I have been putting off blogging since we lost him, our little Levi. This is mainly because I was thinking I had to write the story of what all happened before I started writing about our journey since then, and I wasn't ready to write the story...I'm still not. In a Word document I've been adding to, I've written all the way up through Levi's life until the very moment my midwife could not find his heart beat using the fetal doppler, and I just cannot write on. Writing a story like that is so unexpectedly much harder than I imagined it would be...choosing the right adjectives, trying to capture the feelings, the thoughts...It's all so intimate and still so raw that trying to write the actual story feels like dragging a fork through a gaping wound. But as I wait to be healed enough to finish writing about his death and delivery, I keep feeling the urge to write about where I'm at now. So, I will.
By the grace of God, I'm still breathing. I miss him so terribly much. I thank God all the time that I have Griffin, and I'm so glad that Levi wasn't our first. I'm so glad we didn't come home to an empty house and have completely empty arms without him. But at the same time, because we know what it is to be parents, to carry to term, to experience the birth of our child, to hold and kiss and breastfeed and rock and sleep and cherish, we are that much more acquainted with what we are missing out on with Levi. A lot of the day, it makes me so heartsick that I honestly feel like throwing up out my heart. It sounds disgusting, but that is exactly how it feels. But I'm not without some more "level" times, and I do feel "new normal" a lot of the time too.
You know a bizarre side effect to losing a baby like this? You join this horrible "club" of moms/parents who have lost a baby. 20 weeks is considered the cutoff for being termed a "stillbirth," and Levi was 19 weeks, 5 or 6 days. So, I guess I'm not technically in the stillbirth club, but boy do I feel like it. People look at you differently, or at least it feels like they do. I feel like a pitied tragic story that marks us forever as a tragedy... I don't want to be in this awful club. I don't want to be marked. I don't want to be a tragedy. I don't want to walk around with this all my life. It feels like some sort of terrible life sentence to be a mom who lost her baby at 20 weeks. All the days of my life, I will carry this. I will ache for him. I will be the mom of one, or no...two?... What a terrible club of us mothers who have had to deliver their babies, one way or another, lifeless into this world, silent and emptied of their souls. What a horrific, sin-sick, death-filled, broken world we inhabit. It is sickening. Lord Christ, do not tarry...
I've learned so much that I do want to blog about, but tonight's entry is just a beginning, a cracking open of the cover so-to-speak.
I was so looking forward to Easter Sunday. We lost Levi around the beginning of Lent. I had been thinking I needed to give something up for Lent this year. I never imagined what I would be called to give up... As Good Friday approached, I was identifying with a sliver of Mary's pain at watching her precious Son suffer and die on the cross and marveling at God's willingness to send His ONLY and very beloved Son to die on our behalf. After the most heart-wrenching Lenten season and Holy Week of my life, I longed for the celebration of Easter Sunday. For some reason, I expected it to be a healing, transformative day in the grieving process. I expected to feel different, having arrived at the day in the church calendar when Christ achieves victory over sin AND death, giving us the hope of heaven and the resurrection. But, to be honest, I was disappointed. I expected a little part of the gaping hole in my heart to be filled in with the promises of Jesus, but it wasn't. Still gaping, still bleeding, still ever millimeter as big as it was the moment we saw our baby's heart completely still on that ultrasound screen. Oliver and I were upset and/or arguing with one another a lot of the day. I forgot about planning and Easter meal so we went to Cracker Barrel for lunch, but we had to leave before we ate our food because Griffin was being so nasty. I wanted so badly for Easter to be a day where we began to try to create new, good family memories. Instead, by the end of the day, I broke down into a hot mess, thinking it maybe wasn't possible for us to create any more happy memories without him.
My biggest obstacle since losing Levi has been having hope for happiness, joyful seasons, good things in this life - This past year has been very, very difficult for us with a series of pretty big, life-changing disappointments. First, we graduated college, and Oliver was unable to find a job with his degree. Then, we had a youth pastor position at my parents' church in Michigan that we went to Michigan for Oliver to interview for that took months and months of time to come to a point where things fell through. During that time and beyond, I was struggling with and getting counseling for an absolutely debilitating anxiety disorder. After that, Oliver continued to look for work and wound up hearing about a promising farm job which wound up being a big disappointment, and he proceeded to spend months and months working for a man who was downright cruel to him. I got pregnant somewhere in there, and although there was much joy and anticipation, I struggled with anxiety and depression most of my first trimester until about 13 weeks when we found a vitamin D3 deficiency (which, once corrected, corrected the anxiety/depression). At 20 weeks, just two short days after our big ultrasound where found out he was a HE and saw our new little man kicking, squirming, and sucking his thumb healthy as could be, we discovered that he died, most likely from the very tight knot in his umbilical cord (discovered upon delivery). 1% of babies have a knot in their cord. 98% of those babies with knots are just fine. 2% die. Of that 2% of the 1%, the vast majority die during labor when the cord is able to be pulled tight. Our doctor has absolutely no idea how, at his age, a knot could be tightened as tight as his was. We were just a week and a half from moving at the time Levi died, boxes stacked to the ceiling. We were moving to Michigan, Oliver had a landscaping job lined up, and he was going to be going to Physician's Assistant school. We never had felt quite settled in our hearts about the move, and after we lost Levi, we realized it wasn't right for us. Oliver had been so excited to be moving toward a career where he could finally provide for his family, but going to PA school soon was not to be. So, this year has been one major disappointment after another. We don't know how much more we can take, but, then again, we thought that before we lost Levi...
God doesn't promise us happiness and lots of lengthy happy, joy-filled seasons. But we are promised suffering. Does He care about our happiness? Or does He just care about changing us (which happens most drastically through suffering)? It's hard not to despair and believe we will just suffer like this all our days, be destined to lose more babies, be in a tough season all our lives. If He were willing to allow Levi to be taken from us, why not others? It just all makes me long for heaven, for Jesus to come back. Yes, I know He will use all the suffering, the losses for His glory and for my good, but that can be a really rough reality for us. C.S. Lewis said, "We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." That sums it up perfectly...perfectly. I know people and have read the stories of many, many women who have had multiple stillbirths, miscarriages, AND have lost infants at 2, 3, 4 months. The amount and capacity for suffering in the people of this earth is sickeningly astounding. I am not promised to go on to have a baby that survives next time around just because I lost Levi. I had a friend who, after having 2 miscarriages and a stillbirth at 24 weeks, was 10 weeks pregnant when she had a fleeting thought of something being wrong. She remembers talking to the Lord and saying, "Surely not, Lord. Surely you wouldn't allow this baby to be taken too..." And yet, He did. And the next one...
Oh, Lord, should I even ask for happy seasons, for joy-filled times? Shall my life be dominated by sorrow, grief, suffering, and pain? Yes, it will make me more like Christ, but even he asked for the cup to pass... So, I will not be ashamed to ask for it to pass for us as well. Yet, not my will but yours be done. It's so much harder to say now. Like Lewis said, I don't doubt God's goodness, even towards me, but I fear His will for me. It's hard to trust with hands held open for God to carry out His will with our children, my Griffin, my future babies....even if He chooses to allow death to tear them out of our arms and into His.
Please don't confuse these ramblings of the grief-stricken heart with a theological treatise...These writings aren't meant to portray what is true of God and the world; they are meant to be me processing, with my finite and struggling brain. It's my battles and wounds worked out in writing, so please be sensitive to that if you are interested in responding.
I will leave you with some music that has impacted me. In the year after Steven Curtis Chapman lost his 5 year old daughter in a terrible accident, he wrote a CD of songs that he calls his "psalms." I'm not a fan of Steven Curtis Chapman's music typically, but this album, "Beauty Will Rise" is absolutely wonderful. The title track, "Beauty Will Rise" has been the cry of my heart since it the CD was loaned to me by a friend. It talks about the reality that God will cause beauty to rise out of the ashes of loss, no matter if we can see or feel it now or not. I know this reality will find its ultimate completion when Christ finally returns and makes everything new, sets everything right, puts an end to mothers losing children, to separation, aching, emptiness, wounds. But, I know (just intellectually at this point) that He will also cause beauty to rise out of the ashes in this life. I pray this song every day. My soul absolutely contorts with longing at the words. I cannot explain the throbbing, aching way my heart yearns for things to be set right. Like the song says, "I can almost feel the hand of God reaching for my face to wipe the tears away and say 'It's time to make everything new. This is our hope. This is a promise.'" Yes, Lord. May it be, and soon. Being newly acquainted with death, I have come to realize how unnatural, how wrong, how unjust it is. It is the final enemy. I simply cannot wait for Jesus to put an end to the despicable way it snatches babies from their mothers, husbands from their wives, mothers from their children. Yes, yes, God is sovereign. But Jesus was "deeply moved" and wept at the death of Lazarus, whom he knew he was about to raise from the dead.
Here is a YouTube video with lyrics if you would like to listen to Beauty Will Rise and say a prayer that He would cause this to be true in my life, in Oliver's life, in our family. How desperately I want God to answer this cry with more babies born who survive, more babies who outlive me, more babies who will meet me before they meet their brother, Levi. But I am not naive and will not lull myself into a false sense of sureness just because that's easier. The truth is that I could suffer the loss of more children (please, Lord let that cup pass from me...please), that I could have scarring from the procedure with Levi and be incapable of future pregnancies (please, Lord, let it not be). I don't mean to be pessimistic, but I'm getting to something... I believe that the Lord can bring beauty out of the ashes in the form of future children (at which point we will be using the middle name "Phoenix"...a beautiful bird born out of the ashes of death), but I believe He most assuredly can bring beauty out of the ashes in the form of being made into the image of Christ, in having the void filled by the only one who ever can...Jesus. Like we sang at Levi's memorial "Be still, my soul; thy Jesus can repay from his own fullness all he takes away." May we be filled with the fullness of Christ. And then, may we enjoy the blessing of more children :) Please, Father.
Honestly, I'm scared to post this first post. I'm scared that those who read will think I'm ugly on the inside now or something. I don't feel that way myself, but will you think that? Maybe it's more that I'm afraid to peel the bandage back for people I don't see regularly to view my wound. Will you recoil with disgust? Will you think I'm grieving too hard, too long, too much? Will you think I'm too honest, too emotional, sharing too much? Will you compare my loss with others who have lost later term or full-term babies or their already-born infants? Will you think I should just be thankful for what I have and choose joy instead of grief and loss? But whatever my fears of what you all will think, I believe that God is in control, has allowed this to happen, and is prompting me to write it out, to share it with others. Perhaps He will use it somehow in the blogosphere...29,000 mothers have lost a baby/child under 5 years old today. 7000 mothers have lost their baby in a stillbirth today (and by World Health Organization standards, "stillbirth" refers only to 28+ weeks/3rd trimester). Stillbirths during the 3rd trimester account for more deaths than AIDS and malaria deaths combined! The suffering...Oh, the suffering. Jesus, come quickly.
And Jesus, can you give my boy a squeeze? I know he is completely fulfilled in You and needs me not...but will you tell him that I love him anyway? Tell him his little 1 1/4 inch feet are making quite the impact here. Selfishly, how I wish he did need me. How I wish he were still kicking around in there, getting his oxygen, nutrients, everything from me. Like C.S. Lewis talks about in A Grief Observed, it is so selfish to want them back. They've made it through death and to the other side of those pearly gates. They wouldn't want to come back.
I've been making these mama bird's nest necklaces, and I finally decided to list them for sale on Etsy.com to see if I might be able to earn a little income for our family! Here are a few pictures of my nests:
I haven't listed the one with the greenish blue eggs on Etsy quite yet, but it's a-comin'! Anyway, here is the link to my Etsy shop listing: http://www.etsy.com/listing/89263839/mama-birds-nest-necklace
Check it out!! And for future reference, my Etsy shop name is "katiebowbatie".
Hi, all. So, it has officially been months and months since I've posted on this blog, and for a somewhat good reason. I have been doing a "one photo a day" blog since January, and have used all my blogging energy/time keeping up with that. I plan to (at some indefinite time in the future) start posting on this blog again, but until then, follow us at: http://thethompsonsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/
Summer is upon us...and it's only March!! The high today in Columbia was 88ยบ. You read that right. Oliver's parents and brother, William, and his girlfriend, Cat, visited and went to the zoo with us this afternoon. Shortly after arriving, we all realized our desperate need for Icees, and I realized that it was time to whip out the sunscreen for my sweet, fair toddler. Although it was hot, it was a gorgeous day to be out and about. The tulips were in full bloom, families were out in force, and an Icee never tasted so good.
Griffin loves to run free. He sort of runs in whatever direction he feels impelled to go, and it's our job to keep him from dashing right into groups of people, strollers, etc. Today, he walked towards a group of people and grabbed excitedly onto a complete stranger's leg. The man was very gracious, and it's nice that people just think he's so adorable at this age. I suppose we'll have to teach him not to grab onto strangers pant legs at some point :)
Griffin enjoying some of his Grandaddy's Icee. Grandaddy is still quite possibly Griffin's favorite person on the planet right now. It's so sweet to see how much he adores him.
Griffin wasn't being very cooperative in getting a picture with Gigi. I think he's entering into the phase where all pictures must be taken incognito.
Since Griffin's last run-in with the birds, where we were basically assaulted by birds (they were being quite aggressive that day) one jumped on his head and then clung to his shoulder, he has become quite serious when it comes to feeding the birds. "Uncle Bubba" did a good job of keeping the birds at arms length, as not to scare the poor child.
Here Griffin is trying to say "eye." He loved the tiger statue.
Poor Grandaddy is going to have sore arms tomorrow. Like last time we went to the zoo, Griffin preferred to be held by none other than his Grandaddy the entire time!
Checking out the stinky flamingos.
After hitting his Papa in the face, we were (again) talking about being gentle, and using "gentle touch" with people's faces. This is Griffin making it up to Oliver by using "gentle touch." So cute it hurts.
We ran into a few good friends of mine and their kids, and this is my friend Kristin's son, Asher, and Griffin checking out the fish and whatnot in the Amazon tank.
Grandaddy is a BIG DEAL to Griffin these days. He was signing "grandpa," saying "nah nah nah" (which apparently means "grandaddy" haha), and wanting him to hold him all day! It is the sweetest thing.
Griffin's grandaddy took him on his very first carousel ride! They chose the cheetah, and this particular carousel just so happened to be the fastest carousel any of us had ever seen! They were just absolutely flying....as evidenced a couple pictures down from here haha!
Grandaddy explaining the ins and outs of carousel riding.
Hahahah! This is such a great shot...blurry, but it definitely captures the moment :) This carousel was not joking around.
Finally, Griffin just wrapped his arm around Bill to hold onto him!
The boys.
We stopped and had a little bite to eat, and Griffin got to have some fries with ketchup and some Icee with his Gigi.
So happy to be eating junk food. You know, I really think the enjoyment of fat an sugar is just built into the human race. This boy never ever eats sugary sweets or fatty things, but boy does he LOVE it when he can get his hands on food like that! So funny.
This picture is a summary of the day...Griffin wanting to be with his Grandaddy! Griffin just enjoyed him so much today!
I have been meaning to get this boy to the library for quite some time, but we finally made it! I had never really seen the children's section until today, and WOW...I am impressed. Griffin had a great time. Seeing has how I've already written about our library experience on our "One Photo a Day" blog, here is a link if you care to read: One Photo a Day.
How adorable are they?
Within the last month, Griffin has gone from very little language and communication abilities to regularly communicating his needs, desires, frustrations, and knowledge. We have been signing (on and off) with him since he was 4 months old, and I was just about ready to throw in the towel, calling it a failed experiment, at around 12 months. BUT, I am so, so glad that we stuck with it now because we are really reaping loads of benefits from all the effort over the past months. It was as if, all of a sudden, signing "clicked" in his mind, and it has been non-stop from there. Oliver and I really want to record what he is learned just in the past few weeks, and I'll do that by adding to the list I made for his 13 month blog post, putting newly learned items in bold. As of today, our 13 month old little man knows how to say 38 words via either speaking or signing. Just from what I can see that he recognizes, in addition to the words he can "say," he understands/recognizes 30 more words! So, in what seems like overnight, he has developed a catalog of almost 70 words!! Clearly, I am gushing...I am just so proud of him! And I am so glad and thankful that others encouraged us to use sign language with Griffin. Of course, I would highly recommend it to anyone else out there. If you're interested in signing with your baby/toddler, we started off with a book called Baby Signing 123, which uses actual ASL.
An invaluable resource is the My Smart Handswebsite, which has a video dictionary of signs. Basically, a mom videotaped herself and her children making each regularly used sign. This is super helpful because pictures of the signs only go so far. You kind of need to see them acted out in real life to understand what they're actually supposed to look like. Also, we've recently ordered the Volume 1 DVD of Baby Signing Time, which gets RAVE reviews. It's been highly recommended to me personally by other moms who have used it as well.
Anyway, I could go on and on and on about all of this [obviously...sorry!], but I thought I should probably get around to actually including the list I came on here to blog about hah. Here it is!
A. Words
mama
dada
dog
duck
cat
meow
hi
night-night (nie-nie)
bye-bye
bird
juice
kitty-kitty-kitty (imitating me calling the cat)
B. Signs
hi
bye
light (also "light on" and "light off")
fan
more
please
good morning
eat
Jesus
bath
peeew!
bubbles
dog (points to right forearm....I have NO CLUE where he got that, and it isn't the sign for dog in ASL, but...oh well! Hahah)
bird
tree
orange
fish
book
baby
cereal
spoon
diaper
diaper change
I love you
spider
song/music
movie
ball
drink/cup
papa
hat
play
C. Can Recognize/Point to/Locate (not including the things he can sign/say)
He heard a dog and is trying to "woof" in this picture.
Drool. all. the time. He's currently getting at least 4 teeth (maybe even 8) at once. His two upper eye teeth have cut through this week, as well as his upper right 1 year molar. Whew...Teething is rough.
Glowing.
Lately, Griffin has been quite the chatterbox. He has a lot to say, and very little of it makes any sense...which I totally love and think is the cutest thing in the world.
"Seriously, mom? That camera again?!"
He doesn't like to swing, but he likes to swing the swing :)
When Griffin wants to know what something is, he points to it and makes a questioning tone. He is so very curious and is absorbing information like a sponge. I am just so proud of him!
Making the sign for "bird" with his papa! He has had a language explosion over the past few weeks, which I plan to blog about soon.
Love this. Love them. My husband and my son out in God's creation. I am blessed.
I haven't listed the one with the greenish blue eggs on Etsy quite yet, but it's a-comin'! Anyway, here is the link to my Etsy shop listing: http://www.etsy.com/listing/89263839/mama-birds-nest-necklace
