day 5

Missing in action

1. Are you to busy? Make a list of your roles and the activities associated with each role in a typical week. Is time alone with God on your list?

some would say yes I'm to busy but some days I am way to busy and some days I'm not.

my roles

-MOPS coordinator

-ASC

-Home group

-GKGW

ASC is not an option. It's my job and I love it. MOPS takes a good portion of my time but I love it too. Home group takes very little time outside of the actual meeting and that's the same with GKGW. So in actuality I am not very busy at all. Yet I struggle to make quite time for God on a daily basis. I take great comfort in God but to sit down and make quite time is a daily struggle. I need to make more of an effort.

2. Do you feel as if you've been avoiding facing your hurt? Why or why not? Why do you think it is so difficult for you to be still?

I have for sure been avoiding facing my hurt. I did a good job at first dealing with it but it was so easy to tuck my hurt away and just not think about it. I'll deal with it another day when I'm not so busy, or when I feel stronger. Neither of those days ever come though. I think it's difficult for me to be still because I can't shut my head off. More often than not when I sit down to be quite I can't pray. I can't focus on what I want to pray about and my head zooms off in a million different directions. It drives me crazy.

3. Where is your foxhole of faith, the physical place you go to be still with God? If you don't have a place, where could you go? Read psalm 46, Matthew 11:28, and psalm 5.

The place I go most often is my bedroom but I have a TV in there and my computer. It's sometimes hard to ignore their draw. I don't really have any other place to go in my home. I am so easily distracted and I am so rarely home alone to have quite time in the kitchen. I just need to set the time aside and just be a big girl and make it happen. I tried sitting at the kitchen table today and as long as no one is home it works but Tyler is about to get out of school for the summer and I'm taking on some extra responsibility this summer. After reading the bible verses I see that all that matters is I make time for him. I will find my rest in him and I need to keep my focus on that. I will find my fox hole and rest in him.

4. Schedule at least ten min. each day to be still with God. Take your list of activities to Him and ask Him to show you the roles you need to release for a time.

5. Are there others who can help you face reality and share your load? Who are they?

I already have more help that I could have ever wished form. I have more support in this season of my life than I have had in any other. I am truly blessed in that way.

Day 4

From Minimizing to Validating

This was a very hard chapter. This was the closest I came to shedding tears. I still hold on to them so tightly though. I fear letting my emotions out, I fear I won't be able to control them.

1. How have others minimized your loss? How does that make you feel? Why do you feel others responded that way?

I thankfully have not have many people minimizing my pain. A few people said that the baby was probably not right and that's why God took him home, even I have said that. I don't pretend to know why others say the things they do. I think maybe because for so long talking about pregnancy loss was taboo. Old habits are hard to break.

2. Read Psalm 139 aloud. What verses validate your child's worth?

Your eye's saw my unformed body. All the day ordained for me were written in your book. Every Moment was laid out before a single moment had passed.

This moved me quite a bit. Almost brought me to tears. God did knit this baby in my womb and even though his life never came to be God knew him and loved him. Noah was a beautiful gift and I take comfort in the fact that even know he never took his first breath his heart was beating and he is not forgotten by me or by God.

3. Often people make hurtful comments because they are uninformed. They may not fully understand that loss is loss and you cannot compare how long you were pregnant or had a child to the grief you may feel. What could others say that could validate your loss?

I have two friends who lost babies at birth, when they told me my loss was tremendous and worthy of grief I felt so validated. Even these women who had lost so much more (in my opinion) saw my baby for what he was to me. What others could say who have not experienced such loss is just I'm sorry. Period. No "it was probably for the best" or "it could have been worse". Just acknowledge that even though he was very small that I lost a child. That is what Noah was to me. My child. I loved him and wanted him so badly. when I think that I will never feel his little body in my arms it overwhelms me.

day 3

Facing the truth

Read the story in 1 kings 3:16-28

1. Describe how each woman in the story responded to loss.

2. What would you say to each woman in the story?

I really don't know what I would say. My baby died in my body and I can't even begin to pretend to know what it would be like to accidentally kill your baby and then steal another's baby.

3. how have you responded to others who have what you lost?

I have tried very hard to face the truth in my situation. I have so many friends with new babies and they are my support. I could not avoid them because that would mean going it alone. I have two friends who are due around the same time as me and while I do get upset when I read their posts about all the milestones they are reaching in their pregnancies. I know that my turn will come again and if it does not then God has other things in store for me and I need to keep my eye's and ears open to his plans.

4. What would you like others to do or say to you?

I have thankfully had such wonderful support during this loss and I don't lack for anything. I don't need anyone to say anything to me at the moment. I unfortunatly have many friends who have experienced my pain and worse. They are always available to me and I am greatful for this.

Day 2

Journey to the hiding place

1. How do you hide from the storm of your loss?

I hide from my loss in life. I hide in food, in books, in parenting, in work, in TV, and the computer. I hide pretty much anywhere I can find that comfort of hiding from my pain.

2. Identify the emotional debris, uprooted expectations, or damaged relationships from your loss in need of being repaired.

I feel like I have failed, what did I do wrong? Should I have not gotten the H1N1 vaccine? Should I have quit caffeine completely? Did I eat something I should not have? I wish I knew what happened so I could make sure it never happens again but I will never know. I know I should give that up to God and not worry about it but it's very hard. I really wanted this baby.

3. Picture God as your hiding place. Read Psalm 32:8 aloud as if God were responding to you today.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Wow!

Day 1

Hiding

1. How have you been hiding the pain of your loss?

I talked a lot about my loss the first few weeks after it happened but then I stopped. I don't really know why, I guess I figured people were sick of hearing me talk about it. To be honest I was a little sick of hearing me talk about it. I just wanted to move on but I think I moved on a little to much to fast. Sometimes when friends of mine post about their pregnancies it hits me like a punch to the gut. Maybe it will until august 20th passes, maybe it wont. So to answer the question I have been hiding but pretending it did not happen. I know it happened and I talk about it sometimes but I don't talk to the one person who matters about it. I know He wants me to but I'm afraid.

2. How have you felt disconnected? Physically? Emotionally? Socially? Spiritually?

I feel most disconnected emotionally because so many friends of mine have babies and pregnant. I don't have to keep up with the Jones' but I really wanted to have another baby and I'm so sad that I'm not.

3. Imagine someone calling out, "where are you in your grief?" How would you respond today?

How would you like to respond a year from now?

I would respond today that I don't know. I have kinda put my grief on hold and have decided I will deal with it when it does not hurt so much to do so. I did the same thing with Sean's cancer and I tell ya, that bit me in the butt.

A year from now I would like to say that I have given my grief to God and while I will never forget my baby I do accept that God's timing is always perfect and Noah was not meant for me to keep.

4. Are you ready now to take a few steps forward in grieving your child?

yes.

This first devotion was short and sweet but it did open my eyes to the fact that I have put my grief on hold.

My Story

I am doing a book called grieving the child I never knew. I lost my sweet unborn baby on 2/2/2010 and I never knew my heart could be hurt so badly and continue on beating. I am no stranger to greif, my husband suffered through brain surgery for a brain tumor and radiation. That was a terriable time and I had no idea how we were ever going to make it through that but we did. God held us through that time in our lives and I felt so blessed to have come out of it with a husband who is almost better than he was before he was diagnoised. I figured I had been through the worst time in my life and it would all be cake from there. Even my husband getting a job in a city four hours away was a cake walk compared to facing cancer. I stayed behind because of so many reasons but he comes home every weekend and we are closer now that we have ever been. Plus the job is temporary and he could be laid off any day.
We had been trying to get pregnant for almost a year (mind you I only see him on the weekends) and we finally got pregnant. I found out late December that I would be having a baby on august 20th. I was a little worried about being pregnant during the summer but I was so happy to be pregnant. I went through 6 weeks of pregnancy with all the usual stuff and around week 10 I started feeling better. I figured it was because I was nearing the end of my first trimester and that's when I felt better with my first child Tyler. That Sunday though I ended up in the hospital with heavy bleeding. The doc's there told me it was a UTI and to go home and rest. The following Tuesday I miscarried at home very traumatically (not that every miscarriage isn't traumatic but I had to see my unborn child and it's am image I will never forget). My Mom called 911 because I was so hysterical and bleeding very heavily. I left my home with my heart broken because I had to leave both of my children behind. My poor sweet Tyler scared because he did not know what was going on and my little Bean who never was taken back home after only being here for 11 weeks.
I was alone at the hospital because Sean had gone back to work and My mother had to stay with my son. But I was not really alone, God never left me. I actually felt his presence the whole time I felt pressure from his presence and it was very comforting. Sean called after I had been admitted in the ER expecting to hear from a hysterical woman again but I was calm and collected. God had given me that gift. A dear friend soon arrived to be with me and Sean made it in just as the were wheeling me into surgery for a D&C. How appropriate that this happened on groundhogs day, cause I live it over and over again.
Please follow me as I go through 31 days of devotion to grieve the child I never knew, Noah.