Roses Among The Thorns

Late last night, John said to me, "It's been a while since you've written a blog, right?" I laughed at the thought that 'it's been a while' for a blog has become a mere two days, haha. The past two days have been full of roller coaster ups and downs. For part of the day I'll feel great and the other part of the day I'll feel terrible. Dr. Peppy informed us that after the D&C it'll probably take 2 weeks before my hormones begin to equal out again. Two weeks will be tomorrow, so it'll be interesting to watch my moods the following week.

I have officially been in the anger phase of grief since about 2 days after the surgery. The funny thing is, I only have momentary lapses of being angry with God. I mostly just get mad at other people. The guy on the road that cut us off and laughed about it, the morons (excuse my name-calling) at Sears that could not seem to get their act together to help me simply get my oil changed so my mom could take me shopping to get my mind off of life, the retarded vacuum cleaner that I almost tripped over the other day, people's comments (even though they probably don't realize how bad it sounds) and the list goes on and on and on...In normal life, I can get pretty much keep my act together. But, right now, I feel like I need to purchase a punching bag to take out all of my anger. So, if you see me start to tense up, just run!! You might end up in my line of fire... ;o)

So, with all of the ridiculous-ness and my ticked off-ness, I have decided to make a list of all of the roses among the thorns lately. There have been so many tiny (and HUGE) blessings along the way that I can so easily dismiss when I start to get mad at the morons (whoops, am I still namecalling?) at Sears...

1) At 7 weeks 4 days, John and I rushed to the doctor's office because I had some bleeding and cramping. That's when everything was completely normal with baby Phillips. A strong heartbeat and growth on track. When the doctor had examined me before that ultrasound, he had told us that if we didn't see a heartbeat, we would not think the worst, but try to sit down and play around with the due date, maybe it just wasn't time for the heart to beat yet. If our little one's heart had not been beating yet, we probably would've had to wait at least a week for another ultrasound to check on the little one. That week would have been torturous, heck, that one day of questioning was terrible enough. So, John and I have both said how happy we were that our first ultrasound was okay.

2) We were both glad (doesn't seem like the right word considering the situation, but you get the idea) that we were blindsided with the situation in the best way. We weren't planning on the ultrasound that day and we didn't suspect one bad thing. I mean, John wasn't even going to come to that appointment! I told him to just skip it, I am so glad that God changed my mind to have him come to that visit. If we would've found out the bad news that first ultrasound, we were already a wreck so it probably wouldn't have been the best. But, the fact that we were blindsided, kinda helped us from wailing and making a scene in the doctor's office.

3) Also, I began to bleed a little right after that doctor's appointment (when we found out) and the very next night, the heavy bleeding began. I could not imagine the terror if our doctor's appointment was just a few days later, we thought nothing was wrong, and then I started bleeding and cramping so heavy in the middle of the night. God timed our doctor's appointment perfectly with us finding out the news.

4) As strange as this sounds, we are glad I began bleeding and had the baby at home the day before the D&C. We strongly felt the D&C was the right decision (and still do), but we were glad that the Lord let us experience both. That way, we didn't have any second guesses if our little one still had a chance or not.

5) God gave us a wonderful doctor that we had never even met 3 months ago. He has been excited with us, mourned with us, and cheered us on for the future. I actually shadowed an obstetric unit for a week in my pre-med days and I know how woman after woman comes in with miscarriages. I know that Dr. Peppy sees healthy pregnant women all the time and also has to break bad news to people all the time. Yet, it doesn't change his level of excitement or his level of grief for each individual baby. It's been nice to feel like a friend instead of just another patient. Is it weird that the only reason I have wanted to get pregnant again right away is to be back in Dr. Peppy's office? Don't tell him how weird I am :o)

6) John and I have the strongest marriage of any 3 month newlywed I have ever met! In our extremely short time of marriage, we have celebrated the excitement of having our first child. We dreamt together of whom our child will take after, will he or she have curly hair?, and how much we loved a clump of splitting and reproducing cells. And, we have also walked the torment of losing our first child. We never prepared for this road before we got married and I think we've done pretty good. We have balled our eyes out together, we've done our best to be strong when the other one is weak, we have had our arguments out of grief where we both just end up crying because we're just dealing with that anger I talked about, and we have lifted each other up before the Lord when the one doesn't have strength to lift their own self up. I had NO idea that I could ever love John more than I did on our wedding day. Wow, was I wrong! I thought I loved him then, but I would walk the lowest of valley's with that man any day (even though I hope for more mountaintops!).

7) Our housesitting gig, while completely crazy at times, has been a good thing. I had my surgery on Thursday and that Sunday was our first day of housesitting. It's been good to not be at home. I am a little scared to go back and be there every day, but God will give me the strength when it's time. But, our housesitting was at the perfect time to feel like I am on a mini vacation! It'll be even better tomorrow when I am finally allowed to go swimming in their pretty pool :o)

8) We kept our pregnancy a secret in the beginning for a reason. If we happened to miscarry we didn't want a million people saying how sorry they were (still feel that way), BUT our story has helped a lot of people. I have been shocked at how many texts, Facebook messages, emails, calls, etc I have received from people that have found some solace in these blog posts. Honestly, I began writing my feelings on here because it was easier to tell people to go check the blog rather than say our baby died. And, it's been helpful for me to think through my feelings every day and get them written out. And, we decided to make these journals public because that way I don't have to answer a hundred questions of how we are doing. Also, it's easier for out of town family to feel like they are walking this right next to us to know how we're doing everyday. But, I had no clue how many people would be encouraged in the Lord through some of my ramblings on here. And, the coolest thing is that most of those people are not dealing with a miscarriage right now but some have a husband that walked out on them, some are dealing with depression, some have a long term illness, some have just plain not been following Jesus in everything that they should, and the list goes on. So, even though I was really upset at first that God would allow us to tell people about our pregnancy and then a week later find out all of this, He knew what He was doing. He knew that people needed to watch us go through our grief so that they may grow closer to the One that created them (and our baby!). It has been crazy to see some of the responses and know that I am praying for you!

9) The Lord has shaken me up to realize my always constant desperate need of Him. My quiet times were haphazard during the pregnancy and my reason was because I was "just too sick". I think my prayer life kept up enough to par, but reading my Bible and my involvement in church dwindled. Now, while I do believe there is some validity to being too sick for some things and God understands, I knew I could have done more and God was asking me to and I didn't. God forgives and I have moved past that, but God has used this yucky situation to realize that I am always in desperate need of Him. Yes, I really do mean always...good times and bad times, just as much desperate need of Him. God is teaching me a lot and I am thankful for that.

10) Last, but not least, the Lord gave us the most precious first child we could have ever asked Him for. The last two days I have thought a lot about the fact that this child had the chance to go straight to Heaven. I mean, could a mother really ask for anything more? My baby never had to learn from me how to follow Jesus, baby Phillips now has the chance to learn from Jesus Himself. Of course I still wish I had the chance to teach Jesus to our little one, but our foremost prayer before this child was even conceived was that our children would come to know the Lord at an early age. While I never imagined this would happen, our first baby followed Jesus at such an early age! And, in the words of King David after he lost his baby, "But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." (2 Samuel 12:23) Yes, I wish our baby could come back to me, but instead I will go to you one day baby Phillips.