Purpose

May 25, 2019May 25, 2019 isabelrnLeave a comment

It’s been a harder week than I thought it would be.

I’m doing better on the outside overall; I actually started a “productivity and thankfulness log” so that I can keep accountable to do more than just sit around and watch TV. I write 5 things I’m thankful for and make notes throughout the day of what activities I’m doing. I’ve been reading, playing piano, doing puzzles, reading my Bible, cleaning…so I feel better at the end of the days because I’ve actually done things I enjoy or that I need to.

But I’ve gone back to being sad. My little niece was born on Tuesday; and initially I was okay (while sister-in-law was in labor etc) but after we saw and held her…it just put that ache back inside and I haven’t been able to shake it.

I think I’m just struggling to feel like I have a purpose right now. I’ve reflected on that before; that I believe motherhood is one of the things I’ve been called to do and until I’m able to fulfill that calling things it just seems like something is missing.

And so the days have an emptiness to them. I can do all the ‘wife’ things….I can do all the ‘nurse’ things…but I still have hours of time that I’m stuck just thinking about the ‘mom’ things that I want to be able to do.

Filling the time with hobbies is a distraction but it’s not a cure. It makes me feel productive, but it doesn’t make me feel purposeful.

I know my ultimate purpose is to enjoy (know) and glorify God. So obviously, motherhood or not, I have a purpose. But when I’m still working on getting back to a good place spiritually it’s hard to see how that would fill all the hours of the day. Especially when raising and loving children feels like it could be the best medium for me to do that.

Maybe I’m fooling myself there. Maybe motherhood is so much of an idol after all that this is the last thing that could help me know and glorify God and that’s why it’s being withheld for now. But I want to believe that I would seek to know God more if I had little lives to shape; that I would seek to glorify God in my response to the day to day challenges of motherhood.

after miscarriage · baby EL · grief and loss · missed miscarriage · pregnancy loss · trying to conceive

When AF arrived

May 19, 2019May 19, 2019 isabelrn2 Comments

Spotting started Wednesday night, full AF the next day.

I’m actually kinda amazed that it didn’t cause another emotional setback; in fact it did the opposite.

I think by my body physically telling me that it has moved past the pregnancy and is ready to try again…it somehow triggered my heart and mind to do the same.

I can’t forget what happened. It will always be a sad thing, I will always wonder about this child and grieve for the loss and for what could have been. March 6th (heartbeat), 21st (miscarriage discovered), 29th (birthday) and October 27th (due date) will always be days I remember.

But I don’t need to stay in the darkness. It’s time to move forward, it’s time to try again and hope again (scary as that is). And for the first time in 8 weeks, I feel like that’s actually possible and attainable; and it’s lasted more than part of a day so it seems that’s really where I’m at.

So while my uterus empties itself and prepares to rebuild; my heart and mind are doing the same.

I’m ready to live life again.

after miscarriage · grief and loss · Infertility

A catch up post

May 14, 2019 isabelrnLeave a comment

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve written anything. And I guess several things have happened in that time that I probably should have posted about but since I didn’t…this will just be a summary of the ‘highlights.’

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I went to see a Christian therapist a couple weeks ago. That was a total bust. I wanted to have a Christian perspective on things, but was still expecting a fairly standard counseling session. I’m pretty sure she quoted more verses and cliche Christian ‘maxims’ at me in less than an hour than the combined conversations I’ve had with people that I’ve gone to for actual spiritual counsel. Things like, “This was God’s best for you,” “God works all things for good,” “He knows the plans he has for you”, “He is faithful,” and “maybe this was him removing an idol from your life because he is a jealous God.” I probably talked less than half the time.

So that was a bummer. I think by the time I finally got to see her though I’d already started to feel like I was making some sort of progress (and the meds had maybe started kicking in), so I’m not sure I’m going to try to find another therapist or just see how it goes.

It did lead me to reach out to my pastor again though and we had a very good conversation last week that I’m still trying to work on processing/applying. Next blog post, probably. It needs its own space.

*****

My sister had her baby. He’s beautiful, and they are so tender and loving towards him. It was neat to see my sister just take on that role; it wasn’t one I could necessarily picture her in so it was cool to see that side of her blossom.

And she handled my visit with the same grace she used when she told me about her pregnancy in the first place. She gave me permission to be sad and to feel mixed emotions. She acknowledged them without even being prompted, she guessed some of the things I might have been feeling and made it completely valid to feel that way.

It’s amazing how simply being given freedom to have negative/mixed emotions just kind of makes those negative emotions less intense.

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Mother’s Day. Meh. Not much to say there. I was on call all weekend so I kept somewhat distracted. But it was still painful and by trying not to think about it I probably thought about it more.

Had a few people reach out; they acknowledged the losses and reminded me of my valid claim to motherhood even if it’s not visible to most so that was very sweet. My sister-in-law even checked in with my husband to see if she should get me flowers; so I had to try to be less annoyed with her for a few days…though she’s continued to make that difficult.

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She is probably going to have her baby this week. She wants to be induced before her due date because she’s “so over being pregnant,” she exaggerates every contraction and bemoans every interrupted night of sleep, and now that things are getting closer to happening she is “so nervous about all of it.” I just feel like it’s really hard to be sympathetic, I want to just be like: “Last time I checked, you absolutely wanted this.” Though I guess technically she wanted the baby so maybe she didn’t consider all the aspects of the process to get there.

I just feel like she’s going to be over-dramatic about everything. The pain of labor, the pain of recovery, the pain of breastfeeding, the challenge of adjusting to life with a newborn. And it makes me angry because it feels like a slap in the face because I’m willing to take on all of that and I still don’t get to.

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Still no period. It’ll be 7 weeks since the D&C on Friday; I’m not sure at what point I start getting concerned…though we’re between health insurance providers this month so there’s not much I could do even if nothing happens for a few more weeks. I don’t want to get my hopes up that we somehow managed to conceive again already; I doubt my body figured out that it needed to ovulate and with his swimmers being on the slow side it would be highly unlikely that they made it to an egg without assistance. We haven’t been consistent enough either. So I think it’s just a matter of continuing to wait.