Three Lessons from a Third Year as Mrs. Coker

I can't believe that another year has passed. It's our anniversary again? We went up the mountain for the weekend and slept in a log cabin without tv or service and watched the snow and <tried> to hike, but the weather stopped us. We will, of course, commemorate our actual anniversary by having Taco Bell for dinner. It's tradition. :)

It has been another year indeed. A long, trying year. Harder than the first and second put together, for sure. Hopefully the hardest we will ever have.
Yet, it has been such a confirmation of our love and and validation of our choice to do life together.. This year, while most certainly hard, has been a blessing. Is that okay to say? It's true, the hard moments have blessed my marriage.

And we can't have an anniversary without adding a post to my marriage blog. The truth is, I have about 29384 things I learned this year. But I couldn't bring it down to twelve like my traditional anniversary post. So Ryan helped, and said we could sum all of them up in just three. And then we decided together what we learned in three short lessons:

Family is "relative". (Pun Intended)
My favorite lesson of the past year is that you can choose your people. Family has so much less to do with biology and marriage than it has to do with the people who love you in your crap.
Ryan and I walked the crap this year. Not just loosing Eden but carrying her after diagnosis, burying her, moving to a dreary climate, spending time apart, and being so far from "home" on top of all the normal difficult marriage things.
It was a scary hard year. And some of the people that we thought would be on the other side of all this crap... well, they aren't. And some even consider themselves to be and still aren't. Those relationships became secondary losses, and we were surprised to find that even strangers can become more like family in the crap. People we never even knew came into our lives and loved on us so deeply and intentionally that it is undeniable that they are our family. Some family relationships and friendships have become strained, but then most have become equally strengthened. The bottom line is, we can decide who we want to call family. Anyone can. You're not stuck with what you start with. You can choose. We choose the people who share in our joys and our heartaches and everything in between, and we choose to share with them in all of theirs. Ryan, Eden, and I are family. We have blood family. We have family friends. And we have stranger family members too. Meaningful, soulful connections make family. We are thankful.

Marriage isn't about love.
Well, it is... but it also isn't. Because sometimes, the truth is that love is not always enough. Ryan and I could have loved each other all day long and it wouldn't have maintained our marriage.
Marriage is about commitment. Marriage is about the vows made to be kept. Marriage is renewing the vows every morning even when things suck. When Ryan wouldn't say more than 6 words a day, when I wouldn't get off the couch for weeks, when it was just plain hard to love each other... we still had a marriage to take care of. That's where intention comes in.
Say the kind thing, do the thoughtful gesture, be as present as possible. Meet each other in the middle. Communicate exactly what you mean. And get some damn help. I found myself struggling with postpartum depression a few months after Eden's birth (and I still am) but it really took us both saying that I needed some help outside of our house. That's important. Go to the therapy. Be open. Be flexible. Commit. Give grace.
And then, love. It cannot hold a marriage together, but it can tie up all the loose ends and fill all the cracks.

You don't lose until you quit.
This is where I begin to cry as I write. At the end of our quiet weekend, these are the words Ryan spoke as his most important lesson from the past year of marriage and they were so loud because they apply to it all.
We lost a lot this year. That's undeniable. We lost our daughter and an early pregnancy and innocence, and friends and family and our otherwise easy relationship. We lost a lot.
But we aren't losers because we have not quit. We didn't give up when things got tough, though statistics would have had another way with us.
We don't want to take this for granted. There will be more hard days in the many years of marriage to come. There will be another season of strife down the line. Prayerfully, not the same season as this, but it would be ignorant to believe there won't be another hard moment in our marriage. And we will not deny that it will be difficult and that we will walk through more crap... instead we will be able to say that as long as we don't give up, we will come out together on the other side. And that's all I could really ask of my marriage. That it doesn't downplay the crap, but keeps on trying.

Another thing we will not give up on is our love for our children. Eden and Baby Errol are so loved and cared for in Heaven. We will get to hold them again there. It will be so joyous. We also love our other children, the ones that have yet to come. Fear would tell us that this is an unfruitful journey- as I've been pregnant twice now with no living children. But faith tells us that we don't quit yet. And that brings me to the announcement that we are expecting our third child.
We are so thrilled. Things feel different this time. Things feel hopeful. While it is still very early, we believe a life is a life and I have been bursting at the seams to share. We personally don't call children that come after loss "rainbow babies", but we are finding so much joy in this pregnancy already. Thank you all for walking this year with us and being our village.

I am ready for another beautiful year with this precious man, being a family and building one together.

An Open Letter to the Woman Using My Daughter's Pictures Online

Kristin Keel Of Minot;

I keep blinking to make sure this is not a nightmare. I have refused to believe that people like you and situations like this actually exist in the world. But I have to admit the truth to myself- you do. You are real. As real as my daughter is, though you have attempted to make her un-real. Shame on you.

I was lying on the couch and resting on Wednesday. I had spent all of Tuesday in an ER testing for a miscarriage and would be going back for a last test on Thursday to be sure that is what was happening. A miscarriage of pregnancy, that is. It was my first since loosing my daughter. I was emotionally drained and physically exhausted. Then Dawn called. I didn’t know what a CHERUBS coordinator could be calling me for, but I was eager to take the call and talk about the daughter that they had helped me prepare for and say goodbye to.

MY daughter, Eden Olivia Coker. We learned we were expecting her on October 15, 2014. We learned she was a girl in February 2015. She was diagnosed with a severe and fatal Bilateral Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia in March 2015. I carried her to induction on June 25 2015 and birth on June 26 2015 at Fort Carson, Colorado. She was born at 10:40 am and died at 11:20 am. She took a few breaths, her last one in my husband’s arms. She never cried. She never opened her eyes. She saved every bit of her energy for those breaths. She went peacefully and quietly into the arms of Jesus. She smelled so good. And she looked like her father, her real father. If you'd like to know more about her actual birth story, you can click this. My little Cherub, that raised awareness to thousands of people about CDH. Over 300 people attended her viewing and saw her body in the casket. She was buried on July 2, 2015 in Sumter South Carolina. Her real Nana goes to visit her body there every day. She resides in Heaven with Jesus, her great-nana, and her cousins. She also resides in the air I breathe and the birds that visit and the faces of every other loss mama I have met on this journey. 

You know who’s face she isn’t in? Yours. Not at all, not one bit.

Dawn said, “I have some disturbing news...” and the rest was a blur. She cried with me and we sat in amazement at this development: someone in Minot, North Dakota had apparently faked a pregnancy and a stillbirth and was using Eden’s pictures to pass the baby in them off as their fake daughter, “Parker Ann Marie Keel”.

I hung up with Dawn when I became hysterical and I called my husband, my mother, and my photographer (by the way- Kahva Photography owns ALL of the rights to all of the images you printed and many of the photographs in this blog post). They joined me in tears. I sobbed so hard- how could the world just keep heaping all this crap on me? Who would do such a thing?

Not wanting to be hasty, Ryan and I waited and let this sink in before we decided we would be taking whatever actions possible against you. So I told Dawn that I would like to know who you are. She sent me screenshots of my baby’s face in your life. Printed and put up on your wall, printed and taken to sit in a Santa’s lap at Christmas (or photoshopped?). Google images for your ultrasound picture and another bad edit job. The memory of my very real Eden Olivia defiled to be fake “Parker”. A nursery prepared and posted on your mother’s facebook. My thoughts went to your poor mother, Kristin. Has she been grieving a granddaughter that isn’t even hers, or does she help you with this façade?

I don’t know if Troy is in on your game. But what made my stomach twist in knots was the video Troy posted of you two sprinting out to a “grave” to make snow angels, smiling and laughing and jumping around. The cherub with this name “Parker” engraved onto it. The wreath made to look like a turkey.  Nothing but toothy grins plastered all over Facebook. Lies. All of the sickest types of lies.

Your smiles are wicked. And my heart breaks for every person who believed this charade.

It’s been suggested that you could have had many different motives for using my daughter’s pictures… for stealing the identity of a deceased baby. Maybe you did loose a child and could not get any pictures for whatever reason… I don’t believe you lost a child. Because if you had, you couldn’t have done such a thing. I know too many people living after they have lost their babies to believe that after going through such pain, you would be able to make a mockery of it by using another parent’s pictures of their child.

I dug, but I did not have to dig far. The people around you had been keeping tabs on your lie ever since it began.

After adding up more information and learning about you, your past plagued with fraud, theft, and many other offenses to include suspected poisoning and taking advantage of those with disabilities… I can say that I know in my heart that you were never pregnant and there was never a baby.

I’ve heard multiple versions of your story- showing up to the ER, sending your husband home for clean clothes, birthing this baby and then leaving the hospital, walking down the street before he could even return to pick you up, then telling him that a hospital employee took your baby’s body from you, dug up her own son’s grave and put your baby in with him (all while neither one of you calls the cops) is outrageous enough….  Then I’ve heard the one where you claim the baby’s body was donated to science… Then I’ve heard there is a grave with a baby in it and then I’ve heard there is a grave with a casket of toys in it, then I’ve heard there is no actual grave. None of it adds up. Nope, you are a liar and I don’t believe there ever was a baby.

Other offerings of motives came. Maybe you were never pregnant but needed Troy to marry you and locked him in with pregnancy and solidified it with loss? Maybe you were both looking for money so you told all of your town your situation and started a Caring Bridge campaign to exploit the hearts of people around you over the saddest situation on earth. All of these possible reasons sounding like plots from a Lifetime movie.

Then, when asked in a personal message from me, all Troy could say was “we immediately questioned the amount of hair”(yet you kept using the pictures?)… and “the pictures were given to us by a local nonprofit”… so when I spoke with the local NILMDTS photographer and the only photographer the hospital calls in the case of stillbirth and infant mortality and she told me she’d never taken the pictures I showed her… well. You know. But I was told by Troy “there’s no need for you to be involved anymore, as I’m sure my wife has already messaged you, we now know we were given the wrong pictures.”

No, Kristin (and I never did receive a message from you). You weren’t given the wrong pictures. You took the pictures. Not only that, but you sought out the story behind the pictures and you made that true story your tall tale. You took advantage of the CHERUBS community, of your community, of every babylost parent that ever reached out to you in solidarity, and of my sweet, precious, innocent girl.

You are a morally bankrupt woman and if your husband was aware, he is just as bad. There is all the need for me to be involved. I will stay involved.

Do you know what you’ve done to me? To my husband?

In the middle of loosing our second child, your actions have broken our hearts. And for what?

We have never done anything to you. I had to make sure I haven’t lost my own mind… that this all really happened to us and not you. I have had to check my own crazy a few times this week.

Did you ever stop to think that there was a real person behind the story you have been scheming? That a very real little girl existed for those photographs? That her true mother and father have spent all this time in agony living without her and then they have to see you playing pretend with her? I’m sure you didn’t stop to think of the people Eden belongs to- her parents, her family, our friends, and every person her little life touched.

But you have messed with the wrong mama.

I prayed so hard that the Lord would show us what to do about this. So he sent these sources- people that know you and the havoc you leave in your wake. We are so grateful for them for encouraging us to do what we feel led to do, for them telling us exactly what type of person you are.

If the only thing I can nail you on is pain and suffering, I won’t. I don’t want your money. There’s no amount of money that could make what you’ve done right. But I won’t stop.  I will read every law every concerning identity theft. I want you put away. I want you unable to reproduce. If you can kill off a fake child, what would you do with a real child?

Some might say that taking legal action is going too far, that it is tainting my daughter’s memory. I say that I must do all I can to protect it fiercely. Her memory is all I have left! I’m not sorry for pursuing those avenues.

Some might also say that exposing your name publicly is going to far, that it is ruining your reputation. I say that you did that to yourself when you decided to do this to us. I’m not sorry for putting you out there or any embarrassment this causes you. When I finish writing this, I'm going to snitch everywhere. 

There are some things I am sorry for. I am so sorry that my beautiful daughter isn’t here living and breathing and growing. I am sorry that she died. It’s not fair.

I’m sorry that any babies die. And I’m sorry that people like you exist to exploit how unbearable and unthinkable that experience is.

I’m very sorry for your family and friends and coworkers, the ones who unknowingly ate your crow and mourned your fake daughter in very real ways. They do not deserve this any more than I do.

You are a sick, despicable human being. Really. I mean that. You owe my baby girl an apology.  You owe Ryan, and I (her actual parents) an apology. You owe my family and friends an apology. You owe your family and friends an apology.

And I hope that you get some mental help. That’s what you owe yourself.

I will choose forgiveness. Not today, Lord knows it. I’m not ready.

I have accepted that I will probably never receive an apology from you, but I know that unless I forgive you, your awful actions will only eat me alive. They will consume parts of me that exist solely to honor my Eden girl. And I will not allow that.

Her life was too damn beautiful for me to allow her death to be hijacked by you. She raised so much awareness about CDH and child loss, and she even raised a little awareness about that as “Parker”, but that isn’t her name. Her name is Eden and she was not a baby doll or the play-thing you tried to make her into. She lived, she was real, and she was OURS.

   

Anyone who attempts to water down her lasting impact in the world by claiming her as his or her own will receive the full wrath of our everlasting love for her.

Eden’s Mama,

Megan Coker



**UPDATE**
THANK YOU all for sharing this post and making sure it gets out there. I will not stop until I'm sure she is kept from being able to do this to another family, and I appreciate you joining me in that quest.

Please also note that I am extending forgiveness as well as I can. This is a very hard situation that Ryan and I have prayed over and we just need time to work through these very human feelings. Thanks for the encouragement. However, we will never "forget" what she has done. And we don't believe that forgiveness requires forgetting under any definition of grace. We will remember. 

I initially turned all of Eden's album to "private", then to "friends only". But after thinking about it, I decided that I would not let one crazy stop me from sharing Eden's story with the world. I will not let fear win, because Eden still has a purpose and raises so much awareness that would be stifled if I just hid it all away. I encourage you all to be vigilant about who can see your baby's pictures, but I also urge you not to let these twisted few individuals have the last word. 
Please, please do not drag family, exes, or employers into this. It's hard enough to learn you've been duped or used, and it's even harder when all these strangers are confronting you about it. Also, I knew there would be a select few who would stand by this couple and their story, and that is fine. I don't want to believe people can be so deceptive and sick either. Let those people be.


One extra sassy thing:
In the United States, there are approximately four home burglaries per minute (that's one every 15 seconds). Does that stop you from living in a house, apartment, dorm, whatever you live in? No? Oh, because you still like shelter and a place to put your things, rest your head, and be with people you love. I see. It definitely wouldn't be your fault if someone broke into your home and took something of yours.

Then why would the remote possibility of a crazy person stealing my kid's pictures stop me from sharing her and her story with anyone that would look or listen? It wouldn't. Because she is worth sharing and I can't begin to imagine the number of people's lives she touched that wouldn't have been touched if we kept her to ourselves.

Please stop saying "what you're going through right now is exactly the reason why I don't post my kid's pictures online." It makes you sound paranoid and ridiculous, and it also places blame on me for what this woman has done.

Gentle Christmas, Darling.

How are we spending our fifth Christmas together this week?
In our fourth home?
Wrapping up our third year of marriage?
Spending our second major holiday away from any family?
Our first Christmas without our baby girl?

I have to thank you for everything you've given me this year.

A gorgeous daughter.
Words of reassurance, notes of encouragement.
Time, as much as you have had.
Support and solidarity.
Attention and affection.
Intimacy and intention.
Fierce love to me and to our child.
The arms you've wrapped around me in the moments I've been most inconsolable.
The eyes that have cried with mine.
The hands you held mine in on the best days and the hardest days of my life- consequently the best and hardest days of yours.

There's so much more. You are a good man and a good husband and a good father, and it isn't fair how many times a day I fail you as a wife that you are still all of these things. You are constant. I am moved every moment that God has given me you.

But I know that this year has been hard. The most trying of our whole lives, let alone the nine years we have known each other. I hope that it's the hardest we ever do have. That we will be able to look back on it and say, "Yep, that was easily the worst thing we've ever gone through".

We've lived a whole six months without our precious Eden. How did we ever live before her? I know you miss her every moment.

We've lost treasured relationships with family and friends. We've walked through more loss with new friends. We've started to endure "firsts" that are so different inside our own circumstance of parenting. We have argued and pulled away from each other and whispered hoarse sorry's in a dark bedroom. We have turned volumes up on televisions and radios to drown out the quietness that a child's cries and giggles should fill.

We have had to learn to be gentle with ourselves, because the world has stopped being so gentle with us. It took three months for others to try and judge this pain or dictate our grief. It took five for us to decide our grief isn't about them.

We have had to unsettle and move and settle again.

We haven't been able to even think about attending church.

Social anxiety.

Depression.

Life keeps going, and our hearts are just broken.


So, I won't tell you Merry Christmas. It's not merry. You know better than I can say, we aren't too jolly. And that is okay. We do not have to put on a happy face for each other. We can be real. There are much too few gifts under the tree that we forced ourselves to put up and there are stockings we didn't even bother to hang. We've turned off carols and only attempted traditional movies.

But, as you have constantly reminded me this year, there is still good. If it cannot be merry, it can be good. And it is.

We grew a baby together this year. Her daddy's twin, actually. And she was born. And we held her. And she breathed. And she stopped breathing. And it was so peaceful and beautiful and it aches in my bones but damn, I'd do it over every day to see the way you looked at her again. We met our very prayed for Eden girl. We're the parents of a very special kid that makes a difference even today.

We also grew our marriage. You proposed to me three years ago on Christmas Eve. And when I said yes, I never imagined "for better or for worse" would happen at the same time. What a test of our love and our commitment and our faith?! I could not be more glad that I am your wife and get to do this beautiful and painful thing with you.

I am so proud of us. Our family is proud of us. Our kiddo is proud of us. Gold star for us.

We have figured out new ways to honor her and ways to take care of ourselves. We have become better individuals.
That I can not know who I am and also be so sure of who I am and be okay with it... that makes me a new woman, whatever I am. And I believe that I've somehow become a better wife, as I know I must first take care of myself before I can take care of you.
Then, that you can find peace in your identity so quickly in whatever situation... that even as you change you are a constant for me.

We got out of town. We did something for ourselves and went away. The guilt, oh the initial guilt of the genuine enjoyment inside unending grief is so real. But, it was good for us. And it was for us and no one else, which is the best part. To be alone, together, and away is one of the best and most healthy things we could have done for ourselves this time of year. To see your smile is the sweetest thing.

Then, we have these people. All of these amazing people. Strangers and blood and everything in between. They wake up thinking of us, they go to bed thinking of us. They cover us in prayer and tell us that WHATEVER is right for us is the only right. People that remind us that we are loved.
They bless us daily and they say her name.

We are favored.
I've felt so close to Mary and Joseph this month. I'm reminded there are no mistakes, that even when choosing who will parent our children, God fearfully pieces the fabric of our lives together.
Thanks to the Son they were chosen to carry and raise, the Son we quietly, mournfully celebrate this week... We are forgiven and will be as blameless as our perfect child on the day we get to meet her again and spend eternity in His presence.


When we are looking back and calling this the worst thing we've been through... I believe we will also call it the best, the most real, and the part of our lives where our blessings were most evident.


No, I cannot wish you a merry Christmas this year, my handsome man.
But I can and will wish you a gentle one.
I can only hope that your heart is quieted and that your mind is eased. That together, we can just breathe and make it through. That we can remember all we have to be thankful for.
That even in this empty ache, we are filled to the brim with peace.

I love you more than I loved you yesterday, but not as much as I'll love you tomorrow.

The Love of a Quietly Grieving Man

I am convinced that I am a magnet for rude comments.

If there is someone who will say the wrong thing, I will meet them.


She was thinning out my hair about a month ago- ripping some final remnants of the Eden hormones from my head. She was telling me what a mane it was, asking why I let it get so thick and unmanageable. She was abusing my confidence, assuming self care is nothing to me. She said there was no wonder I kept having headaches. My hair was ridiculous. It went on and on for about ten minutes, through the wash, the initial trim, and into the middle of shearing my scalp.

"It's usually not like this," I said. "I mean, it has always been pretty thick, but this is mostly the accumulation from all my prenatals."

"Well, no excuses missy. You have to take care of this stuff. How old is your youngest?"

Finally, ready to snap, I carefully said, "She's just a few minutes old forever. She's in Heaven. If you're asking how long its been since I've taken the vitamins, its been almost two months."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

A few moments of peace and quiet... then, backtracking.

"Was she your first?" Yes.
"Did you name her?" Eden.
"Do you have a picture?" Here.

"That is sad. But on the bright side...."
Oh God.
"On the bright side, you and your husband now have a little more time to just enjoy each other without kids getting in the way."

"I mean, I guess?"

"Yeah! You're young! Have fun! When your first kid comes, a man just turns into another child. You'll have your hands too full. Enjoy him as a man before you have to become his mom."

And all the other women's faces in the hair salon wore shocked brows and gaped mouths. I saw them in the mirror as my face turned deep red and I looked down to hide the tears spilling from my eyes.

"Well, I don't think so. I know my husband will be more than eager to help me parent our children. He was eager to be a daddy to her."

"You'll see. But who knows, maybe he'll be a good father one day All men are different right? Okay! All done. Feel better?"
No. Get me out of here.


I am a magnet.



-She was right about our age. We are young. We do have time to build our family. But we already started. This isn't a blessing in disguise- Eden was a very wanted baby: waited for, planned for, and prayed for. We are young, but we decided together that we were ready to be parents.

-When our next child comes, it will not be called our first child! We already have one! This time now is not "before we have children". That time was over a year ago. This time is the time between our first daughter that died and her siblings.

-"Maybe he'll be a good father one day."
Ryan will not be a good father one day. Ryan is an excellent father now. Just like me, he loves his daughter and dreams of her and talks about her and talks to her and misses her.

I wish I had told her what its really like in my house- I wish I'd told her what it's like to be a grieving mother living in close proximity with a grieving father.

I wish I had told her that I'm not worried about ever having to take care of Ryan.

I'll gladly pick up after him while I'm picking up after our babies. Because most days lately he has to pick up after me. The wife that used to wash, dry, fold, and put away all the laundry in one day now leaves a load in the washer that he restarts...then restarts again the next day after I tell him to leave it alone, I'll take care of it.

I can handle a man that acts like a child, because with that thought I picture him in the floor wrestling our kiddos, making them laugh the way he still works so tirelessly to make me laugh on days that I've done nothing but cry.

I will smile on the days when I've packed his lunch along with the lunches of our babes, remembering that in this season there are some days he goes without lunch at all because I haven't cooked all week to send leftovers and theres not time for him to grab take-out.

When he sleeps in on weekends and I am up early with the cartoons, I will remember now, when he is coming home half the days in a week to find I have not moved from the couch, the dogs have not been fed, and the blinds are still drawn.

I am not afraid of taking care of Ryan, I owe him for taking care of me. We get to take turns caring for one another. That's my observation in this season. We will just alternate picking each other up, though I haven't quite mastered the part where I pick him up and its been more of his responsibility than mine.
I don't anticipate having a man-child that cannot care for himself because that's not anything like this man I'm married to, but in the event I do for a while... well thats ok because he has been caring for this woman-child when I couldn't care for myself. Thats what marriage is: taking turns.
It's tough to describe what else our marriage is right now. I can say that his love is a few things.

It's knowing not to mention my new gray hairs when I start picking on his.

It's noticing that my brain is mush when I tell him to take the trash out since the truck will come tomorrow even though he knows it won't come for another three days, smiling, nodding, and taking the trash and recycling bins to the road anyway.

It's looking at me when the mixed company starts talking about parenting struggles and our eyes doing the communication: "you ready?"... "let's go."

It's embarrassing himself at any cost to make me smile and feeling like a king when I've laughed.

It's patiently waiting for me to get done telling him that I don't know why he isn't breaking down the way I am.

It's reminding me that we are both feeling the same pain but reacting to it in different ways.

It's approaching each subject carefully, but being adamant that there is no tip-toeing around each other- it's encouraging me to be gentle but real.

It's getting up in the morning with a heart as broken as mine and going to work and dealing with the world and coming home to screen the mail and changing the channel when a Pampers commercial comes on and making sure I really want to see the Pixar movies in public and giving me space when I need it but never leaving me alone.

It's tears and it's smiles and it's happy and it's sad and it's wild and it's mundane and it's neat and it's messy.

My husband has never been one for showing himself. He celebrates quietly, he mourns even more quietly. It is so difficult for me to accept that his grief isn't loud like mine. It doesn't scream. You can read it all over his face and see it in his eyes, but it doesn't often come out of his mouth. I have had a really hard time being ok with this:

"Are you not sad?"

I always think that I have to remind him that we have a dead baby. I don't have to remind him. He knows it every second of every day the same way I know it. He is living it in the same time I live it.
He never asks me to stop being so vocal and visible about my brokenness, so I don't know why I keep asking him to make a display about his.
Perhaps the way I can take care of him right now is to allow him to act however he needs to act without the demands of "normal behavior for the grieving", without the demands that he meets my grief criteria. Perhaps I can take care of him by giving him the grace he continuously puts into me: "It's okay. How you are feeling and how you are acting and what you are thinking.. it's all okay."

In the months following the birth and death of our child, I realize why the divorce rate among bereaved parents is so high. It's hard for two people hurting so badly to do life together so closely and not say things that just hurt each other more. Had we not had a semi-developed relationship before this, had we not worked steadily and intently on communication and patience before I got pregnant, we may not have walked in on this new normal with much of a chance.

But now when more children come, we will be husband and wife that have walked through the Refiner's Fire and we will be mother and father united to parent all of our babies. I will not ever become my husband's mom. I'm his wife and the luckiest one there ever was to be taken care of by him and to take care of him the way that spouses do.

My prayer is that I can learn to accept the love of this man in his quiet grief and not try to change how he acts. My prayer is that I will stop assuming he is not hurting and start realizing he handles his hurt in different ways from me. My prayer is that we both keep reminding each other that our daughter's life taught us more about our love than her death can tear us apart. And my prayer is also that strangers stop saying stupid things to us.

Why I Don't Want Your Help With My Unsightly Stretch Marks

Dear Stranger;

I found your note in my locker. I found it next to the pen you used and left there in a hurry. You opened my day-use locker to leave me a very important message on top of my belongings that went something like this:

"Hello! Kudos to you for being in the gym post baby! 

I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, but I did want to put an offer on the table... I'm an ItWorks distributor and would love to help you shed those extra pounds. I even have something to help rid you of those unsightly stretch marks. Call (your number here) if you're interested!"

I read it, and read it again. Then I balled your note up in an embarrassed hurry, tossed it in the trash can, stopped by the desk to return the pen you used, then got in my car and drove home with tears in my eyes.

You said you didn't want to make me uncomfortable. You did make me uncomfortable. 

When I arrived and proceeded to take off my shirt, wrap my waist in a neoprene wrap, cover it with a tank top, and then a baggy shirt to hide all of that, I felt your eyes on me. Burning a hole through me, actually. Did you know that one of the main reasons women avoid the gym is undressing in the locker room? Can you imagine how amplified that may be for a woman after giving birth?

I told myself the entire time that I was just being paranoid, finished dressing and went to start my workout but the note I found upon returning confirms that you were watching me. Why were you doing that? Were you just hanging out in the locker room looking for potential customers? If "ItWorks" why were you in the gym? Spoiler alert, It probably doesn't Work. But thats a debate for a whole other day. This is about me, and my body that you couldn't help but notice in the locker room this morning.

I just can't understand what your motives were in there. I wonder if you've ever been in my shoes. I wonder if your children are older, or if you have just recently bore them too. I wonder if you have children at all.  I wish I'd saved the note so that I could call you and ask these things. If you ever stumble upon this, I hope that you'll entertain my questions and tell me exactly what you meant by those loaded words. This is something I'll probably never get to know for sure. But there are also some things you don't know, and that is why I'm not angry with you.

You couldn't have known that today was my very first time inside a gym since my first trimester of pregnancy. 

You couldn't have known that as much as I wanted to, exercise during pregnancy was hard and uncomfortable and so going back to exercise was scary and intimidating.

You couldn't have known that my body still aches from labor and my breasts just stopped leaking.

You couldn't have known that today marks one year since I quit taking birth control and we commenced praying to begin a family. 

You couldn't have known that I am in a brand new place and walking into a gym that I had trouble finding, as I'd never been there before (though you should understand that part or you wouldn't be in a military gym).

You couldn't have known how much I have loathed my sagging body since I dragged it home from the hospital.

You couldn't have known the number of times I've snubbed myself out loud nor the number of times my husband has had to repeat himself, "Your body this way is the most gorgeous I've ever seen it. You gave me a daughter with this temple."

You couldn't have known that my child is in the ground and not at a daycare or with a friend while I get in some "me time".

You couldn't have known that every day I struggle with wishing I was there with her.

And you couldn't have known how much my stretch marks mean to me.

I stretched, boy did I stretch. My skin has been so tight- across my belly, my hips, my thighs, my breasts, my bottom...

Beginning at 15 weeks I was rubbing on the oil, the cream, the body butter, the lotion... every concoction I could find in any pharmacy or skin care boutique in the tri-county area. I tried it all. I started to find marks early and I giggled at them- a sign that my body is making room for a miracle, but I also tried to prevent them. So I doused myself, 3 times a day like taking an antibiotic, for months. If I wasn't greasy it was time to reapply.

Then I birthed her. My sweet, miraculous 6 lb, 15 oz baby girl. I birthed her, all the fluid and extra fluid around her, and the hefty placenta my midwife and husband both called "beautiful". I birthed a love I didn't know I was capable of.

Then it was all taken from me. She is in Heaven, and I am here only left with the mold she put me in and the hundreds of marks on top of it. 

I stopped using lotions and oils. 

Maybe that's not healthy. Perhaps that means I am promoting unhealthy skin here. But I don't want whatever you have to help rid me of them. To me, my stripes are the furthest thing from unsightly.

You noticed a small portion of them today- only as much as you could see while I hurried out of and into my top... they must have popped right out at you.

But they have already started fading. I had deep, purple, almost red lines all over me. They itched, they burned, they were tender to the touch.

Now they are turning to match my skin. Some will stay deep and wide- rivers where the skin split early. Others will soon just look like small scars- streams that just formed in the last month while she dropped. I never want them to go away. I want bright purple all over forever. 

This is my evidence. "I was here mama," they all shout at me. 

"I kicked you," she says in the lines radiating around my belly button.

"I grew in you," she says in the craters on my hips. 

"You carried me down here," scream the short and wide marks around my pelvis.

"You took me everywhere with you," whisper the subtle scars down the insides of my thighs.

This is my evidence.

I don't want whatever you have to help me hide my evidence.

I want every single mark forever. I want these scars. When I lose the weight, they will be what remains of the body my Eden gave me. 

She made me a mama with them and I will probably never rub another thing on in an effort to hide or reduce the appearance of them.

I wish I could have told you this today. I'm not even sure I would have found the guts had you approached me personally. But I do wish I had the chance. If this ever finds you, I want to tell you that you should stop placing notes in the lockers of women at the gym where you call parts of them distasteful or unpleasant... It won't earn you a client, especially if that client has so much more to their story than "being in the gym post baby".

Thanks, but no thanks.

To the Mama Expecting Bereavement

Dear Bereaved Mother-in-Waiting,

"Put one foot in front of the other."

That use to sound like something you'd say to encourage people, but now it is an order. It's a reminder.

Each of your organs are cinder blocks, making every step heavier and making it almost impossible to scoot without stumbling.

Your brain is pulling away from gravity- stretched far above treetops, "head in the clouds". Your heart is in your feet, appropriately broken to fit in the different sides. There's suddenly a mile between your vocal cords and your tongue- good luck saying what you need. 

How has your body become so rearranged? How come no one can see it from the outside?

I know where you are. You are in anticipatory grief for the child in your womb. You feel almost alone on this journey. And lost. Every moment is another that putting one foot in front of the other is an impossible request to make of you.

Waiting to lose is bad. I can't say that it is the worst. I've never truly lost before now. I've witnessed others' sudden and unexpected loss, I've witnessed others' peaceful letting-go. But I've never witnessed firsthand another getting prepared for the birth and death of someone they love until myself.

Have you? Are you no stranger to loss?

If you aren't, I'm afraid this will still be a bit different. Because every loss is different.
And my stumbling upon this new normal will look so much different from yours. We are creating together a beautiful community of different hurts that may only live until we are gone, so that there is room in the space for the next different hurts.


Call this space -baby loss- "Alaska". Imagine the dreams we'd had for our babies prior to learning about life-limiting or fatal diagnoses in another space called "Jamaica".

Some of us arrive to Alaska by taking the long way around- driving from peninsular Florida through the continental US and then through Canada. Perhaps we barely knew we were pregnant, the pee may still be wet on the stick when we learn that our babes have a different fate than we'd hoped. So starting from 8 weeks gestation, we begin to carry the burden of waiting on losing. And we carry it the whole way to birth. The climate changes every few hundred miles (some days are colder than others in anticipatory loss), and we have to stop often for gas (someone please pour encouragement into me). But when we finally arrive to Alaska, we've still got some sweet memories of the trip there.

Some of us get there by boat. We hop on our own glacier bound titanic midway through pregnancy. We had smooth sailing through the first and second trimester but waters became rough at a nerve-wrecking diagnosis appointment. We just gave our voyage a name we'd picked out dependent on its gender ultrasound... and now we must accept that the voyage will end in Alaska, when we arrive there. We still have a little time to make these next days (months) count, so immediately every sunset on the water becomes more precious.

Then some of us arrive by plane. In the home stretch of our pregnancies, we feel irregular kicking patterns and just think we have lazy babies. So we visit doctors and go to specialists and learn that something has gone terribly wrong and we are days away from loss. It only takes a few hours to fly to Alaska from where we are. We don't have time to pack, we don't have time to wait in line for a Cinnabon.. We check in and hop on for a turbulent ride, hoping for a moment to look out the window and gather that everything will change once we land, thankful for ignorance before this point.


We all get to the same Alaska, but it looks different to each of us because of the way we got there. I can't tell you exactly how Alaska is going to look to you. We can all agree on one thing though: it is cold and it isn't the place we wanted to be.


You are wishing for the days before you knew what you're carrying with your baby: before you knew all the uncertainty that you were oblivious to before this point. Certain Uncertainty? You wish you didn't have that.

You are wishing for the days where you were planning for Jamaica. When the biggest worries you had were over diaper brands, nursery themes, feeding options, parenting styles. You are watching all the other expectant mothers in Jamaica. You're glad for them, you're sad for you.


While you're on the way to and in Alaska, the mothers on the way to and in Jamaica are going to try to reach out to you. They may not be able to know what you're going through, but they can certainly empathize- easier than most can. It hits close to home when one is looking at her friends in Alaska while she's in Jamaica.
Let them, mama. Our small village waiting for you in Alaska is support, but you will never have enough. Don't push them away if they just want to love on you.

Sometimes a woman in Jamaica will assume that, being in Alaska, you can be nothing but jealous and bitter. You know better, though. Love that mother from a distance. Find comfort in praying that that mother will never TRULY know how you feel- pray she will never need to visit Alaska.

Sometimes a woman who looks like she's always been in Jamaica will surprise you, she's visited Alaska too. One day you may be in her shoes. One day you may not. Just know she's been in yours.

You're still expecting. You're still on the way to Alaska, and there will be so much struggle to enjoy the ride. If you are driving, you're carsick. If you're sailing, your boat is steadily sinking. If you're flying, its on a small plane and through thunderstorms. And on top of it all, there is no map to our Alaska. We are wandering, on a certain path.

It's going to be hard. But I urge you, mama... Rebuke the end of your trip until it comes. Speak life into your baby, speak life into your self.

Don't give up, don't have a passive trip. Tell people about your journey.

When you meet a stranger along the way, you don't have to let them think you're on your way to Jamaica just so they aren't uncomfortable.

And then, somedays, if you want to let the trip happen while you just rest, I urge you to do that too.
Stay in bed, cry, holler, and cuss.

Feel what you need to feel. Know that your feelings are OK.
If you are glad- don't let anyone make you think you should be sad.
If you are sad- don't let anyone make you think you should be glad.


You're expecting a baby. Your baby is a blessing! Your sick baby is a blessing! Your broken baby is a blessing! Your dying baby is a blessing!

You're expecting to be a bereaved mother. Grief, in its own way, is also a blessing. You do NOT have to view it that way. But waiting for it will give you a different outlook on yourself, on your baby, and on life.


When you get to Alaska, it's okay to be disappointed. It's okay to be angry. This is not the trip you planned. This is not Jamaica. And when you get here, that's when you'll realize you didn't pack a jacket.

You can't pack anything, actually. Nothing ample enough to protect yourself from the cold weather you're facing. Remember you were packing for Jamaica when this trip went the other way.
Though you are expecting it, you don't know exactly what kind of grief awaits you in Alaska.

In Alaska, you will be babylost. And I didn't know until I arrived here that the pain is a new one, different and more amplified. I want to warn you of that.

This post will not ease it, your family will not ease it, your friends will not ease it. They will love on you (yes, even more than they are right now) but they will never be able to put your baby back in your arms. And I'm sorry to know that.

I'm sorry that you are terrified. I'm sorry that you cannot turn around and just stay home. I'm sorry that we aren't going to Jamaica this time.

There will still be an element of beauty. Alaska is still a nice place to see. It is still a new place. You will still be a mother! Don't let anyone ever tell you any different. In your grief, you will be THE mother. How amazing you will be to parent a baby you can no longer see.

But I want you to know that once you arrive, you will long for the days when you were just waiting for it, just like you now long for the days when you knew you were going to certainly bring home a healthy and happy baby to protect and love.


I know you are heavy. I know that in addition to all you're carrying with your baby, your own self is becoming tough to pull. But you can do it. I believe our babies get to choose us. Your baby picked you, mama. Your baby knows you can finish the journey it was sent to you for. Your baby knows you can somehow get all the way to Alaska, no matter how far or close it seems.

Just put one foot in front of the other.

Carrying the Weight of Eden

When someone tells you their unborn child has a fatal diagnosis and will not live outside their womb for long at all, but then tells you of plans to carry the child as far as they can... you can guess some of the pain they will face.

You can guess on your own that there's something particularly hard about carrying a baby but not setting up a nursery.

You can guess that the doctor's appointments would get really old, really fast.

You can guess that all the expectant mother will do is worry every minute that it may be her last one pregnant, and then it will hit her how limited her time with her child really is.

You can guess that the expectant father begins putting away his dreams and expectations for that particular child, hopeful for another to dream for one day.

You can conclude that it must all be very difficult, and you'd be right.
On D-Day (Diagnosis Day), I knew that I would be facing those hard things.

But there are some things you just can't guess.
She was 6 lbs and 15 oz. But I carried a lot more to birth than just the little girl in my womb. I carried so many feelings, too. I wonder every day if they made the load heavier, or if allowing myself to feel them made the weight I carried a little lighter.

And it's still different case to case, so even someone who's been through the same situation could still not have guessed what I would walk through. Someone who's been through the same situation could have guessed, too, but may have not been bothered by the same trials. That's why I changed the name of this post from "Unexpected Hardships of Carrying to Birth" to be more personal.. My experience is unique because my daughter is unique.

Feelings I felt and didn't expect to feel were:

Hurt when the conversation turned to how large I was getting. I always thought that when the time came for me to receive comments on my super huge belly, I would take them so proudly. But, when I started retaining amniotic fluid since Eden couldn't swallow it well...the comments weren't received as graciously. Who even ever had the idea to comment on a pregnant girl's size anyway? I knew that the reason for such a big belly was that there was something wrong and it made me super sensitive. At 30 weeks, a clerk asked me how far along I was and I just told her 38 weeks.

Panic when a stranger asked about the due date, made comments about life after babies, etc. To begin with, I would just pretend to be normal and talk about her due date and say that pregnancy is fun. Then I started lying to these strangers when their questions turned from pregnancy to preparation. "Oh yes, her nursery is already finished and we've got the carseat ready to go." Near the end, I gave up on trying not to make people uncomfortable and just gave them the truth.

Confusion as I danced between attachment and detachment to my baby. Here's a raw truth: The first few months of my pregnancy, I went through a short "pre-partum" depression and afterwards had a very hard time attaching to my unborn baby. Of course I loved her, but I felt funny talking to her or singing to her, and with Ryan being gone for I just wasn't in the mood to celebrate what was happening in my body. I didn't want to do anything baby related until Christmas time when we decided to go ahead and register. I finally started attaching to her when he came home and we went to find out that she was a girl. She had a name I could keep saying, and her kicks were getting to be visible instead of just tangible. D-Day was just a few weeks later, and every day after that was a tug-of-war between getting to know her and stepping away from her. Why would I want to get attached to a baby I'd have to let go? Honestly, there was no stopping it even though I tried. She will always be a part of me.

Rage from seeing other women ignore healthy pregnancy guidelines. From the moment I even suspected I was pregnant I was stepping away from any alcohol. I never ate lunch meat without it being heated and I was very wary of my California rolls. I stayed away from soft cheeses, dropped caffeine altogether for the entire first trimester. I wouldn't stand around anyone smoking, and I was careful with my physical activity. I triple-checked before taking any medication, even if it was prescribed to me. None of this was hard to do, nor was it super stressful, and I don't need a pat on the back for it. Putting my unborn child first was never an inconvenience. CDH has no known cause and there is no cure yet. There is absolutely nothing I knowingly did to give my baby a birth defect- and nothing I could have done to stop it. Naturally, I continued this way for my whole pregnancy, even knowing I couldn't save her. So it made (makes) me kind of super angry to see other women not striving for the healthiest pregnancies and therefore knowingly putting babies at risk for so much more than what can happen out of the blue. I know way too many women struggling to get pregnant, struggling to stay pregnant, and struggling after losing children to be ok with it. Sorry (not really) for the rant. *If you are unsure about guidelines for a healthy pregnancy, you can click this link to WebMD.

Sadness passing infant sections in stores. Sometimes I would wander in just to touch the baby dresses. Then I'd leave without getting whatever I came for, afraid someone might see me ugly cry.

Fear when I had to be alone. Every day I'd spend hours with Jenae until it looked like Ryan would be home for the evening. I'd try to strategically have something planned to do when he wanted to go for a hike. I'd go shopping just to be around people! When my mom finally came to stay in early May, I could finally breathe. The whole time she was here, I was never alone with my thoughts... and she even enjoyed time with my friends and shopping too.

Anger as I tried to plan a funeral for a baby that was still kicking my insides. "I wrote an obituary and left spaces for the dates and times", "I really like this poem for the program", and "Let's finish squaring away the funeral homes this week" turned into "I should not be doing this", "This is so freaking backwards", and "We can just take care of it when it happens because we aren't being fair to her obvious presence or ourselves". It seemed that every time we tried to plan something or even talk about it, she knew and would commence a fit of hiccups or begin a soccer game. We eventually just had a basic outline and left everything for after her birth.

Alarm at every. single. thing. I went to L&D about seven times. I believed my water was leaking, that I had a blood clot in my lungs, that she wasn't moving enough, that her heart stopped beating. Every time I experienced a little heartburn, I thought that something was terribly wrong. I don't know if I'm glad I did this or if I wish I would have relaxed a little. I just kept saying to myself as I left the hospital feeling like an idiot, "better to go and nothing be wrong than to not go and it all be wrong."

Uncertainty when we'd have a discussion about family planning. I have a heart for adoption and Ryan's certainly not against it, but knowing that we can create life makes us want to create more. Except there's the part where the only life we've created had a horrible birth defect. What's next? Then, we'd always said three was enough (I actually always said seven was enough but three seemed to please my husband for the time being), but did we mean three altogether? Three to raise? What we ended up saying is that we'll just cross bridges as they come, we don't need a itinerary for parenthood.

Doubt when people encouraged me. I heard "you are so strong" about ten times a week, but I kept thinking that if they really knew how I felt, they wouldn't say it.

Alienation when receiving *PREP FOR BABY* emails and coupons. (Like, c'mon post carrier. I think you're delivering my share and the share for every other parent's house in the neighborhood. I heard those diapers suck anyway.) The emails are the worst- especially when it came time for the gestation to focus completely on the lungs- things were supposed to be happening that I knew were not.

Annoyance at the comments made by those who meant well. I had quite a few people tell me, "There can still be a miracle, don't just give up on your child", and that always bothered me. Was it not miraculous enough to be pregnant? Was it not miraculous enough to carry Eden just one more minute? She was and always will be the miracle of the whole situation. God didn't not show up just because she wasn't healed. And while we never lost sight of hope for her healing, we couldn't actively pray for God to change His already perfect creation. At the same time, I know that people just need something to believe in during such trying times. It's just that when you know things are going to be a certain way, its time to stop praying to change them and start praying for the peace to deal with them.

Guilt when I said "I can't breathe". Before she started to drop, she was so high in my ribcage and crowding my lungs that I never could catch a good breath. I would automatically complain, then I'd start wondering if her entire short life would feel like that. Then I'd hate myself and start having a panic attack, during which I really couldn't breathe. I tried to have a sobering perspective on whatever discomfort I felt while it was all for her.

Overwhelming LOVE with each reminder of her existence. I knew as I tried to detach from her that I loved her, but I grew to love her in ways I never could have imagined. I would bargain "Take me instead of her" over and over every day. Her kicks when I would sing or her punchy reaction to her dad's voice, my big belly as I tried to roll over out of bed, all the clothes that stopped fitting, the swelling, and the infinite number of stretch marks she placed on my stomach, hips, and thighs all gave me the warmest feeling of adoration. None of it will ever compare the the feelings I had when they placed her in my arms, though. Each day I loved her increasingly more. Every minute I got to spend with her (in and out of my body) was the best minute of my life!