"I will praise the one who's chosen me, to carry you"
-Selah: I will carry you

Wednesday 26 June 2013

Still searching for the answers

Since losing Robert, I have developed my relationship with God. Weird I know, but, I have.  I guess I took my faith for granted all these years and finally it has been challenged. Shattered, changed, developed....choose your own adjective.   I've had to grow up and make a decision. Do I give up on God? or do I become a "proper Christian". I chose the second path.  That doesn't mean it comes easy though. Far from it. Very far from it.  It also does not mean that Bertie's death was "for a higher cause".  It means that God has used this tragedy to develop me. So be it. I'd still rather have my son and my naivety.

I question my faith on a daily basis.   Some things I am totally stalwart in.  I believe in heaven, and I believe my son is there. I am grateful for that belief, because without it I don't know how I would have coped up 'til now.  I believe I will meet him there one day. I believe he is happy, becuase I believe there is no sadness in that other place.  I believe he doesn't miss me, because I believe he watches me. Oh but how I wish I could watch him too...

I do not believe in "God's plan".  I cannot believe that my son's death was a part of some devine plan, I don't believe my God is like that. (I also don't believe that anyone who has been through an experience anything close to this would say it is)  I do believe, however, He knew it was coming. And that He chose not to prevent it.....which kinda makes Him responsible anyway no?  And so, I question. Why? why, why, WHY?

Not "why me" per se...but why anybody?   I have spent so much time searching for an answer that actually makes sense.  And I keep coming up empty.  Because there isn't one?  Christian writers, speakers and bloggers generally avoid this subject. It's isn't neat and tidy. It isn't comforting, it isn't a nice little story where as Rob Bell triumphantly puts it "everybody gets saved."   I am learning lots, in my quest. I am partway there. I get the argument that some bad things happen, sometimes we suffer, because we chose independence from God, and He's let us have it.  Lots of terrible, tragic things happen through people's choices, and yep, to prevent them, to force a perfect world where nothing bad happened, would be to remove that choice, that free will.  Forced love isn't real love.  Even if that means allowing murder, cancer as a result of lifestyle choices, and accidents because somebody decided to take that journey on that day.  I can give you that. I can understand that, yep, ok.  But. What about tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes? What about the child with leukemia? What about world famine? What about the woman who does everything right in pregnancy, but still loses her baby? What about my baby's death?

None of those things are caused by anybody's choice.  Ok, maybe we could really stretch it and say because we choose not to take care of the planet, tsunamis are caused by global warming...but come on. I dare you to find a choice that causes the others.  I spent a whole lot of time and mental effort getting out of the mindset that Bertie's early birth, and therefore, death were caused by something I had done....my choice, directly or indirectly.  I don't want to go back there, thankyou very much.  I hold enough guilt in my heart. So why?

I am going to disappoint you. I don't know either.  But the difference between me, and a lot of the other writers out there, I won't just put the question on the shelf for later because it's too difficult. I won't tell you I am not going to address that question but look at X, Y or Z instead.

 I will never stop asking.



Did you intend for this to happen?
Was it always part of your plan?
Did you know I was to lose my son
Before his life ever really began?
Is this a lesson that I needed to learn?
Had my life been too easy, was it just my turn,
For sorrow, for heartbreak, for confusion, for doubt?
Did you want me to question you,  do you want me to shout?
Because I will, I do, because I don’t understand
Why this had to happen to my little man!
I try to see the good things that may be yet to come
But I can’t see what they could be, I’ve been struck dumb.
I know that I must trust that in time I will see
Your footprints in the sand, that you’re carrying me
Ever forward on my journey, the reason I’m still here
Despite the madness, despite all the fear
I am grateful for that, that you love me enough,
To keep me believing, though the journey has been rough
I will continue on with faithfulness, and wait for hope to restart
But my hallelujah is broken, just like my heart.



Sunday 23 June 2013

midnight terrors from The Pit

What if.....what if i am one of those women who just cannot carry to term? What if God is preventing me from conceiving again in order to spare me the agony of losing another one? What if this is it, that's how my prayers are answered? What if i don't get to be a mum? That thought is agony of its own.

Saturday 22 June 2013

Have I survived this?

"If I can survive this, I can survive anything" Something I have said often in the last 21 months, but at what point can I say I have actually survived?  Ok, I am physically alive, I am here, I am functioning.  But, the woman I was....she hasn't survived.  I'd like to say that I'm like a phoenix rising from the ashes with new life and new hope....but I am not.  I am spiritually and emotionally, broken.  I am living a half-life.  I am not fulfilled, I am not happy.  I often wonder, will I yet die young, of a broken heart?  I often wonder, is this it? Because this life is not worth living.  Don't worry, I am not in the dark place I was, and would not act on these thoughts, but I have to acknowledge that they are still there.

So, how can I claim to have survived? Does anybody really survive this? Or do we all just plough on and make the best of what is left to us?  My grandma died young, before I was born.  Medically, because of cancer....but she lost her eldest daughter.....my mum tells me grandma never got over it, and believes she in a sense died of a broken heart.  I can believe that.  I am not sure that I would fight actually, to stay here.  I am not sure that I would cling desperately to life...to this life.  I truly hope that when, if, I am blessed with a family again, I will feel differently. That I will have a drive for life again, and will start to really enjoy being alive.  Maybe then I will truly say "I survived".

Trust

All my Christian friends, community, counselor, everybody really, keep on asking me to trust God. Because God is good and He has a plan.  Right? As you know I am struggling with this.  I did trust Him.  I put my faith in Him, I prayed, then I begged, then I pleaded, then I wailed......and I trusted some more.....and my baby son died in my arms.  So how can I trust Him now?

I realised something today, on the long car journey home from our holiday, I am looking at trusting God in the wrong way.  I cannot trust Him to make everything OK, because He won't, He didn't. It doesn't work that way evidently.  He is not going to spare me from past or future pain no matter how much I trust Him to do it.  What I can trust him to do is hold me and protect me through whatever storms I have to face.

It was my cat who taught me this lesson.  She hates the car.  Really hates it, she's scared, she doesn't understand what is happening to her, how long it will last or what is waiting at the end of the ride.  I look at her with sadness and frustration that I can't make her understand that I would never hurt her, that she is safe and I will protect her, that, whilst I can't guarentee we won't have an accident, I am pretty sure I will deliver her home safely.  Sounds a lot like me and God huh?

The metaphor was made clearer to me as she made herself as small as possible on the back seat, and as I turned around to check on her every two miles or so, she would always either be asleep, or giving me the "how could you do this to me?" look.  After a while she tried crying at us, railing against her situation, pleading with us to stop and let her off. Of course, we couldn't do that, she would get lost and probably killed if we did.  She didn't know that though.  All she knew was fear and helplessness.  Until that is, I called her, and she came through to the front seat and sat on my lap.  As long as I had a reassuring hand on her neck, she was calm and content.  Well how about that? When she learned to rest with me and allow me to reassure her and hold her, she was OK......Now there's a big lesson for me, and I didn't miss it.

So I am going to try.  I am going to try to trust God that He will carry me, no matter what.  It doesn't make the not understanding or the pain any less though.  I still hate this journey I am on, I still don't understand what is happening to me, or why, or how long it is going to go on, or what is waiting for me at the end of the road.  I don't know if I will ever be a mother again, or if my worst fears will come true and I will lose another baby.  I don't think I could survive that, even in God's care.  And that, is so very, very frightening.  And the realisation that God won't prevent it, well. I'll let you draw your own conclusion on how that feels.


Wednesday 5 June 2013

The bubble burst

It is with a sigh, and a degree of inevitability that I must tell you that my bubble has burst. We met one of those pesky snakes.  You know the one that's horizontal...so it sends you back the few squares that you just moved forwards, but at least it didn't go down a whole row.  Frustrating to say the least.  What a waste of that double six!!

And I am angry. So angry. We have waited so long, been through so much, to finally get the precious prescription, that beacon of hope, that "this is it" feeling- to be told, "this didn't work".....talk about anticlimax.  Talk about kick in the teeth. Talk about hating my body right now.

Talk about hating this life right now. Still, twenty months on. I hate it. I miss my boy. I miss my life. I miss me.  I hate that the highlight of my week was picturing my son and his friend, coming to say hello in my dreams.  I hate that I laughed, and cried all at once when he did. I hate that I could only imagine that I was holding him.

I hate that I can't make it right.

I hate that my body doesn't work. I hate that I am a childless mother. Still. Forever?

I try to stay positive...yep, that old chestnut. Just keep going, you're further along the road than you were, it will happen soon. Soon? That's what they said a year ago, six months ago, yesterday....it hasn't though has it? 

God's timing is perfect huh? Well if His timing is perfect, why can't He help me to cope with the wait? If it really is perfect for me to watch people announce pregnancies, have their babies, and now...return from maternity leave, whilst I still struggle on.....if that really is perfect timing, then why does it hurt so very much?   Why do I have to decide if I can cope with certain situations? Why do I have to torture myself in order to see friends?

I've been praying my prayer.....fill me with peace, strengthen my faith, renew my hope.......He did, and the last couple of weeks prove it. But, it doesn't last does it? Something comes along to trip me up, knock me down, set me back a few squares.

Inevitably.
The bubble has burst.

Sunday 2 June 2013

Sounding like my old self again

I haven't blogged for a while, so long in fact that people have started saying they are worried becasue I haven't blogged! Thing is, I haven't needed to.  I guess I have writers block....I have sat down, several times, in the last month and tried to wrote a blog, but it doesn't work that way. I blog when I need to. The writing flows when I need it to come out.  So, my not blogging is a good thing!

But, speaking to my mum the other day, she inspired me to write.  She said the lovely words "you sound like your old self again". Meaning, I sounded better, happier, optimistic and hopeful.  That's becuase I am feeling all those things. It feels good.  For so long I thought I never would.  And it hasn't come because "time has passed", or because I have "got over it", no, it is becuase positive things are finally starting to happen for us.  It also does not mean my grief has ended, that I'm "ok now" nor will I be when the thing I yearn for happens...because I will still yearn for my first son, and my second, third, fourth, child will never make up for him leaving.  But, to repeat what I have said many times, there is one thing that will, I hope, balance the grief and tip the equilibrium of my life back towards happy and away from sad, and that's a rainbow baby.

We have rolled a couple of sixes, climbed a couple of ladders, and finally, finally after almost a year and a half of heartache and frustration, it feels like we have a chance at a family again. It hasn't happened yet, but for the first time since Bertie died, I can really believe it will, and soon. I have a smidgen of control back over my life, well, my doctors do at least, and that is comforting. No more waiting and waiting and endless waiting. The game is going to end. I can see the finish square. 

Of course, I have the inevitable niggling fear that this is not going to last, that something will go wrong any day and I'll come crashing down again...but I am not allowing myself to give that thought any attention. No more hurdles, no more snakes. This is it now.....right?