1.4.21
Today was an emotional day. Ugh. I began my day deprived of sleep from the 4am and 7am feed and actually got myself ready which only put the entire family behind in our morning routine….sometimes I forget that I’m the backbone to this family’s schedule. I figured everyone out for the day and raced out the door with Zay for a hour drive to his newborn session.
I’ve never considered him to be my rainbow baby. Not out of belief that he wasn’t but I had simply forgotten that the term rainbow baby even existed in this whirlwind. So when the photographer brought out the cutest little plush rainbow hearts to make an arch over him for a photo, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. Sad and happy tears welled up because I hadn’t even asked the photographer to do this, I had told her a cliff note version of our story and she was beyond amazing to take us in within the week of getting him home. She was supposed to photograph Alba’s newborns.
We zoomed home and I got Cami ready and then we picked up Nani from school. I was taking them to our first adoption for our friends Katie and Steve for their little boy Zeek. This really opened my eyes to opening the dialogue for adoption with our girls. I talk about how we ought to begin explaining their stories to them but when it came down to explaining to two 3 year olds what adoption meant, I was stumped. I kept it light, happy and very simple.
“You know how i grew Alba in my belly? Well I didn’t grow you in my belly, another mama did.”
*confusion*
“Another mama grew you in her belly but I get to be your mama forever now.”
“Alba in your belly?”
*sigh*”she was babe, but remember, where is Alba now?”
“With Jesus! In Heaven! The wayyyy, the truthhh, the life”
So we didn’t get far, but then again, we opened up the dialogue and that’s what I’m holding onto. It definitely brought to attention just how much I should practice before approaching them with this topic again.
1.15.21
Haven’t been writing because I’ve been swamped as a mom. 4 kids is just like 3 but more of the same. I haven’t really noticed much change because I was busy with kids before adding another, I’m just still busy with kids. However I notice that by the end of the weekdays, when Kyle has to work and I’m alone with everyone that my patience, stamina, kindness as a mother is worn thin and I am capped out sooner. I’m adjusting and i hope not to feel this way.
We went to therapy for the first time in about a month due to the Holidays. I was/am in rough shape emotionally. I’m sleep deprived, I’m stressed as a mama, I’m grieving. I was able to pour into my therapist just how much I’m struggling with the idea that I have cheated grief. I picture a room full of grieving mothers sitting in a big auditorium, waiting for our names to be called which will get us out of this grieving room and back into the world healed. These moms are boo’ing me as Ive only just entered this auditorium of grief yet my name has been called to exit it so quickly. I’m walking out of the room and I’m hearing statements like “she’ll be back, there is no way she can last out there having only been in this room of grief for how long.” “She’s cheating! Ive been in this room for years, how can she get out in 4 months!?!” “She isn’t even actually healed, how can her name be called?”
^^^those voices aren’t wrong. I do feel like this has completely rushed me out of my rough grief season and into this weird bizarre season of grief and joy. I’m not sure how to function in this new season of life after a season I had just experienced in the last. I find myself banging on the doors of the auditorium room of grief and agreeing with these other voices that I shouldn’t have come out so soon but when they open the doors to let me back in…...I retreat and acknowledge that I didn’t mean what i said. I’m so happy to be out of that season of deep grief but i did leave it too soon. I know that. But because I am so strong, i wasn’t lead out of that room into something easier, but actually something so much harder. Those voices don’t understand that I didn’t cheat but instead am living through something only the strongest could bare to go though. I have to carry the loss of a child just like them...but I also have to love a new child all the same. Have to/get to, its the same to me in this season and you really only get it if you have gone through it.
———
Last night, I lost my mind. To the point that Kyle teared up and realized how deeply sullen I was. I was capped out mentally and emotionally. The kids were challenging this week, I am still adjusting to 4, I’m still freaking grieving. I yelled to Kyle about my emotions and Cami cried….my heart sank and I reassured her that mama was ok, just tired, kinda like how she gets when she’s tired. I locked it up. The kids went to bed and I yelled to (not at, to clarify) Kyle again about how deeply overwhelmed I was as a mama. I feel as though my identity is barely there. My sole purpose is to be a mom to these kids and a home provider for my husband. I leave the house only for bible studies and while Christ fills my cup, socially, I am deprived. Kyle told me that I am leaving the house tomorrow.
To be fair, I already had breakfast plans with a friend, but he pushed that I ought to just take the entire day to myself. I struggle because I don’t think other moms have to do this….Why do I need these days? But here i am, sitting at a bar of my favorite restaurant and just typing my feelings over tacos and a margarita. Is this the life? I don’t think so..
1/20/2022
I am overwhelmed in this season of life. I have been convicted to stand in firm obedience over my boldness. To be bold in my faith. Bold with my testimony. Bold with meeting new Christians. Bold with involving myself in different ministries. I have such a weird but amazing testimony to boldly stand with. Stand WITH, not stand behind. My testimony is not my identity or my motivation. Christ is both of those things for me. I’m God’s daughter. Jesus is my motivation to share my story because Jesus is so evidently seen in it. Romans 8 speaks to my heart often:
“The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs — heirs of God and coheirs with Christ — if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”
Romans 8:16-17
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”
Romans 8:18
Take away: God’s glory is in every detail of our lives. Let’s allow ourselves to see it and allow God to express His glory through us; joyfully.
Now Philippians:
“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel,”
Philippians 1:12
Take away: my story will bring others to Christ and eternity in Heaven. I’m the character in this story but God is the author. How do I do anything else but humbly bow my head and raise my hands to the creator? Go ahead and use me God! Use my story that you wrote and advance your kingdom! Make my hurt worthwhile for advancing the gospel! For you turn everything into good. Thank you Jesus.
—-I’ve had others’ who are struggling with their own trials, confide in me on a spiritual/ God level like I’ve never experienced before. Are my words on this blog impacting people? I don’t ask but I am being told by those who come to me in their own seasons of crushing. What do I have to offer besides joint relatable pain? God speaks to me, he speaks to me about others and about myself. I’m still not sure how to best console those who are also struggling and looking to me for guidance. I don’t even know how to console myself most days….. I don’t even know what I expect or want from other people when I’m deep in grief. Nothing would be my answer. Nothing helps. So how do I “help” knowing that nothing will? I’m lost.
Imagine my feelings of grief as a pot of boiling water. Always at a simmer (1 out of 10 on your little stovetop dial), never cool and always at a light bubbling. When I begin to think about Alba, that dial turns up a notch or two and the simmering pot begins to bubble and boil more. Lighter grief days I’ll only max out at 5 and keep my boiling pot of grief at a steady boil, bubbling but contained neatly in the pot. But I’m the hard days… the dial has cranked to 8-10 and the water has bubbles up so high that all it has left to do is spill over the top and overflow out of the pot. It’s messy and uncontrollable… and scalding hot. You can quickly turn the dial off but the mess has been made. I’m a wreck those days, taking extra time to recover and bring myself back to a simmer. My grief pours over and what that looks like physically, not in this weird analogy form, is drinking, zoning out on the couch, yelling at my kids, retreating to my bed at 5pm as soon as Kyle is home….writing in this blog at 1am after feeding my rainbow baby…
Book title ideas:
A year of grief
The year after you
If grief and joy made a baby
Grief and joy as friends
Grief: it fucking sucks
Grief: it’s fucking weird
Fuck grief
I predictably managed to let the train fly off the tracks with those titles ^^^. I find it entertaining to think what I’d name the book that this blog would eventually turn into. Am I done writing my feelings after a year? I freaking hope so but again it’s what God plans for my life then, not me.
I actually thought for the first time, a realistic timeline of when I could get pregnant again. That being said, I still need to get my X-ray and see if my uterus can even house a baby anymore…. I’ve been avoiding that. I’ve had the ordered test for a month now, I only need to walk in and do it….but I don’t. I want to sit in this false sense of security a little longer. Fantasize about poetically getting pregnant right around Alba’s first birthday and having the most amazing pregnancy…again… except this time it stays amazing and I have an amazing baby that can stay. I like staying here with those thoughts. I can’t begin to think about what it would look like for me if that fantasy didn’t come true.