The Day Bill meets the Lord

Today is an incredibly sad day. Phil's amazing father passed out of this life and into the loving arms of Jesus very early this morning, as his wife and daughter sang "Silent Night" at his bedside. Bill always LOVED Christmas music so much, and so this was a beautiful way for him to take his final breaths here on earth. After nearly two months of battling a rapidly progressing and very aggressive form of lymphoma, Bill's body could finally take no more. I think we are in a bit of shock at the fact that someone who just 2 months ago was still doing home repair projects and preaching to his church could so suddenly be gone. And while we know without a doubt that this is a victorious day for Bill in which he gets to meet his Lord and Savior face to face, for those of us left behind it is also a day full of sorrow and heartache. He was only 67 and so very vibrant. I know of very few human beings who so whole-heartedly serve the Lord with such passion and dedication. On top of that, he was the kindest father-in-law you could ever dream up, and I will never forget him calling to pray with me during some of the harder moments in this last year or so. There is a deep ache in my heart when I realize my children will never know their sweet grandaddy, because I have seen how wonderful he was with the 9 grandchildren he'd already been blessed with. It breaks my heart that he will not get to hold our babies. But even more, my heart aches for Cindy, his beloved wife, as she faces life without this amazing man by her side. It makes me want to cling to Phil almost desperately, with a new awareness of the fact that our time here on earth is short and we really never know how much of it we have left together. And so I hug him a little tighter and I tell him I love him more than anybody probably ever needs to hear it. But I do, and I realize now just how much I need him in my life. And when I think of the pain he is feeling at the loss of this father - his strong, hard-working, kindhearted father - my heart breaks all over again. I still say we are too young to lose our parents, because we are. But in truth, I have realized that we will ALWAYS be too young to lose them. It will never be easy. It will always be painful. These are the people from which we were created, and they have loved and supported us unconditionally every single day since the day we were born. No matter what, it is a bond we struggle to let go of, and I am just so saddened that my husband has had to do just that so quickly. Oh Bill, how you are already so deeply missed. We love you so much.

Outside the sun is shining so brilliantly, and I am so very thankful for this because inside my mind things are quite the opposite. But miraculously, despite this being the hardest year of my life, I am surviving each day and learning just how much I can actually handle. God is molding me and shaping me into someone I know I was always meant to be. I know now how much I need his presence in my life, and in watching Phil's family endure the tragedy of his father's illness these last two months, I also now appreciate what full trust in the Lord can do for your life. Even in the darkest hours, his family would praise God and trust in Him, despite everything around them falling apart. It is honestly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and more than anything I want to learn to live in that light. God DOES provide for our needs and he is ever faithful to us, if only we will let go and trust in his will for our lives. His reasons for things are not for us to understand, and so we are left with an important choice: We can fight against his plan and suffer the loneliness and discomfort that goes with that decision, or we can surrender ourselves fully to him and walk in the peace that only the abandonment of self can produce. I have walked many miles on the first path and can attest to the sorrow one feels when fighting against the Lord. It is not how we were meant to live our lives, and that is why feelings of anxiety and despair so easily overtake us there. Alternately, in the relatively short distances I have traversed in full surrender to God, I have experienced that surreal peace I wrote about a while back. It is inexplicable that one could feel peace and comfort in the midst of pure pain and heartbreak, and yet I promise you it can happen if we but let go of our own desperate desires and plans to instead rest in the hands of our Father who loves us. I have felt the difference and I know it is real, and yet I still fall back to route #1 more often than I'd like to admit. I am stubborn and type A all the way, and planning things out is what I do best (seriously, I plan out an entire trimester of school at a time), so letting go of what I want to happen is just about the hardest thing you could possibly ask me to do.  And that is why I fight it, even when I know the value of letting it all go. It's hard for me and I'm still learning. I have a ways to go.

And finally, since I started this blog to write out and sort through my grief over the miscarriage, I wanted to touch on that topic as well. I am still sad. I am still feeling desperate as more time passes and things continue to not be regular for my body. I still want nothing more than to be pregnant again so that I can feel that incomparable joy of growing a life inside of me. I ache for that loss. I am still grieving. With each physical disappointment (and there have been many) that proves something is wrong with my body and my cycles I seem to fall into a deeper depression, and those days are the hardest. My last cycle, it took me over 4 weeks to ovulate, and then once I did I had an 8 day luteal phase (too short). These setbacks break my heart all over again because not only is it a reminder of what was lost, but it also is like a slap in the face that we will NOT be able to try again just yet. And that is what I want more than anything, even if the thought of getting pregnant still terrifies me beyond all measure.

Yesterday I finally had my appointment with the infertility specialist, and I really liked her. She was helpful and answered all my (many, many) questions. She has started me on Metformin, which is a medication originally used for diabetes, but which is also used to help regulate menstrual cycles. I will take this 3x daily. Additionally, I will be on progesterone supplements starting 8 days after I get a positive OPK (ovulation predictor kit). I will stay on progesterone throughout my luteal phase, and if I get pregnant, into the 2nd trimester.  If I am not pregnant, eventually I'll have to stop the supplements each cycle because it usually prevents your period from coming.  They started me on this same supplement towards the end of my pregnancy, because my levels of the hormone were borderline, but by then it turned out the baby was already dead so the supplement obviously couldn't help.

So for now, I feel encouraged to be doing something to try to help my cycle issues. However, the Metformin can take a few months to really start working, and when you are inching ever closer to your due date after a miscarriage, 3 months feels like far too long. I thought I would be pregnant again by now, not just starting new treatments, but there again is the evidence of why I need to just surrender it all to God. I have no control over any of this and it stresses me out so much to dwell on it.

Also, if in 3 months we are still not able to conceive, she will start me on Femara, in addition to the other two drugs, to help promote ovulation. I hope we don't get to that point, but with the way things are going, we most likely will. As it is, I am supposed to ovulate this week if things were regular, which they aren't, so I don't expect that to happen. I am not showing any signs that it might. I try to not be too disappointed by this, but the truth is it will devastate me if it doesn't happen. And if I ovulate too late (past day 21 or 22), which I will if I even ovulate at all, she advised us not to even try to conceive, as the egg quality will be diminished by that point (probably what caused my miscarriage before... good to know that NOW). Ugh.

So anyway, there it is. This seems to be a season of death for us, and while I know that sounds dark it is also true. It is what it is. And so our grieving continues... And yet, I am so very happy to think of Bill up there meeting and loving our darling baby for us, and I know we will all meet again one day on God's celestial shores. There is so much more than just what we see here in this life, and I am thankful for that.

Feeling sorry for myself

This is to God:

God, are you hearing me? I hurt, Lord. I hurt so, so badly, and every time I think it's getting better, something happens that rips that scab right back off and I'm back to the start. Life has been so hard lately, in what feels like every way imaginable. What are you doing to me God? I have surrendered everything to you, and have found temporary peace in that act, but always, ALWAYS the pain comes back, along with the fear that walks hand in hand with that pain.

Today someone on facebook announced their pregnancy by posting an ultrasound pic of a perfect little baby... due July 4th, just 4 days after my due date. This keeps happening, over and over. The scab was ripped painfully back off. There in front of me was a picture of how my baby should look right now. A beautiful little nose, a sweet, round belly. And of course the pain I have worked so hard to conquer rushes over me just like the first day we lost the baby. It hurts just the same. I want my baby back. I hate everyone who is pregnant right now, HATE them. I hate everyone who has children and has never had to endure the awful pain of a miscarriage. I hate everyone who posts pictures of their perfect babies that they had with zero complications. I hate those who boast of answered prayers, when every single one of mine receives the exact OPPOSITE of what I petition for. Why do some people get the blessings they desire, when all I get is more and more disappointment? Of course, you know I do not actually hate any of these people. In fact, I love many of them so much. What I actually hate is the sad, bitter FEELING I have that prevents me from being truly happy for them when that is how I SHOULD be feeling. I hate SO much about my life right now. And I hate feeling like this. So much hatred. So much negativity. It's awful and I can't wait to get away from here.

Lord, where are you? You took our baby, and then you took my mom's donor we were so sure we were going to get. Or, maybe you didn't take these things. I don't know, those are some of my faith questions I might never get answered. With each disappointment I feel like I have been broken down even further. But still, I surrendered. Then, you very nearly took Phil's dad's life, and while he is still here on earth with us, the reality is that he is SO very ill. Bill Moore is a remarkable man, the sweetest father-in-law a girl could hope for, and an amazing grandaddy too. I don't want to lose him. I don't want to lose my mom. Phil and I both have very sick parents and neither of us are ready to lose them. This is hard, terrifying, exhausting.

Right now I struggle to understand why God is giving us so much disappointment and pain all at once. I try to look at it to see what I could be learning right now, what life lessons I could be gleaning from my heartache. So far, I have learned the necessity of surrendering, and that's a good lesson to learn. But then, other days, I feel just downright sad, depressed, forlorn, hopeless, forgotten, forsaken, angry, bitter, jealous, hateful, pessimistic and unable to see what exactly I am supposed to be praising God for right now. I have had enough of all of this. I am so very tired of feeling this way. I feel DESPERATE for something good to happen, anything. Some glimmer of hope to help me want to hang on just a little while longer. God? Do you even hear these cries? David cried out to you similarly in the Psalms, and I relate to his anguish. How long Lord? It's so, so hard. I need you to hear me. I can't take much more.

But then, tomorrow is a new day and we can always hope the sun will shine again... It HAS to shine again someday, I know that. Nights are always harder for me lately, and in the morning I will once again feel more hopeful. After all, maybe tomorrow is the day good things will start happening...