It's all going to be ok

Our family has had a tough year.

Last summer we decided to move. We moved into our new house in September. We put our old house on the market in October, after we moved. It now May and it has still not sold.

It has been under contract 4 times. The first buyer backed out within a few days, the second after inspection because of water issues in the crawlspace. We took it off the market for a few months and had the water issue fixed. The third time we really thought it was going to sell, but after a contract extension the buyer was not able to get financing. We are now on contract number four and are supposed to close in a little over two weeks.

Through it all we have not been stressed or worried that it will sell or that we will not be able to pay our bills. We don't like that it has taken so long and don't really like having two house payments, but we are confident that God is going to take care of us and that it is all going to be ok. We have been through so much worse with Nathaniel's death. God has been with us through that and he will be with us now with this. We just need to wait. With hope.

A New Book

A new resource for bereaved parents has just come out in the last week. I have been wanting to write about it here for a long time, but wanted to wait until it had been officially published.

It is a collection of essays written by a group of 26 people who have lost a child, some in pregnancy, some in infancy, and some later in life.  It was written to give those that are new in their grief some hope for the future. Each essay was written to describe one aspect of life in the first year after loss.

I found out about this book when there was a call for essays to be submitted in an online group that I am a part of. The editor of the book was specifically asking for essays from fathers. I forwarded the information on to Dave. He decided to write one and out of several hundred entries, his essay was accepted to be part of the book and one of only two from the perspective of a father.

The book is now available. We are eagerly awaiting its arrival at our house, hopefully in the next couple of days.

14 Months

The births of my second and third children are exactly 14 months apart. There are so many similarities between the two days, but also so many drastic differences.

On February 6, 2014 we were unexpectedly sent to the hospital to have a baby. It was a boy. I was very done with the pregnancy and due in three days. I was excited as I walked into the labor and delivery floor. I was by myself. I was coming directly from a doctor's appointment. Abby was with Grandma and so excited to meet her baby brother. Dave was at work and not answering his phone. It was fine. He would eventually answer and come right over. We were ready. We had bags packed and with us at all times.

I was going to be induced. We were going to meet our baby in a few hours and then in a few days bring him home. That is not at all what happened. I was not induced, I had a c section. We met him that day, but he was not alive. He was not coming home. He was gone. In heaven. We left the hospital after shedding so many tears with so many people. Tears of grief.

Three days later, when we could stay no longer, we left Nathaniel at the hospital and went home. We were not the same, but everything looked the same from the outside. We were a family of four, but looked like a family of three.

Fast forward 14 months and we are back at the same hospital, but things are very different. Labor started by itself very quickly so we left our house with Abby and headed to the hospital. Abby was excited to meet baby sister. Grandma met us at the hospital, but they stayed in the waiting room. We didn't know if we were staying. When we got to labor and delivery we were not put in a room right away. We didn't know if we were having a baby that day.

It was determined that we were going to at least stay overnight, but we might be going home without a baby in the morning....at least an outside baby. We might just have to come back another day. I might have to continue with my worrying that there was something wrong and that this baby would die too. My doctors would also continue to worry and test and examine possible problems.

Labor continued, but we still didn't know if I was going to need to have a c section or if the baby was going to be born vaginally.

I continued to labor. I signed paperwork to consent to a c section if needed. I got and epidural. I worried that I would end up with a c section for hours. I worried that my baby would die. Again.

The hours passed. We were having a baby. It was taking a long time. She was probably not coming that day, but would be here by the next day.

At 3:57 am on April 6, 2015 our baby girl was born. Vaginally and alive. She was put on my chest and I cried. Tears of relief and happiness and hope.

I was no longer scared. I was no longer in pain. A huge weight had been lifted from me. I no longer had to count kicks twice a day to make sure she was still alive. She was here. I could see her and was no longer worried.

This baby is coming home. And because of her we are able to share the story of her brother with more people. He will live on. We will continue to tell his story. Now that story includes the story of his little sister, Felicity Hope, who is very much alive and currently sleeping on my lap.

Our family - April 7, 2015

6 Months

Dear Nathaniel,

Happy half birthday! It's hard to believe that it has been six months now since you were born. Six months you have been in heaven while we are left behind here on earth. 

At first six months seemed like an eternity. How could we possibly make it six whole months without you? Somehow we have. Some days it has been really hard. Other days have been easier. But day by day we are figuring out what it means to live life without you here with us. We are trying really hard to spread hope and joy to others that are hurting. I think we are succeeding.

Abby talks about you all the time. She carries your picture around  and tells everyone she meets all about baby brother "Afanel". 

We all miss you so much and wish that we were with you. Someday we will be. It won't seem long to you. For us it will seem like forever.

Mommy

My Words Are Powerful

A lot of people around me around going through some really hard things right now. Apparently I now have the authority to tell people things that would usually be ignored or disregarded. I can tell someone who says that they don't think that they will be able to make it through something terrible that they can do it. If God allowed them to be put in the situation, He will also give them the strength to get through it. Coming from me this actually means something if they know what I have gone through. It is not just something I am telling them to make them feel better. I have lived it.

I am dealing with the loss of Nathaniel day by day with lots of help from God. On my own I could not do this. Everything is so hard now. It is only with God's help that I accomplish anything.

If you are in a situation that you think you can't make it through ask God for strength. He will help you through it.

Hope for the Grieving

In the past month we have heard of two other families that have lost babies. This is just friends of people at church and our church is small.

I don't want to be the resource for families going through this, but that seems to be what God wants us to do so I contact the strangers or tell the friends that they can give out our information. I really don't want to, but I need to give people hope. That is a big reason that I started this blog.

So many people are hopeless when their child dies. Their life is over. It has no meaning. That is not us. We don't feel that way at all. If anything the loss of Nathaniel has given our lives deeper meaning and passion to help people that wasn't there before.

We can make it through this. It's terrible and it hurts, but God is good and he is with us. He will help us through this if we let him.

The Difference is Hope

Romans 5:2-5

The Message (MSG)

5 1-2 By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

3-5 There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

The other day I went for a long bike ride by myself. When I am out in nature alone I often talk to God and sometimes He speaks to me. On this day I was complaining about my life and how unfair it was. I sensed Him telling me two things. I feel like I need to share them.

1 - God is still good. 

For some reason we think that our lives should be easy and good. All the time. I don't know why we have this idea. It's not helpful and it's not true. The Bible specifically tells us that we will have troubles in life. We have no guarantee of good times in life. We are actually told that we will have troubles, but that we have Jesus to help us through them. (John 16:33)

I know that it is so much easier to get through the hard times by thinking this way. My baby died. I am sad and wish it didn't happen, but I am not questioning God and why He would do this to me. I am looking for what he wants me to learn and how I am going to help other people through the terrible circumstances that I am in. In my grief, I still have hope and I want to share that hope with others. 

2 - Salvation is enough.

Jesus died for us. That is enough. Everything else is extra. No matter what else happens to us in life, if we believe in Jesus we will get to live with him in heaven when we die. 

Romans 5:3 was in my head when I woke up this morning. I like the version I found from The Message that's at the beginning of this post. I want to be in "the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting praise".

We Are Unusual

I know that how we have dealt with the loss of Nathaniel is not normal. It hasn't been normal from the beginning. We noticed this at the hospital. Everyone there noticed it too and quite a few of our doctors and nurses commented on it. We were sad, obviously. Our son had died, but we had hope and chose to see the little good things in the midst of our terrible circumstances.

God is always good. He was with us and we were going to be ok. We felt that God was going to use us and Nathaniel to tell people about Him. It was and is exciting and terrifying at the same time.

We invited everyone to the memorial service: nurses, doctors, friends, coworkers, family. When we were meeting with the funeral home they were surprised that we were going to even have a service. I think they didn't expect anyone to show up for the service of a baby that no one had ever met. But they did. We knew they would.

About 125 people showed up. Dave and I didn't even have a chance to talk to them all before the service started. The funeral home kept having to get more chairs to put in the chapel and when that was full they opened up an overflow area next to it.

So many people showed up to support us and they all heard that God loves them and that they can some day see Nathaniel in heaven.

Last weekend Dave and I went to the service of another little boy who died of SIDS at about three months old. He was born about two weeks before Nathaniel. His mom works with Dave and had come to the service for Nathaniel. Their service was so different from ours. It was a Catholic mass. It didn't seem terribly hope filled to me. And to me the biggest difference, there were probably only 30 people there, at least half of which were family.

Here was another boy who lived and died too soon. People had been able to meet him and know him, but they didn't come to the service to support the family. I had only met the mom once, at Nathaniel's service. I didn't remember her, but when Dave told me that her son had died there was no question about going to the service. We were going. We were going to support them and we will remember them in a month or two when all the cards stop and it feels like everyone has forgotten.

We didn't know him, but we will not forget him.