. And then I was waking up in the PACU with another comforting nurse, who eventually brought me down to the post-op area where Ken could be with me. After proving that I could keep clear liquids and soda crackers down (plus a couple other things) we got the okay to come home. And we did.

I don't know why, but I had the impression that I would feel empty inside, but I didn't. I can only assume that the timing had been right. I'm sure I still have grieving to do and I have vowed to let my self heal as much as I can, emotionally and physically. I still have aches and pains from the laparotomy at the end of May- so a few extra months of waiting before we try again will help with that too, I assume. The Doctor told Ken that he would like us to wait at least 3 months possibly up to 6 months, and I feel like that is going to be okay. Our baby will come when the time is right, and right now, for whatever reason, it's not the time.

NOW- if you've made it this far, I commend you and I hope that this next little bit makes all the rest of it worth it. As I said my prayers tonight I found that I was thankful, I just kept wanting to express how thankful I was. I will admit, I haven't been amazingly thankful over the past week or so, but I just felt overwhelmed with gratitude. I got in bed and struggled to sleep, eventually I did! But then, as seems to be a habit, I woke up needing to use the bathroom, I figured it was 3 or so in the morning....then I saw the clock 11:55. I tried again to sleep but couldn't, I finally decided to just get up. After a couple of hours I went back to bed but once again I couldn't sleep. I was just laying there next to my Ken, AMAZED at how wonderful he is. He has had to take quite a few days off this year to take care of me- Me the one who is the full time caregiver. And he has done it willingly. He is truly the biggest blessing in my life. So there I was, crying again, but this time it was good crying. I, being a very good wife, woke Ken up to tell him all about it. He is my best friend, he is the love of my life, he is the father of my children, he works hard to support our little family and he is AMAZING in every way. I don't feel like I deserve him, I'm sure we all feel that way about our greatest blessings, the greatest gifts that God gives us. I hope someday to prove to myself that I am worthy of such amazing love.

So, yes, I am awake in the middle of the night (actually it's past 5 AM now) but I'm not anxious, I just feel amazingly blessed. I hope that I always remember this, I don't know what I'm to learn from this whole experience, BUT I am glad I have learned this. I've known for a long time that I am a precious child of God, that he knows me, that he gave his Son for me and that Christ knows me and feels my pains with me. But tonight I think I came to understand that Eternal Love just a little bit more.

Good Intentions

Well, Here we are- at quarter to 4 in the morning. I thought- I'll blog! I got the memory card from the camera and intended to post pictures of the fun stuff we did in October......and then I quickly realized that Ken had transferred the pictures.....SO here is what I found.

Little B LOVES the computer :) and Big Boy J likes to take pictures  (see his feet there in the corner)

J likes the computer too- he likes to watch videos. He also loves those Jammies- I washed them on Friday and then again on Monday and on Wednesday he was quite upset that they were not in his pajama drawer

I'm a cowgirl! (B may be totally crying, which makes no sense because he has crackers! CRACKERS!)

On Sunday Morning B and I did some indexing- it was very enjoyable. 

 There you go- a few days in the life of the Wheeler family- we are very very interesting people :)

Things I will never really understand

If you've been wondering where I've been for the last month, well, I've been keeping a secret. I was pregnant and I wanted to talk about it SO I didn't blog.

Yesterday was a horrible day. My horrible day had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with things that are beyond my understanding. Back in August I remember telling Ken that I was afraid to try to get pregnant again because I didn't know if my heart could handle losing another pregnancy. Well, We were blessed to be able to get pregnant again, pretty quickly, and this time things seemed to be going well, the lab tests more than doubled, I saw a heart beat at an early ultrasound and I even started feeling really sick. I went in yesterday for one more ultrasound and sadly, there was no heartbeat. I spent a lot of time crying yesterday. I didn't understand. I don't understand. I don't know if I ever will. I was just starting to feel comfortable, to feel like all was well and then SLAM the rug was pulled out from under me and I fell hard. It hurt. 

What made it really confusing was the fact that I was still feeling nauseated and tired and tender, I was feeling very pregnant but the ultrasound didn't lie. I was told what to expect and given instructions and then I started my wait. The wait for all those nice hormones that were making me sick and tired and tender to go away and for my body to recognize that there had been a change, and then the real fun would begin. For the moment I'm in limbo.

As I went to bed last night I really felt confused and somewhat faithless. I felt like I had been playing that trust game where you fall backwards and someone catches you, but no one caught me, and I felt like God should have caught me. I struggled, I believe in God, I have faith in him, but it's hard to trust someone who drops you. And then at about 4 AM I started to have some cramping. and I didn't freak out or anything, I was expecting it after all. When Ken woke up I told him that it was a tender mercy, I think it would have been more horrible for me to think that everything was okay and then wake up at 4 AM cramping. It's amazing how quickly my feelings changed, I went from feeling like God had abandoned me to feeling like he had softened the blow for me, he knows me and this miscarriage was going to happen and he put me in the place where my fall would be the most cushioned. And that is AMAZING! 

I'm still waiting for it all to happen. The cramps were just cramps, an early sign of what's to come. 

What else is to come? I don't know. I've told Ken that I am not sure when I am going to be ready to try again. I'm scared, I don't know how much my heart can take. Maybe I need to find a pregnancy loss support group and just talk for a while. But for now, I feel the need to take care of me, get myself back in shape- both body wise and house wise. I need to get back into a good pattern with myself and my boys and my Ken, with my house and my running. And maybe then I will feel like I'm ready to branch out and risk my heart again, but for now, I'm not so sure.

This morning I was grateful for a new day. I woke up today. I cuddled my boys today. I ate ice cream for breakfast today (well second breakfast, I had eggs for first breakfast). Come what may, I have one more day with my family, the people I love. I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I will live it, I will live through it and I HOPE I will love it (or at least appreciate it and/or understand it at some future point).

That is all, for now.