Hello Out There….

[tap tap] Hello. Can you hear me? [tap tap] Can you hear me now?

Ok, ok.

It seems this ole blogeroo (yes, total made up word) has taken quite the hiatus. I’m gonna guess nobody even sees this! HA! I’ve probably been taken off of everyone’s blog feed notifications due to inactivity. :-/

Anyway, we are still alive. Hopefully, the blog is not the only place you keep up with us, and this fact is not indeed news to you. However, if the blog is the only way you keep up with us…well, again, we are alive.

It’s been quite a year, as evidenced by my last post. That makes me sad to read, but it’s real, and that journey continues. We are doing quite well overall, but certainly, there are triggers that take me right back to that place all over again. I won’t go through them now.

Today, I would’ve been 36 wks and 3 days with Tiny—this is the gestation that Ridley was born at. I already passed the due date of the first pregnancy of this year on September 15th. That was a bummer to see pop up on my phone reminder one day . Guess I had put it there and forgot to take it off after that pregnancy ended. October 25th was the due date for Tiny. I have never made it to a due date with any pregnancy, so really, these next few weeks are just more stark thoughts of “what-if” and “should’ve been.” I try hard not to dwell on those thoughts, but it sure is hard at times.

This year has, and continues to be, a journey of my faith. If I said my faith had been rock solid through this, I’d be struck down right now. This year has been full of doubts, anger, questions, loss of trust, sadness, and the list goes on. I didn’t even want to open my Bible for a long time. I was mad at God, plain and simple. Then, when people would try to share cliches of things that are not in the Bible, or even try to encourage by sharing (felt like throwing) verses from the Bible with me, that sure didn’t help. Everyone processes things differently, but this is my journey.

I didn’t enjoy being at church many weeks, and sometimes I still feel the desire to run and hide when there. Sad, but true. All the songs about “He gives and takes away” just seem harsh to me. Then, when I shared my struggles, I encountered people who felt the need to defend God and His goodness. Honestly, I don’t think God needs defending. So, instead of just the ministry of presence (which is what I needed), I felt more and more isolated. Grief truly is a lonely place many times. I often feel there are expectations of me and my grief journey (although not stated), and that is a struggle for me. So, I try to put on the happy face so that nobody is uncomfortable. Shoot, I even did this in my own house for a while. Stephen and I have learned a lot through this. It has not been easy, as we traveled very different paths in our personal grief journeys as well. But, we have learned a lot and learned more how to support each other in the unique paths we travel.

Relationships have changed. Some beautiful new ones have grown from this time, and some old ones really strengthened. Some have suffered. Some may never be the same.

I am not the same, and things will never go back to “the old me.” The old me is different now. In ways, I have grown. I am still navigating this road of grief, and I figure it’s a lifelong road, in some ways. There is never a time when I will say, “I am ok that I lost babies.” I am sure there will even be times years down the road that I will be triggered back into a wave of heavy grief. It’s a journey.

But, each day, I smile and laugh. Sometimes, I get angry and cry out! God is patient with me. I am not sure what our future holds (do any of us?), but I am growing and learning, and I’m seeking to learn to trust God and His higher ways and His higher thinking. It is a lifelong journey.