Quilt

Mark's sweet aunt Lavoy made Tyler a baby quilt. She's been making one for all of the new babies in the family for several years. I was hoping she would make him one, but you never know how some people will react to a loss. I got the courage up to ask her just to make him 1 little square or something so I would have something that was made just for him. The next day, she showed me the quilt she had made him. She wasn't sure if I would want it or not. Words cannot describe how much that meant to me. She even put his name and date in it.

I showed it to Danner and he said we needed to have another baby named Tyler to wrap up in it. He also asked if they could use it since he's dead. Hmmm how do you respond to that?

Today is the day

Today is the random day the Dr picked that Tyler was due. A due date really has no significance, especially not for me since my kids were all born early. It's just a day that I think Dr's give just so you can tell all your friends when you are due. This due date is different. It marks an end and a new beginning. It's an end to the grieving of Tyler and a beginning to the life without him. There is so much that I have learned in the last 5 months and I am not the same person I was then, but thankfully I can say that's for the better and not worse. I have a relationship and understanding of God that I knew about before, but couldn't quite grasp how it all worked. He has saved me from my grief and sorrow and showed me that through faith, he truly can work all things together for good for those that love Him. He has shown me how to rejoice even in suffering. He has healed my broken heart. Thank you God. Thank you to every single deadbabymama on the 2nd/3rd tri loss board - I can't tell you how much it helped to know that I wasn't alone and to be able to say the things I was too scared to admit to anyone else. Thank you to Stephanie, Kristi and all the Hope Floatin mamas for catching me before I fell into the pit of bitterness and anger and helping me stay focused on the good things. Thank you to every person in my family that has asked about Tyler, me and my due date. Thank you to Aunt Lavoy for his beautiful quilt. Thank you Mark, Ranger and Danner for putting up with me and the not-so-nice version of me for the last few months. Thank you to Pastor Cecil and Duane Sheriff - your words of God have blessed me and lifted me up. I have been richly blessed.



Philippians 4:4-7
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I am ok but . . .

I have found myself saying this many times so I thought I'd just make a list. I am ok with Tyler's loss but:

I still think about him every day
I have a hard time going to sleep at night
I still feel like a part of me is missing
I am really irritable
I really really want to have another baby
Baby boys seem so much cuter to me now
Little girl clothes aren't as much fun to shop for as they were before
Seeing pregnant women still stings a little
I don't want to be around people or do anything - I make myself do it, but I don't want to
I want to sit at home in the quiet all day
I want to cry but I can't
I don't really know what I want to cry about

I act ok, I pretty much feel ok, but it's just the little things that I don't think are ever going to go away. I hope when I reach July 12 that it will be the finish line and will reach a new sense of healing. I hope I can keep it together until then. July has been a rough month so far, and it's only the 3rd.

I just "am"

I was laying in bed last night trying to think of words to describe how I feel right now. My roller coaster is flat, I'm not up, I'm not down, I just am. Then I got to thinking about boxing. I feel like a boxer that has had the crap punched out of him and was knocked to the ground. He comes up fighting, but can't quite orient himself and get his feet back under him b/c the blow was so hard and caught him by surprise. It takes him a few minutes of stumbling around trying to get his bearings, but he continues to fight and becomes more steady as time goes on. I have come up fighting, I still just can't quite get my bearings and get my feet solid underneath me but I will.





This morning I was thinking about how, as much as this sucked, I don't think I would wish it never happened. I have learned so much about God's love and his will that I don't think I could have seen any other way. It's like the dumb mistakes you make when you're young, you hate them and would give anything to go back and undo them until you are older and realize that they have made you who you are. Am I happy that my baby died? No, but I am happy that it was able to make a positive impact on my life. Coincidentally, this was the verse from the e-votional this morning:



I Corinthians 12:7-10
"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

I've been TAGGED

I was tagged by Kristi like a month ago (and I bet you thought I wasn't going to do it!)

So here are the rules as to what I had to do and if you are one of my lucky 7 below then you need to also do the following:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog .



7 'Fabulous' Facts:

1. I am and always will be a Texas girl

2. I LOVE Kenny Rogers! Yes the old singing one!

3. I am a huge Nascar fan - my #1 is Dale Jr, but I also like Juan Pablo b/c I think he's hot!

4. Our family loves spending time at the lake

5. My 2 boys are wild wild wild

6. Cheeseburgers are my weakness, especially with swiss cheese and mushrooms. Yum!

7. I am very very thankful and blessed to have met so many wonderful friends in the last few months!!

I don't really know who to tag, so if you read this, You're tagged!!

Thoughts

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain."

"God doesn't give us what we can handle; God helps us handle what we are given."

"Love life as it is . . . not as you want it."

"Being happy doesn't mean everything's perfect. It means you decide to see beyond the imperfections."

I came across these in a catalog I got in the mail the other day. These really are what I need to help me get through this stage I'm in - I am not happy with myself right now, I am grumpy, irritable and just no fun. I hate the way I am acting toward Mark, my kids, and everyone else around me. I feel ok inside, but I just don't want to be out of the house or around any people. As long as I am in my safe little bubble I don't feel as evil. I have been praying that God will help me see the joy in my life and help me loosen up a little - when we got up this morning, I saw that Danner had given himself another haircut, but this time it's half of his head and not just one spot! I really had to stop myself from being mad and just laugh at the moment. Baby step #1, many many more to go!!

God knows what he's doing!

I know that seems really obvious, but I have started to figure that out. Mark and I really wanted Tyler to be a girl - we even told the Dr that if he couldn't tell the sex, we wanted it to be a girl. I wanted to at least have almost had a girl for some reason. Now I am so glad Tyler was a boy. All the babies born in our family since he died have been girls. Also, everyone around us keeps telling us that we need to have a girl. Now I can nod and smile instead of saying "yeah we already did". I was thinking yesterday that I am so glad that he was a boy and thought to myself how God really knew what he was doing!

Oh and my testing all came back normal, so I guess it was just a fluke accident! I think I am relieved by that.

Zoloft and other nonrelated topics

I decided that it was time for me to wean off the Zoloft, things had been going good and I hate relying on medicine. It didn't work out so well. I turned in to a raging lunatic, every little sound, touch, or nothing made steam come out of my ears! I couldn't figure out what on earth was wrong with me - I wanted to hurt someone (not literally so don't freak out). I couldn't stand the sight of my kids or the sounds of their voices and then I was mad b/c I felt that way about them. I finally realized that it was the medication - or lack of - that was causing all that. So now after 4 days of being back on it full time, things are starting to calm down. I was really worried I was having a nervous breakdown or something, I cannot describe how awful it was. I think I'm going to give it awhile and then try lowering the daily dosage.

New baby - my last cousin is having her baby today. I get so tense and anxious when I know they are in labor, I hope that everything turns out fine and she will never know what it's like to be in this "club". At the same time, I am thinking about how I will handle this baby. Tyler wasn't due until July, but since all of my boys were early, he would have been here sometime around now. Every time I see her, I wonder if I will think about how Tyler would look or what he would be doing or will I be so happy just to see her that I won't care. I have finally wrapped my brain around the "should be" and the "would be". I know I am right where I should be, but I can't help but think where I would be if all this hadn't happened. Then I remind myself, that things may not have been so great and we may have had a worse struggle than we are having now. The grass isn't always greener on the other side. I probably would have been on medication, bedrest, and miserable for the last few weeks, labor may not have gone so good, he may not have been healthy, or so many other things. I know that I have to be happy and thankful for where the Lord has brought me, but sometimes I can't help but think of that alternate universe where things were going to be so good. In one universe, we have a newborn healthy baby, and in this one, there is no baby, life has moved on and it's almost like it never happened. There are new plans and vacations that were never supposed to be possible. But, I have to say, even without Tyler, this side of the universe isn't all that bad. I am getting to do things with the boys that I wouldn't have gotten to do otherwise.
Now I have some confessions to make - I am making them here instead of on the confessions post but I don't know why.
1. I thought about grabbing another baby. Gasp! Mark and I were out to eat after our Dr appt confirming Tyler's death. When we walked out, there was a baby in a carrier on a bench while the others were looking at a fountain. I whispered to Mark, "grab it!". Was I really going to? NO!! Did I want to? Well, yes. I understand now how someone who isn't mentally stable and has experienced a loss could snap and do something like that though.
2. I yell at my kids. I know I am probably the mom that frustrates the women w/o living babies b/c my kids drive me crazy in public and sometimes I lose it. That doesn't mean that I don't realize what a blessing they are and how lucky I am to have them, it means I am a sometimes frustrated mom who is not perfect.
3. I feel better when I take some time each day to read other DeadBabyMama blogs and read the boards for a little while. I feel bad that I am not posting as much to the other moms, but I just don't have the time to get in that frame of mind and get it all out there.
4. I have come to accept Tyler's loss and it is a part of my life. It is so hard in a conversation not to bring it up, as in "before we lost Tyler", "when I was pg with Tyler", "after we lost Tyler". These are 3 distinct periods in my life that span the last 8 months of my life. I hate that when I say something like that, people's eyes get big and it's like I've said something I'm not supposed to. Example: we were at a wedding the other night and several of my girlfriends and I were sitting around the table teasing J about needing to find a sugar daddy. One commented that she thought I had already done that (dh bought me a new car a few weeks after Tyler died). I laughed and said "No, that was a pity present, Mark just felt sorry for me". My friend next to me (who was with me at my u/s by the way) said why would he do that? I kind of just looked at her - I hadn't wanted to explain it, the dinner table at a wedding reception really isn't the place but she didn't get it. So I said "because the baby died". Her eyes got big and she just sat back in her chair and didn't say anything else. I hate the awkwardness that it brings with it.
5. And, I realized I don't call Tyler by his name when I'm talking, just "the baby". I wonder why.

Woo, that ended up being long. I think I need to get back to writing more often.
Oh, and for those of you who are questioning God or are mad at Him, He is still there with you and holding you. He doesn't cause this to happen to you. We live in an imperfect world full of horrible things. This verse is courtesy of Pastor Cecil (www.daily-e-votional.com) yesterday:
I Peter 4:12-14
"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed."
I know that sounds ridiculous, but it is true. All of us will endure suffering and loss. The only choice we have is if we look up or down.

You know, things have been going pretty good lately. I have put some distance between myself and DeadBabyMama Land and have been feeling good. I have been really busy, but maybe a little too busy. I think I may have pushed too much aside and let it build up.
Tonight I went to play Bunco with Ranger's teachers and some of their friends and there was a girl there that was very pg and I realized it didn't really bother me. So, I'm trying to be nice and social and I ask her when she's due. Just so happens that she's due on Tyler's due date. Are you kidding me?! I had to stop myself from telling her "oh that's when I was due". I can't imagine what kind of look I had on my face or what my reaction was. I managed to hold it together until it was all over and I was back in my car. I thought I was ok for a minute and then the heaving sobs hit. Mark was so great when I got home, he just held me and let me slobber and cry all over him! I really don't understand it though - I have accepted Tyler's death and am ok with it. As I was sitting down to write this, I realized it's more about me. He hasn't lost or missed out on anything. He got the great end of the deal. I lost a part of me, not only physically but otherwise. I lost my innocence and excitement and joy of a pregnancy. I will never look at a pg woman again without thinking "Lord I hope they are ok". I don't think I will ever be able to relax and enjoy the pregnancies of anyone around me - just waiting and praying that they will never have to join the club. I feel so selfish that my sadness isn't for Tyler, it's just for me. I'm sad that I missed the "fun" part, having the big belly, feeling him move around, wondering what he would look like, the excitement and anticipation, the sweetness of my boys with a baby - all that stuff. If I ever get pg again, it won't be the same. This is something that I will never get back, I think now I'm grieving that old piece of me that's gone. I want to be pg again, but I realize that I want it to be the way it was. I don't know if I want to get pg and have this dark cloud hanging over me waiting for it to happen again. I don't even know how to explain all of this, I don't even know really what it is that bothered me so much. He's gone, he's not coming back, I'm not pregnant anymore - I get it, so why am I crying?
I know that God is with me and I believe that he can heal me - maybe this is a piece He can give me back. I don't really know. On my way home, the song came on "Holy is the Lord God Almighty, worthy in the lamb, you are holy" I can't think of the rest of the words right now, but I sang and cried. I praise you in this storm God, you are holy and almighty and I trust your will and I rest in your grace.

Aahhh Fresh Air

Mark and I went for a drive after our dinner out last night - he put the top down and we rode down the interstate with the radio loud and the cool wind blowing on us. We didn't really talk, I just sat and looked around at the beauty that God has created. I love the night sky. It was so refreshing and a great time to sit and just "be".
Today, it seems like I encountered 1 thing after another trying to bring me down. It started out with seeing a 3 month old baby this morning. It has been 3 months since Tyler was born - it's not like he would be 3 months old, but it just caught me. Then a dad of one of my former students asked if I was having another baby. I just said "no" and he said "oh I must be thinking of someone else" and I said "no, it was me". He was so embarrassed and kept apologizing that he had forgotten. As much as I wanted to be hurt, irritated or whatever, I really enjoyed him feeling like an ass! He is a pretty big jerk anyway. Then we went to get the boys hair cuts and there were at least 5 pregnant women that came in and out while we were there. Then, we took Kala and her friend Lacy to lunch and they wanted to eat at Bennigan's which is where Mark and I ate when we were on our way to the hospital to deliver Tyler. After all of this, I am completely ok. There have been no tears - I feel refreshed, calm and cleansed. We even went to Babies R Us to buy a baby gift for my cousin.
Thank you God for your beauty, healing and peace!