Mara Elidi

This is a first trimester birth story, the story of my fourth child.
I give this as both an opening and a caution, because parts of this story may trigger anxiety especially for those who are currently pregnant or have experienced miscarriage at home. There are also physically graphic parts to this story to describe the events following my miscarriage.

On May 1st, after 9 months of trying to conceive, a little help from letrozole, and a cross-country move... we learned I was pregnant.
That day and the weeks that followed were full of anxiety but also of intentional faith and thankfulness. Nausea, headaches, tenderness, fatigue, and emotional instability all made me so happy to feel. Knowing I feared attaching to this baby, I attached anyway. We took advantage of BabiesRUs going out of business and bought a bassinet and swing. We were requesting Ryan be placed in follow on courses so I could deliver here before we move again. We were speaking like we would bring a living baby home in January. It was pure joy every time we saw a heartbeat on the sonogram screen. 

Today, it has been one whole month since her birthday. Since we held her and kissed her and smelled her. I was 13 weeks pregnant when I had her at home. 

At 12 weeks 5 days (and the day after the 3rd anniversary of Eden's funeral), I went to the ER. I was having abdominal and back pain with little relief and felt something was not right. I told my husband he didn't need to come, because I had hoped I was just being worried. Pregnancy after loss after loss after loss can make someone feel like they've gone insane with worry and assumption that they are no longer carrying life.
He went to work, and I headed to the hospital. They'd seen me there four times already, for pneumonia once and three times for fear that something was wrong. This time, something was. 

A quick note about my experience in the ER this time- it was terrible. It was cold, cruel, and rude. No one would speak to me during the ultrasound. They all spoke over me and addressed each other without answering my questions or requests to see my baby. I knew, and no one would tell me. There was time between the scan and the nurse practitioner coming in for me to call and tell Ryan he needed to be there, for him to drive all the way from post to downtown, park, and come in to calm me down. I still held hope that I was being silly, because surely someone would have come in by then. The nurse practitioner smelled like cigarettes, because she took a smoke break and discharged me before she came in to tell my that my baby had died. She shrugged her shoulders when she said it. We were rushed away on a day that they'd already told us they weren't busy. It was gross. My experience with my Baby Errol at 6 weeks was exponentially more gentle. When I feel comfortable, I'm going to write a letter and take some doula materials up there, to show them the importance of kindness and bedside manners during bereavement. I hate that so many mothers find themselves in this kind of experience when their babies die before 20 weeks.

That afternoon, I was able to see my OB doctor. He came in compassionately and sat with me, laying my options on the table: wait and let the miscarriage begin naturally, have a D&C, or take the induction medication at home.
My decision was based on past experiences. Mason had been gone over a week before I found out, and it was almost two weeks by the time I was induced. I couldn't bear to wait for my body to take it's course, as it was betraying me even in that moment. Secondly, I wanted to avoid the sadness and lack of closure I had with Baby Errol. I knew I had passed him. I saw him in a tiny sac, in my toilet, and I flushed my baby. I wanted to see, hold, and kiss my baby. A D&C would not allow for that. I chose the induction at home. 

This happened on a Tuesday, and we wanted to prepare and spend the time we had with her as well as the immediate time after without rushing, worrying over work or anything else. We chose Friday morning as a time to start the medicine, understanding I could take up to 24 hours of the medicine (cytotec) before a D&C would be the next step.
The days between gave us time to prepare for a "home birth". We bought little blankets, a new nightgown, a box to stain and carry her in. We chose a jasmine and wild orange oil blend for her scent memory. I took self portraits with her inside me. Ryan made arrangements for cremation at the funeral home. We prayed over the coming days. We named her. 

Mara was a character in the Bible, Ruth's mother in-law. Her name was Naomi until she changed it when her sons and husband died, declaring that the Lord had dealt bitterly with her. It felt appropriate that week. I prayed candidly, telling God that I was confused and bitter. Yet, I was so thankful. From the moment we had a positive pregnancy test, we referred to this baby as "Baby Sunny". She came when we moved away from the gray skies found the literal sunshine. We found the name Elidi, which means gift of the sun. Together, these names fit our girl perfectly.

Friday morning was spent quietly listening to music and crocheting two tiny blankets (one for her, one for us) from the one I started the day Ryan returned from deployment and we began trying to conceive. Ryan came home around noon, and the quiet labor began to pick up. I laid on a heating pad and sipped tea. The waiting was peaceful, the pain had a purpose. It was a centered and spiritual experience.

In the afternoon, I felt my water "break". I had no bleeding before this point. Things happened quickly afterward.

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On July 6th at 4:19 pm, our sweet baby was born to me in the bathroom, by the yellow bathtub.

That familiar silence was so loud.

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I caught her, called Ryan in, and rinsed her off gently. 

We took her in the kitchen, where we had flowers and candles and her blankets near her box.

We took pictures of her alone and with each of us. I heard myself keep repeating, "Oh, she's just so cute!" because she was really cute and I was just in awe. Her face looked to be smiling, her hands together, her legs folded. This was the first time any of my babies has been outside of me and still inside my home. The dogs stayed close by, curious and gentle. It's so special to me that it happened this way, truly a generous answer to prayer that I just wanted to hold my child.

It wasn't long after that when we tucked her into her blanket and the box we picked just for her, then took her to the funeral home.
In the car before we went inside, my precious husband blessed our baby. We're probably not "qualified" for this but nonetheless we felt the presence of Jesus in the front seat of my Kia. He dedicated Mara to the Lord, we cried, and carried her inside.

When we left I began bleeding heavily, through my pants into the car seat. Ryan rushed me home and the bleeding kept picking up. I wanted to seem okay physically, and we were both hungry from not eating all day. So I sent him to get supper. I started getting dizzy, wondering how much water I'd really had through the whole process.

He walked back in the door 20 minutes later with Chick-fil-A, which has been our "after baby" meal every time. I simultaneously walked back into the bathroom to change the chux pad I had been cutting to fit. The next thing I knew I was nearly fainting, sitting on the toilet with Ryan running towards me and yelling to keep me alert. I then drifted off, I couldn't see at all and I could only hear myself sobbing, overcome with what had happened hours earlier. I don't remember anything else- how I got up, cleaned up, or got to the couch where I had a wet washcloth on my head and was being fed and given water when I finally came to. Once I ate and drank a few more cups of water, I fell asleep and slept through the night. The next few days were a blur of crying, sleeping and watching mindless television.

The following Monday I went in for a follow up, but when I explained that I was still bleeding, my OB was concerned that the miscarriage wasn't complete. The ultrasound showed that some placenta tissue was left behind, and the next course of action was to take a "less intense" version of the induction medication, this was called Methergine. It was familiar to me because I had taken it in the shot form for retained placenta after Mase, before my D&C. I didn't remember anything about it because I had an epidural. The problem was, for THREE days, my pharmacy nor any pharmacy in town had it and needed to order it. When I finally started it, I realized that it was not less intense by any definition. 

I had every non-life threatening side effect, the worst being the back and abdomen pain. 

I writhed on the couch for three days. I have never felt that kind of pain before. I didn't sleep, couldn't eat, just cried and moaned while my uterus was being forcefully emptied. I was passing huge clots like the night she was born during the entire time. I passed the little placenta on day two. 
Also on the second day, before Ryan left for work (he wasn't able to miss class without being reset) I asked him to call the doctor and tell him I just wanted a D&C now. Helpless, he got on the floor beside me and held me. I'll always remember what he said that morning: "You have done the hardest thing you'll ever do, four times now. You've already survived something that doesn't make sense to survive. You can do this, you know you can." He said it, knowing that at this point, a D&C would not reverse or prevent the pain I would continue to feel from the medicine. It was already started and would continue even if I skipped the rest of the doses. There was no sense in getting the surgery. It would have not made it better, simply worse. Yet, he did not say that. He was being a doula to me, and gave encouragement instead of presenting the wall even I knew was there in my right mind. 

I finished the doses and the pain subsided with a little residual soreness. I finally stopped bleeding a few days ago.

At the end of that first week, our baby's urn had arrived. At the funeral home, Ryan transferred her ashes into the urn carefully as I watched. We brought her home and placed her on the mantle, next to her brother. I have matching urns for two of my babies now. 

I wanted to go to SC for my sister's wedding shower and planning this month, and the pain went away just in time. I even took a little detour on the way back home to spend a few nights in Helen, GA and be alone. Two weeks in, I had not yet grasped that my baby was gone. I was focused on physically trying to heal that I  blocked myself from grieving properly. It was a completely traumatic month for my body. My time alone was to force myself to understand and begin to grieve, and I'm not sure it even worked then, because the emotion and clarity is just starting to sink in.

The commotion has now gone away. The calls and cards and flowers come in the early days, and we are so thankful for the immediate answer of love and support to our hurt. We know we are cared for.
But it's always especially quiet when the hard days actually start. And a month later, as I begin to understand what's happened, it feels very lonely. Maybe even lonelier this time than any time before. I feel people have grown tired of this. I know I have. I wish my daughter were here, living inside me. I wish they were all here and this was a stupid mom blog about fun summer activities when you're pregnant with three more under four. 

That's not true, though. The truth is my baby died, again. I know its hard, what is there to say? Nothing. There never has been a script I could hand someone and, damn, aren't we all so exhausted of this happening? I know it takes energy to support a mom who has lost her baby, I've gotten so much of it over the past three years. Now I'm adjusting expectations of others and of myself so I can be gentle with us both. I'm in a place of fresh grief for the first time in two years, and I'm thankful for this "business break" I've been taking so it can be my sole focus. This is all so familiar and foreign at the same time, and I'm going to take my time navigating it. The start for me was writing Mara's story today, writing my story of my sweet fourth baby. Now I'll be reading it back to myself until it doesn't sound like someone else's anymore. 

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far 

outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

Self Portrait

I was inspired by some of the photographers I admire to pursue the art of the self portrait this week. I feel like there are new developments in the person I am, and I feel like the only thing to do is capture it. Creating this portrait then inspired me to write, something I have felt less than inclined to do in the past year. Somehow, this photograph helped me decide to share.

Ryan and I have not been vocal about the pursuit of living children since Mason died. The reason for this is because I decided I was finished being pregnant then. For about a year, we were sure that I never wanted to be pregnant again and our family would thereon out be grown with adoption. 

However, an epiphany came to me in March of last year. I felt peace wash over me and a message that praying and believing that I could carry a living child was allowed. So, we began praying and believing. 

I chose not to share this then because I always carry this pressure that outsiders would think that a living child would "fix" our grief, that a living child is all we sought. We don't need that kind of projection on our choices, nor judgment for trying to conceive. The testimony I want to have all of my life is that our babies aren't the end goal- Jesus is. Even in deep pain, we still have a Good Father. I've wanted to continue to show that life can be abundant even without living children. Because it can and will. 

At risk of oversharing, I was extremely fertile when our babies were conceived. Every time, on the first cycle. We were extremely cautious after Mason. So, we believed that since Ryan came back in September, I'd be six months pregnant by now. A friend joked that at the homecoming she wanted to jump in front of me and intercept my fertility, given my history he'd look me in the eyes and it would be over. It made me hopeful and a bit cocky.

But here we are, six months and some very strange cycles later. I saw my doctor this week, with a late end of cycle and 4 negative tests. A blood test confirmed negative, but he is pretty confident that I'm not ovulating for whatever reason. I will wait to begin the next cycle and try Letrozole.

On the grand scale of infertility, I know this is not comparable. I know it is six months (two of which were kind of expected) and not six years. I hope my friends struggling so long with infertility know that I am aware that this is short, fixable, and merely a toe-dip in your world. 

But I am wrecked. I feel broken where I once was sure my body did its "job". As a woman, I feel foreign to myself and angry. I'm shocked at best. Ryan is away for perhaps another month, and the loneliness (even though I've been surrounded by sweet friends) is real. I can't truly explain exactly how I feel with words, and so that's where my self portrait came in. 

I wanted something to do with my hands, and the only obvious thing was the piece of needlework. I chose colors for a baby blanket in August and started on it the very day Ryan came home. It was a tangible thing to represent our belief and hope- this is being made intentionally. It will be used for the next baby in our home. 

I still believe that, but I don't know when or how. I never did. Another friend mentioned to me this week that after loss we still have this false sense of control, and it's true. I thought I even had control over when another child would be placed in our arms. 

That's why I chose this shot. There are a few obvious technical mistakes and I still love it. I felt everything was controlled when I sat down but you can see the yarn coming unraveled by the chair and my eyes followed a car driving past the house as I tried to gather it all back together. I lost focus on what was happening, and created a true-to-me self portrait. I feel alien from the moment this week, navigating through this new unraveling in my heart. 

That is where we are. Where I am. I choose transparency again, in hopes of framing how we'd like to be reacted to in this part of our journey. Please don't offer any self cures or suggest what route you believe should be taken. We do have plans for adoption, but that would require some stability for our family- at least knowing we'd be in the same state for longer than 6 months. We eat healthy enough. I track my body well. I use oils and no unsafe medications. We don't want a surrogate. We aren't sharing to seek the counsel and solutions we know many others may have, we are seeking support and prayer in the wait. Please, don't be dismissive.

As always, we are still so thankful. While this week has revealed some new layers of grief, we know that we are loved. I also know that recently I may have been defensive at kind comments that imply you're praying for our family to grow, and for that I apologize. It's truly appreciated. We have, however, come to pray with a "yes and amen." We know that our plans don't always match His ways and so we seek both- a living child and the peace to live with a "not right now." 

In Defense of Shutting Up

It has been 8 months between my last post and this one. I've had a few reasons for not blogging- some of them intentional and some of them beyond my control. Either way, I feel so relieved to sit down and write about the things I've been reflecting on, even if it ends up being a word vomit.

Following Mason's due date, life became very overwhelming. Ryan and I had a few weeks in November to bond with each other and connect before he would deploy. Those weeks felt like hours and before we knew it, he was slipping his wedding ring off into my hand and joining formation to march out of the gym. I was suddenly in uncharted territory and it has taken me seven months to really get a good handle on navigating life and grief without my partner within tangible reach. I'll write more about that soon.
We watched people we love, people we consider to be reasonable, people we've come to expect some perspective from... come completely undone in the face of the election. That was exhausting- trying to avoid all politics and just care for our own hearts when many of the people we looked to to help cultivate a gentle atmosphere were caught up in those politics. I couldn't do anything but sit quietly and observe the chaos. This was the beginning of my writing break.

All three birthdays have passed for our babies. January 5th was our Baby Errol's, it came and went as quietly as he did. Mason turned one on May 19th. And Eden turned two Monday June 26th. I feel that the second year for Eden was harder than the first, but the timeline has been complicated as her second year was Errol and Mason's first.
Either way, this year was harder than the last. It's no secret that a miscarriage is societally seen as "less" than a full term neonatal death. There has been a stark contrast between the kind of support and love we received when we consider that we've lost three children. That's what they are to us. Our babies. And it felt like to some, they were not. That because we haven't shared Mason's face, he must not have one. That because we never even held a Baby Errol, he really wasn't here. And that is a shitty thing to feel. People have continued to tell us they always think of us and Eden. Conveniently excluded are our other two- whom Ryan and I call "the boys". Finding a way to build legacies for babies others like to pretend didn't exist is exhausting. Continuing on with life-long grief while outsiders would believe that there's a time limit is also exhausting.

It has also been a year that made the question "do you have any kids?" harder to answer than before. We don't know what to say anymore. If we say yes, then answer the questions that follow honestly... we usually walk away from some awful platitude that just hurts. We'll never deny our babies, but we've learned to skirt the topic with strangers and try to ease into it gently with new friends so they may understand first how we'd like to be treated after telling our story to them.

This blog kind of got out of control. Going viral after Eden's identity theft opened our lives to scrutiny that our hearts couldn't handle. I disabled comments of course, but emails kept coming. I was accused of killing my children, of getting pregnant on purpose to lose a child. Ugly things have been said in the face of our decision to be transparent with our marriage and with parenthood and with grief. I don't want my babies memories immediately associated with what happened to us, and I definitely don't want them associated with such awful accusations.
It is also hard to gather your thoughts with people watching (or reading). When you're vocal about your experience and something relevant to that experience or something you've said before (say a pregnancy announcement as an example), people look to you for your initial reactions so they may decide if you are gracious or bitter.
SO I felt I just needed to shut up for a while. The internet has brought us to some of the most supportive and loving friends, but it is not always a safe place for the grieving mother and father.

Then again, neither is everyday life.
I've grown so tired of being asked when we'll have another baby. HEY my husband is deployed so it won't be today. What if we don't want to have another baby?
The problem is, it makes people uncomfortable to call me a mom or Ryan a dad as long as we have no living children. It makes me question our parenthood myself. I feel invisible. I feel taunted.
"You can have mine!" No, I can't.
"I could choke them." Please, don't.
And so when I am in a room full of mothers, my anxiety manifests in the form of believing that I have nothing to offer to the conversation. If I do offer something, it might shut the conversation down or worse, I very well may walk away from it being told my offering was not welcome or relevant because I am not nor will I ever be like them.

This anxiety evolved in my mind... when I did want to sit down and write and share, I couldn't. I physically could not get the words out and I had begun to believe that it didn't matter anyway. I was paralyzed at the thought of being vulnerable and pouring my heart out for none of it to ultimately matter.

I have been given my circle though, my own mom group. I was able to begin to cultivate friendships with other moms- some of them also having walked through unspeakable loss- where instead of feeling contagious I've been asked to keep children overnight. Where I can speak freely as a mother and a woman and no one questions whether they might value what I have to say. They make me a spiritual mom of their children and that kind of friendship is worth more than gold. I think being quiet with the world to "find" those people was needed.

Another thing I've been able to do since I've taken this time off is become a certified doula in birth & bereavement. In December I had the thought that I should, but I told the Lord he would have to be louder if that were an avenue I needed to pursue. He would up yelling by February and so I registered with StillBirthday. I turned in my final tasks last week. I think it'll add a lot to my presence at bereavement births as a photographer and with that being such a big "why" for me... it just feels so good to have done this. I'll be overhauling my business in the next few months to focus more on births and doula services.
In 6 months, I had written a whole paragraph for a book. It was not coming easily and it felt forced. I was deleting everything. So I put that down at the same time I started my doula course. I feel like in the next few weeks I'll be able to pick it back up again as well.

Really, taking this time to be quiet has been so needed in my grief. Learning to be alone and recharge and care for my heart and mind is an important step in healing that I never expected. I had been self medicating with busy-ness and oversharing and so when I finally shut up and cleared my schedule to just be alone, it hurt. It was like coming down off a high. I didn't know what to do with myself. Many things I'd been keeping at arms length entered my soul and I broke. I had no where to look but upward and nothing outward to work on... that meant working inward.
So me and God have had it out these past few months. When our relationship was pretty and I was hashtag blessed, I never had to question Him. But in the wake of loss and confusion, I still didn't want to question or doubt. I spent so much time just "yes and amen"-ing even when I needed to fuss that I did not fully confront the questions and anger when they arose. I won't go into too many details, but the quietness and down time allowed for me to seek the face of the Savior and discover undeniable truths for my broken heart. While it was hard, I can still say it was good. It's important to work out the kinks in faith every once in a while or else, is it really faith?

All of that to say I'm back to writing and I'm glad. If none of it does ultimately matter to anyone else, it matters to me. It's a part of my healing. It's for me. Hopefully it points to the Lord in suffering. Hopefully it gives hope of abundantly blessed life after loss even without living children. Hopefully it inspires someone or just makes them feel something. If none of that happens though, it inspires me. I like to talk about this life and this grief and all the love I have for my babies.
I had to shut up for a while to understand why and who for. Because it matters to me. For me.

An Update and a Note on Disabling Comments

In the past few weeks my open letter to Kristin Keel has resurfaced and made the rounds again, opening my blog up to many questions about the situation. I wanted to share with those of you curious what has come of the whole ordeal since January.
We pushed pretty hard down many different avenues to have her and her husband punished for, at the very least, identity theft of our child. Since there was no record of gifts and money they received as a result of their fake child's death, it has been impossible. There are, unfortunately, no proven laws broken against us personally. Maybe one day we will have the energy to initiate a bill that would make sure that online identity theft of a deceased person is a crime. We don't have that energy right now.

We've done what we can. I wrote the truth and published it here and it made its way to the eyes of all the people who grieved for a child that didn't exist. It helped loss support groups kick Kristin out so that she could not also prey on their children. It gave a name to the face that has tried to keep scamming so many more people. I said my piece. So, really, I've done my part.
It has been a really hard 18 months and it's just time for us to try and regain some kind of normalcy. The anger and bitterness that Satan tried to plant using Kristin really have no room here in the grief we are trying to tend to. Ryan and I consciously stepped back from the drama in an effort to keep a hold of our sanity and we have decided that forgiveness is the only way to free us from the hurt she caused. And we are also praying genuinely for a change in the hearts of Kristin and Troy. We are super grateful for the kindness and love and support we have received from the whole new wave of strangers brought into our lives by this and that's what we have to focus on.

Manila Envelope

My last post was about my son who was meant for November but came to us much earlier. Today is his three month birthday.
He was the third baby we've lost. So we got the ticket nobody wants to get- the one where they screen us for everything that could be wrong.

We asked the geneticist to run every possible test on Mason and on us. He did. He ran every test and sent them off to the big lab. We waited a month and a half to get the results and I just knew that something was going to come out of them. It had to.


I was believing that Mason's purpose for dying would be that Ryan and I would get answers, would get some direction on how to prevent another loss. I was believing that something was definitely wrong somewhere or else we would not have had to say goodbye to all of our children. Mason, I thought, came to make a way for answers. If we hadn't lost him, there would have never been the open door to every test under the sun.

So while we waited for these results I was most impatient. I emailed my doctor every day. I knew she was checking every morning and the afternoon reply would come, "nothing yet".

All through this time, my inbox kept filling up with the same questions: Have you gotten the results back? Did you test for xyz? What did the doctor say? Any news yet?


When you're transparent about your life, pain and grief included, even people you aren't close with begin feeling entitled to you. It's not bad or wrong of them, they just begin to relate to you and they grow familiar with your life and feel as though your answers are their answers too. It isn't bad, but it is extra hard on you.

There was enough pressure from the expectations Ryan and I had for these tests. I quickly recognized that others were relying on these results too. Other people are banking on a happy ending for us and that was a lot of extra pressure even at the same time it was encouraging. The part that goes over the line though, was when people began assuming they knew the answers.


Listen, I know how it looks.
It looks like I can't produce a healthy baby.

I know what is being said behind my back.
Hell, sometimes it's even said to my face. I was told to get find someone else to carry a child for me.

I know that everyone is wondering what I did wrong.
Let me tell you, I have been wondering myself.

But I was careful. I got the green light from doctors before conceiving. I ate well and supplemented the protein I was missing out on. I limited my caffeine and I did follow every single healthy guideline because no one on earth wanted our children to have the best chance more than we did. And I had healthy, textbook pregnancies- one of them to term. But my pregnancies did not produce healthy babies. My babies died. I know of many unhealthy pregnancies that produce healthy, thriving babies. These things are out of our control! Still, you don't know the guilt and fear that's carried with a pregnancy after loss.

We knew we would eventually share the results with you all. I choose to be open about these things because its healing for me and it might be healing for someone else that I don't even know.
But we have not been ready to open ourselves up again to all of the speculation.
We've been grieving deeply. We've been trying to not remember how many weeks pregnant I would be. We have been packing away baby items. We have been surviving. That's what we've been doing for the past year since we arrived in WA. We are still very much grieving all three of our children, not just the most recent one, because time has no power over grief or the love that causes it.

When we got the results back, do you want to know one of the first things I said to Ryan? In the middle of the grief and confusion and the pain and while the concrete around our loss was still drying, I asked, "What will people say?"
And that's when we realized I needed to take a break from being so public.

I know everyone wanted answers, including us. I can understand the eagerness. And you have all been doing your very best to support us. We are supported. We are loved. And we are thankful.

But I also want everyone to understand that we need time to process things before letting others process them too. We are not obligated to share everything, and especially not before we are ready.

Instead of the questions concerning medical records, here are some helpful ones to ask in case you all find yourselves seeking to comfort newly grieving parents:

-How can I pray for you?

-Have you been eating?

-Do you have any errands that need running?

-Will you tell me about your child?

-Would you like me to sit with you?

-Would you like to get out for a while?

-Would you like to be alone?

I'm sorry for nagging. I just really want to set the tone for how we expect to be treated in light of this news that we are now ready to share.

We were on the way to the beach in S.C., the last leg of our visit home which was meant to be relaxing and fun. But, my phone rang and I saw the Tacoma number. It was my doctor.
Ryan turned the radio down but she was still very quiet when she said, "He was positively a little boy, and he was positively perfect. Everything came back normal."
We talked for a few more minutes and I could hear her crying with me. We made an appointment for when we came back to WA. and I hung up.

It made the end of our vacation a lot more sober than it already was. The day before was Eden's first birthday. One year after losing our first child, we are told that we just had really bad luck with all three of them.

So we came home and a few days later went into her office so that she could hand me a big yellow manila envelope of test results. It was heavy. "Lots of medical, cold terminology in there... you don't want to read it. It's just for future doctors' reference."
Sitting in the pharmacy I took it out and began to read it anyway. Pages and pages and pages with the words 'normal' and 'unremarkable' typed on them.


I sat there in disbelief and just cried and cried. I was so hurt. I am still hurt. I am still confused. I am still afraid.


My whole life I have been concerned with why things happen. I used to believe that everything had a reason. My world has been rocked by these kids. Everything I believed before has been challenged and altered. After Eden passed, I began to let go of asking why. After Errol passed, I touched it but quickly retreated. This time, I demanded that God make it known to me. And initially, because I had invested so much hope in the contents of that envelope, I thought Mason had died in vain.

I did not necessarily want to be told something was wrong with me or with Ryan or with our child, but I did want to know WHY. I kept opening that envelope for weeks, thinking maybe we missed something. I even went back in it today. It's the same. Same words. Same paper. Normal. Unremarkable.

I have to put this envelope away and put this energy into honoring my son. I'm beginning to think Mason came to make a way that I could tear down the "why" wall for good. That I could maybe one day toss reservations and guilt and shame and worry to pick up only the bare necessities: love and grief. I'm still working on that. But I think he finally broke me for good of the innate need to be given a reason.

I repeat it over and over in this blog and in my home and to other loss moms: there's no reason that our babies die, not a good enough one anyway (if you think you have one, I'm not interested in hearing it). I fell back into the trap of believing that everything had a reason. But Mason did not have a "purpose for dying" like I was foolishly believing he did, contrary to everything that I already knew.

There are a lot of reasons that our babies come to us, though. One of them because we are the only ones that can build legacies for people who were here for such a short time. He chose me. Thank God He chose me for them. They are mine and I am theirs and there's so much painful good in that. I will love them and do good things where they could have if they had lived.

Today is also the International Day of Hope for bereaved families. It is a day to share about our children and remind others that they are still very loved people, not just sad events in our lives. I did not create a prayer flag this year but I am spending so much time reflecting on what a miracle really is. My babies died, but they are still miracles. I asked for them and they were given to me. Ryan and I still being here and living an abundant life is a miracle. The promise of being a complete family again one day is the ultimate miracle. How amazing is the thought that I'll be as innocent as my children when I finally hold them again in front of the Father?

I wish I had answers for you all. I really do. It's been a long year that we are thankful you have supported and loved us through. I want a happy ending pretty ribbon tied around this story for you all as much almost as much as for myself. But life is messy. It's not fair and it's not pretty all the time. That doesn't make it any less miraculous.


I know that there are more questions after this, the most pressing one being what we do next.
We. Don't. Freakin'. Know.
Right now, we are recuperating. We are full of grief and my body is drained. We are so tired. So we are resting. And I am sealing this envelope and putting it in the safe.
Please don't recommend we grow our family by way of another pregnancy, or surrogacy (BTW, that's super rude- if you think I'm a dud, just say it behind my back), or adoption, or fostering. And when we are ready to grow our family, please don't discourage us from being brave enough to pursue a living child-whatever avenue we are led down.

We're praying for peace to sleep and patience to complete simple tasks and grace enough to get through every moment missing our babies. For now, we just ask that you encourage us to rest. And go to the throne on our behalf and intervene, send your vibes, give us thoughts... whatever it is you do. And remember who we are when you want to complain about your kids directly to us. And be patient when we tell you certain events are hard. And give us grace when we bail. And join us in letting go of the need to know why this happened.

May Baby Mason

I'm going to write the fluffiest introduction here to be sure I make the point: I'm going to tell you what I'm going to be writing about. I'm going to write about my baby son dying.
My child died for the third time and that is what I'm going to write about. I'm going to write about it because I need to and I want to and he deserves to be talked about. I want to shout him from the rooftops.
This may make you uncomfortable, so that is why I'm telling you that I'm writing about it. I will be including pictures in which my dead child resides. I don't worry about making you uncomfortable because I am going to be uncomfortable for literally the rest of my life, but if you worry about being uncomfortable over babies dying you can stop reading now and go back to your cat videos.



So anyway, yeah.

My son died. I am mourning once more. At a routine check up last month when I was 15 weeks pregnant, I could see as clear as day before the doctor could... my baby had no heartbeat. Again again again. I look back and there were no warning signs this time, no intuition or flashing signals. With Eden, I anticipated something was wrong before her diagnosis. With Baby Errol, I had a feeling he wasn't mine to keep. With this one, though, I believed so strongly that everything was all fine.

From the moment I even thought I was pregnant I just had a good feeling. A strong feeling. Heck, the hormone showed up on a pee stick when I was only three weeks along. The symptoms were immediate. They were so similar to those I had with Eden, only earlier and more intense. Everything looked great. They even gave me a five week stretch between appointments. I had a little bump by 8 weeks. I felt movements as early as 12 weeks. Everything about this pregnancy made me feel sure that this time we would bring a healthy child home in a car seat.

But alas, he came home in an urn. Because he died.
And so I switch gears from "pregnant" to "grieving" like I have done before.
Only I figured maybe I'm a pro by now, maybe I know how to do this kind of thing... but the God's honest truth about that is I am not and I do not. I am just as freaking lost this time as I was the first time. All I know to do is to keep being honest.

I'm trying to write well but I'm sure that I'll have to come back to edit later as I have not slept. And when I say that, I mean I have to take two prescription pills to achieve 4 hours in which I continuously sit up straight from the nightmares. There is nothing funny about sleep deprivation. There is nothing sexy about being tired. I don't know why people romanticize exhaustion.
(And speaking of things people romanticize, why are panic attacks also one of them? The internet is flooded with articles about how anxious women love differently, how we should be handled, etc and basically every person I know has posted them... We can't all have anxiety can we? Trust me when I say it's not cute, it's not fun, and seriously nobody wants it.)

So, yeah. I'm tired, I'm anxious. I'm worn down. And I'm waiting for the moment when I 'come to' and realize that this is all just in my sick and twisted imagination. I'm waiting for the moment when my therapist breaks the news to me that it's time to face the facts, none of this ever happened. That woman who stole Eden's pictures last year has made me jealous that she's just crazy and I sometimes find myself thinking seriously ugly things: if she wanted my life so bad, I'd be happy to trade her.
I will be so glad to wake up from this dream. Until then, I guess I will keep writing about it and the very realness that it is to me.

Death isn't something that I really had to deal with head on before my children, but I can still tell you that it is a different pain than losing anyone else. It's the ultimate backwards fate. Because mothers and fathers don't outlive their children. And I am learning that there isn't a single right way to be sane through that kind of pain, except the way that is right for me, and again...that changes every day.
Either you need to be out and around other people, or you need to be under the covers, or you need to go out and be under someone else's covers. And the non-grieving are so finicky when you're grieving anyway, they expect you to be well enough to come out and play or they just stop inviting you to play altogether... so you may as well do whatever feels good.

Today, to keep sane I just need to say that he died.
I am so sick of writing about this. I am so sick of this experience.
But I have to say it.
My boy, my sweet son. His name is Mason Gregory and he died.

And it's different from the first time and it's different from the second time, and it's true that every child is different. Weeks after losing my Eden there was a sweet sadness that settled in, a content grief very early on, knowing that it would be a lifetime of ebbing and flowing. Shortly after my early miscarriage I needed to be important and busy and pregnant with things to do rather than a baby. I channeled Errol into work and then my first two children's legacies became my ministry. This time (am I really saying "this time", have I really done this before?), I am so restless and I have a million responsibilities but the only one I want is to carry my child and grow him. I want to go backwards now and that's never been a place I was interested in. I'm missing him. I know I'm moving towards Heaven, but I fear there is much more time between now and then than there is between my babies and now. I am moving away from them and I don't want to hear about how soon I'll see them again. With each week that passes I ache a little more for him, for the sibling that made a way for him only two months before, for the sister that placed the mother heart in me first. All I've ever wanted to be was a mama, their mama. Not like this, but I still wouldn't trade.

So he died then he was born and we held his little body, and he barely took up the palm of Ryan's hand and Ryan's eyes were so sad as he wrapped his son in the tiniest baby blanket I've ever laid my own eyes on. My heart breaks because not only are my babies dead, his babies are dead too. So on top of my dreams, his have also been crushed. I've never been more in love with him than when he has a broken heart and still does all he can to make me smile. He is good. I am blessed that he is the father of my children and the grieving man beside me.

Still, we are wrecked. Stop asking about our family planning. No, we don't yet have answers. Stop suggesting we run out an adopt. Realize adoption is a plan for us and we will have a family with living children one day, but its not anyone's business right now that we just don't know what the heck is going on. We have no freaking clue. We haven't even thought about it, because our baby just died. And please, for the love of everything pure, get your nose out of everyone else's womb. I actually had someone comment on the last blog post I wrote: "get a surrogate".


...


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Here is the thing a lot of people don't get. Here is what they're missing out on. They think it is as simple as getting something fixed when a baby dies. In this case, it's me that needs fixing? Anyway. They're losing sight of what has to happen for someone to die.
My babies are dead. They died. The very first time any of them opened their eyes, they saw the face of the Lord.
I don't know what caused it the last two times.

But I do know this: in order for someone to die, they must live.

They must have once been alive.


And they were. Or else doctors wouldn't say, "I'm sorry, your baby has died."
A person's life can't end without it being life.

My babies were alive.
They lived. Their little hearts beat inside me. One of them, outside.

Where life is, there is also love.
Life and love begin in the same place.

My kids were loved from the moment they existed. Every baby is loved. Every child is wanted. All of them needed. Mine were cherished.

Did my love for them die when they did?

Did my adoration cease the moment I knew she wouldn't live?
Could I withhold devotion though I felt this one wouldn't stay?
Did the love that caused me to hope and dream diminish the moment I saw his still heart?

Obviously not. Life and love don't end in the same place. If they did, nobody would be walking around with a heart this broken.

Love doesn't end. It takes a new form and that is grief.

And so that's the reason I can't run out to the surrogate agency today, three weeks from picking out Mason's urn. That's the reason we're not rushing off to band-aid fix our loss with "another". Another baby doesn't heal the pain of losing mine. That's the reason we will just have to make people uncomfortable with our flavor of parenthood for a while. The reason is that he died but our love didn't. We are grieving instead. We will be grieving forever.
The day I fall out of love with my kids will be the day when it's okay for people to talk like that.


Besides their spirits (which are still very much alive, I'll have you know), I have to put this love into something tangible. Finding somewhere to put that love takes all the energy I have. Finding something to soothe the ache of the empty place my children left just drains me. Today it's this blog. Tomorrow it'll be myself: washing my hair and putting lotion on and eating a decent meal. Maybe soon it'll be that book idea I keep toying with. Anyway.

Mason died.
They all died.
But that is only because they lived. And because they lived, I loved them.

And because I loved them, I'll love them endlessly.

The Birth of My Marriage into Loss

For some reason when Ryan and I first learned of Eden's diagnosis and prognosis, one of the first things someone felt the need to point out to me was that the divorce rate for bereaved parents in America is about 80%. That means that 80 out of 100 couples who lose a child get divorced.

There isn't any accommodating information to be found. Nowhere says whether the child's death was an accident, whether it was a birth defect, whether it was a terminable disease, whether one or the other was at fault. Was the child grown? Was the child born yet?
You don't know if she became cold and angry, or if he became abusive. You don't know if it's within a year of the death or twenty years later. You don't know if they tried therapy. All I can find is that 4/5 bereaved couples let their marriages crumble.

I can't remember the person who gave me this statistic, but if you're reading this and it was you, I want you to know you quietly lit a fire in my heart that day to strive for my marriage and fight for it to the end, no matter what. I don't know your motives but I hope that was one of them.

There in the birthing suite, as I was delivering our daughter, I saw tears streaming all the way down my husband's face. Of course, I'd seen him cry before, but I'd never seen tears make it further than his cheeks. He was holding me-one hand grabbing my foot and the other supporting my swollen arm. He and my mother were working together to help me.

Eden was born and his tears kept flowing. I heard him keep saying, "thank you, thank you." I watched him cut her cord and feel her pulse. He talked to her the whole time through her dedication, we couldn't actually hear the prayer or the blessing. He took her from my chest and she hadn't been wiped off at all, he wrapped her against his shirt in a thin blanket and just held her there. She breathed there, and reached closer for him. He was in awe of her, and I was in awe of them together. I'd never seen such a beautiful sight, the two people I love most in the world just embracing each other.

I struggled to hum her the lullaby, and then he struggled to read her our bedtime story.
We told her that it was okay to go, and so she went a few minutes later. 

The time between our baby's birth and our baby's death was the shortest length of time I've ever experienced, though they say it was 40 minutes. However, it was all the time it took for me to love Ryan in a new way, a way I'd never thought possible. 

The time between our baby's death and now has been the longest length of time I've ever experienced, though its been two weeks and two days. The days have seemed to make one big one, and sleep won't come. At the same time, I wish that it would slow down and it didn't keep moving away from that day so fast.


Our love has evolved in this time, and it's changed thanks to the daughter it created.

We spent the rest of Friday and that night in the hospital room with Eden Olivia. Neither one of us ever left, and she was never put down. We took turns rocking her and talking to her, we laid down together in my bed and napped holding her. We kept admiring her beauty and crying over the perfection that she was. I was the one who held her to sleep that night, and Ryan held her all the next morning before our family came back to tell her goodbye.
Together we put her in the gown made from my wedding dress. She was wrapped in all the love we felt on our wedding day and all the love we felt for her. The funeral home came to pick her up, and we took her downstairs. My dad helped Ryan carry the bassinet, and we got to walk our baby out of the front door just like everyone else. We took turns kissing her and saying goodbye. 
Knowing this may be the last time I saw her face, I couldn't watch her being covered so I turned away. Ryan wanted to be the one to cover her, so he went up to the car and did that for her. This is where our difference in grief began.

We left he hospital after she did. I was brought nearly to my knees when we got to the car and I realized there was no carseat, because we didn't buy one, because we knew she wouldn't be coming home with us. That's when Ryan almost had to scrape me off the asphalt to put me in the passengers seat. He drove to get food, and we took it home where we were alone for a minute as everyone had stepped out for errands. Chick-fil-A (my favorite) tasted like plastic. We finished, I took a pill for pain and went to bed clenching a stuffed bear given to us "to ease the ache of empty arms". Ryan fixed a hole in the fence and did other things around the house before he joined me. I woke up and he was the one wrapped around the bear.

The rest of the weekend is a blur to me, as I mostly stayed in bed. We got our family to the airports Monday morning, then it was us, alone. I was ready to spend another day asleep, but my husband knew there was much we had to get done. So together we parented our daughter that day by making arrangements for flying her and us back to South Carolina, by going to offices to register her birth, by packing her letters and other things to send with her in a bag. 
We were at the airport Tuesday morning, able to watch from the window as they put the most precious cargo on the plane. I cried the whole ride in physical and emotional pain, just holding on tight to that bear. There was a baby girl in front of us who was extremely upset most of the way. Her cries were no bother to me, just a reminder that my little girl was also on the plane, in the wrong seat. I could tell from Ryan's face in the times that he wasn't smiling at her that he was jealous too. I was just thankful that the check-in counter was able to put our seats together since the airline couldn't guarantee it. I was just thankful I still had Ryan and he was holding my hand. Later we heard her mother tell the people beside her that the girl's name is Olivia, and I figured God wanted us in those seats all along.

The thing about my man's heart is that he loves by "doing". Once we landed at home, I wanted to immediately go lie down and hope all the arrangements would be made on their own. But instead we went to the cemetery and picked out Eden's plot. Then we went to the funeral home and decided on the program, finalized the viewing, and planned the funeral. Ryan contacted the Reverend and did all the talking, because my mouth was cotton balls and because it's how he loves. He was sure to ask me how I wanted everything, but more times than not just had to read my mind.
They told us that it would be more than appropriate to have an open casket for the viewing, and relief washed over me. Already, I had regrets about not watching her be covered. Already, I had resented Ryan a little bit for being the last one to hold her alive, and the last one to see her dead. 

The next morning we went to pay the cemetery. Together we decided on a stone and I decided what it would say. I think he was growing weary of all the decision making by this time. We had breakfast and ordered some white roses for our daughter. We went to buy her a pearl bracelet, but it was gifted to us. We took it to the funeral home and there we were finally able to see Eden again. Holding my hand, Ryan walked me up to the casket in the visitation room. I expected to see an unrecognizable face, a cold looking body. Instead, she looked just as beautiful as when we last saw her. I was afraid, but I touched her hand. That's when he was able to touch her too. I wonder how afraid he was, because neither of us had mentioned fear and I know I felt it. I wanted to talk to him, but I just didn't know words. He noticed right away that her headband was missing, so he went to ask if they still had it. He came back with it and I placed the band on her head. I tried so hard to clasp the pearl bracelet on her wrist but I was shaking and tears were clouding my eyes. So he took the clasp and calmly fastened it, holding her tiny hand in his palm. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then I did. Then we left the funeral home, knowing we could see her again later.

The next few hours are the most vivid to me. I kept watching the man I married try on suits appropriate for receiving visitors and burying his daughter. It broke my heart every time he came out of a dressing room, looking much older than he should have. It made me relieved that I picked out and bought dresses when I was 8 months pregnant, because I could not have handled the pain of needing to try on clothes for such an occasion. He chose shades of turquoise, for CDH awareness. His face was grim when he told attendants that the suit was for "a funeral". No parents should ever need to buy clothes to bury their children in.

Then, we were dressed and ready, heading to the funeral home with my family. I remember arguing with Ryan over something very trivial at the beginning, the guilt of letting anything outside bother me on a day like this one stabbing at me as we stood in the hall whisper-yelling. I don't know if he knew I knew better, but couldn't help it. It was our first argument since she'd passed. Then, we were thrown into the room where people kept pouring in to talk to us and see our daughter. We were separated and overwhelmed. Immediately, I missed him... but I was too prideful to stop people from talking to me so I could find and stand next to him for a long time. He eventually just ended up next to me, our hands finding each other as different people hugged us.

About 400 people came to pay their respects that night. Many of them had comforting things to say, and some of them had stupid things to say. But they all cared and we were shocked at just how many lives Eden affected. The evening wound down, and people stayed about 30 minutes over time.. then we were left alone in the room with our daughter. Standing over her again, I told him I was sorry, that I needed him and that I didn't want to fight. He just said, "Who's fighting? I love you." And we kissed our girl, then each other and headed back to my mom's house.

We woke early the next morning and went to pay the funeral home. This would be the last time we'd see her. We went in, afraid again. I put her letters at her feet, her book next to her side. Ryan placed her little stuffie next to her head and we stood there together touching her and talking to her. I kissed her one last time and told her that I love her. I walked away weeping. Ryan followed a few moments later. He was the last one of us to see her anyway. I wasn't bitter this time.

We drove away quietly to go get ready for the funeral. I saw a much older, but still handsome man in the suit he'd bought, and I felt much older in the dress I was wearing. "You look beautiful." He'd taken a single white rose from the two dozen we'd bought her and gave it to me so I could place it on her casket.

The family car arrived at my mom's at 1:15. All of Eden's grandparents rode with us to the cemetery. Though it was a cloudy morning, the sun came out and it was beautiful and breezy few hours. I remember a blur for a funeral. Though it was private the only ones in attendance were family and close friends, those people were too many for just under the tent. I looked back behind me once but I didn't recognize a single face.
I remember they sang, "You are my sunshine". They sang, "Farther Along". They sang "When We All Get to Heaven". I couldn't sing. I heard voices all around me, but not Ryan's, so I didn't feel so alone.
He clenched my hand the whole time. Once he turned my face to his and wiped it, though the tears kept coming. I felt so selfish, needing him so badly. I wondered if I was stopping him from needing me.
We were each given a red rose, in addition to the one Ryan gave me. We walked up to the casket and I remember wondering "are my breasts leaking?" and I was reminded that it hadn't even been one week since I gave birth to this child and thats when my legs gave out from under me. I was using him for support, I was moaning through my cries. The cemetery was silent, and it was as though the only other person there was the one next to me. We took a single petal from the white rose to save. I handed it to Ryan and somehow found my way back to the chair between our parents. A final prayer and then it was over, all of the people coming through to hug us. 

We were leaving to go eat at my best friend's church, and I looked beside me to realize Ryan wasn't walking there. I turned around and saw him lifting a bit of the rug covering the grave, harvesting the dirt that she'd be covered in. He put it in a vial like the one we would later put the rose petal in, like the ones that hold a lock of her hair, a cut of a blanket that was around her, and the oil used for her dedication. I was watching him be intentional in fathering our child, even in his pain.

Later on that night we were making rounds to visit family before leaving, and it had begun to storm. The clouds held off and gave us a beautiful funeral, but the weather was appropriately dreary for the rest of the day. We were fighting again. After a while, I wondered if that was to be our new normal, since we never really fought before. Thats when I remembered the ugly statistic given to me in the beginning. And I was finished with fighting. All I could say was that what it was would never be as important to me as us. And when he agreed, that was it. 

When we made it back to the cemetery after dark when the storming had stopped, and we walked to her grave holding hands. My heart was in literal pain as I just sat in the damp ground at the bottom of her flowered plot. I wept, and felt his hand on my back. He was kneeling down. I whispered to him that I could have just crawled up underneath her and stayed, and he told me that he knew. I believed him.

We flew home the next day, thankfully on seats next to each other again. Then we were in our bedroom, all the "doing" over and only "feeling" left. 


It was a long weekend of us trying very hard to get out of the house. We ended up going to the grocery store and I'll always be proud of us for making it there, even though it took talking about it for two days and going on Monday. That's when we'd paid the Colorado funeral home, and then Tuesday we registered her death. How unreal it was to receive both her birth and death certificates on the same day.

Ryan went back to work on Wednesday, and organized our upcoming move. I stayed in bed all day, glad for a minute to myself but also missing him. I was happy that he had tasks to fill his day. The rest of the week I tried to be productive too, while he tried to slow down. We've both had to respect the way one another is grieving- we're each dealing with this beautiful, awful thing in different ways and at different times. He said to me the other night, "We're going to feel and act differently, just know that however we are feeling and acting is perfectly okay."

These past few days, I'm feeling a mix of things. I feel insecure, I credit the birth process for that. I feel numb, like I just don't have the energy to handle all of my emotions. I feel guilty, thinking that if Ryan hadn't married me and picked me to carry his children, maybe none of this would have happened to him. I love him so much that I'm sorry to have given him this grief.

Last night as I was trying to voice these things but struggling to find the words (people keep saying how important communicating is right now but they don't seem to have any idea how difficult communication turns out to be), this man looked at me so intently and said, "I am so grateful you are my wife and the mother of my daughter. No one else could do what you've done." And then we went to sleep with that comfort bear between us.

I've forgotten now exactly what it was that we fought about those nights, but it has not stopped bothering me that we fought. Now my fears focus on if we can keep our marriage from crumbling, if we can keep from blaming each other for our hurt, if we can be the parents we'd hoped to be without hindering one another with bitterness. My fears were calmed when he said those things to me, because I know that he does not blame me in this immediate aftermath just as I do not blame him.
You see, CDH has no known cause (yet) and that may be our saving grace... But I like to believe that even if we knew what exactly was the explanation for our daughters severe birth defect and death, we would still not fault one or the other. I know that Eden's life taught us more about our love than her death can tear us apart.

When we asked for a baby, we prayed that if there was one that would be sick or one who's life would be short, it would be ours as we knew we could love this baby better than most. I didn't realize how drastically that would change our marriage, as it would definitely change us individually. I think we forgot to pray at that same time for grace and wisdom to see each other through the kind of situation we asked for, but it is coming to us gradually. Every day I am sorry that our marriage has been born into this grief, but more grateful that this is the man God gave me to grieve with. I pray that we will make our daughter proud.

"Two are better than one,

    because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
    But how can one keep warm alone?
 Though one may be overpowered,
    two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12