Category: Loss

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To love is to be vulnerable

I have a new found respect and honor for my mum. My mum & I have always had a good relationship. We went through the normal teenage years were we argued and I felt she didn’t understand me. Through my early twenties as I was discovering who I was I was convinced that I was nothing like my mum. I never doubted that she loved me and that would do anything for me but I just thought we were nothing alike. From being a little girl I was full of emotions and my mum is very logical and straight forward. With the best intentions, she would always show me the good in a situation and help me to see that things weren’t as bad as I thought.

People would always tell me how much like my mum I was and I always thought it was just that they didn’t know me that well. Over the last year though I have discovered much like her I am and what a privilege and blessing it has been to be raised by such an incredible mother.
When my siblings and I were young my mum stayed at home with us while my dad was a Pastor in inner city London. She continually made sacrifices for us, she sacrificed her time, her money and her freedom. She raised us to be strong Christian people with good character and she loved us all deeply. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that there has never been a time in my life that I didn’t know she loved me, even when we disagree. But loving people that deeply comes with a cost and that cost is the inevitable pain you will undoubtedly feel.
My mum once told me that when she looked at me the first time she realized that if anything ever happened to me it would break her. There is an unexplainable bond between a mother and a child and that bond has the power to break your heart into a million pieces.

I have observed my mum during the difficult times in my life and I have seen how much she wants to protect me from pain and heartache and how much it pains her when she can’t.

Most recently I looked into her eyes as my heart broke at the loss my own children and saw the pain she felt for me. Her own child was in unexplainable pain and there was nothing she could do about it. She could protect me from it or fix it. All she could do was hold my hand through it and trust me to Jesus.
Now one question I have pondered a lot recently is at what point do you become a mother?  Is at the moment that you hold your child for the first time, is it when you see them on the ultrasound screen, or when you see those two pinks lines on a pregnancy test. And the conclusion I have come to is that you are a mother from the moment God begins knitting them together in your womb. As he knits them together that bond begins and I believe that it is never broken not matter how long you got to keep them. Now I only got to keep my babies for 10 weeks and in the scheme of life that seems like such a small an insignificant amount of time but even so, they are my children and I am their mother.

I saw a quote recently that said “A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. But…there is no word for a parent who loses a child, that’s how awful the loss is!” Neugeboren.

Honestly, I believe there is no word because you are still a parent, you are just a parent without a child. And that is a kind of pain and loss is like no other. Although the overwhelming grief is starting to ease there still feels like there is part of me missing and there is. I am missing my children and a part of my heart will always be with them.
My husband and I decided to name our twins. We wanted to acknowledgeEzekiel and Phoebe their lives and to recognize that they were our children if only for a short time. We named them Ezekiel James and Phoebe Joy and although I don’t know for sure that they were a boy & girl that’s just what my heart told me and I feel like God has confirmed to me on numerous occasions. I have a necklace with their initials on that I wear every day and I had a picture created with their names on it. When we have future children we always tell them about their older brother and sister.

At first, after we lost the twins I said that I never wanted to get pregnant again because the pain & grief was so overwhelming that I couldn’t imagine risking having to go through that again. But as time has passed I have realized that whether we adopt or more biological children I am still risking the chance of pain. And unfortunately, until we get to heaven pain in inevitable especially if we allow ourselves to love and be loved.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements….. To love is to be vulnerable.” C.S. Lewis

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This is not the end

Have you ever had a moment in your life that you knew would change you forever? Maybe the day you met your husband or wife, or the day you held your first child. For me, I’ve had a few of these in my life. Most recently the ones that have had the greatest effect on me were the moment I told my husband we had to separate, the day I realized he really was a changed man and that I could see us working it out and the day I found out I was pregnant.

As many of you know we have struggled with infertility for the last few years and after our second round of IUI we found out on December 13, 2012, that I was pregnant. I had waited for that moment for so long and it was finally here, I was going to be a mum. I remember seeing them on that ultrasound screen and my heart was filled with so much joy. From the moment that I saw them, I knew I was changed forever. Little did I know what that meant until last week. Everything had been progressing well. My husband and I had been looking at nursery furniture and strollers and talking about names.

On January 21st I went to see my OB for my 10 wk checkup. The next few minutes will forever be etched in my memory. My Dr said she couldn’t find the heartbeat of one of the babies and in that moment I felt like I had been hit by a tidal wave and my heart just broke. She told me not to worry yet and that she was going to send me for a “formal”, which basically meant that she sent me to an office with a better ultrasound machine. As we drove there I kept trying to be hopeful but I knew in my heart that our baby was gone. The ultrasound tech confirmed it within a couple of minutes. Once again I felt this overwhelming sense of grief and loss, but I knew I had to stay strong and keep going for the other baby. Over the next few days, wept at the loss of our baby, wondering what had happened. I felt like I had been robbed of the joy that this pregnancy was supposed to be. I waited so long for this and now it was always going to have this under current of loss & grief. But even with all those emotions I decided to hold on to hope and be thankful that we still had the other baby.

I was scheduled to see my doctor again a couple of weeks later but I knew I would go crazy waiting till then. I talked to our baby everyday and we prayed for her every night but I knew I needed to see her on the screen and know she was okay. So I made an appointment for someone to come to the house and do an ultrasound.

He arrived on Saturday at around 2:15 pm, set up his equipment and started the ultrasound. Looking back I should have known something was wrong as soon as I saw her on the screen. She wasn’t moving, and there was no visible heartbeat but at the time I guess I didn’t even consider that something would be wrong. And then it happened, the moment that my life changed again and I will never be the same. The ultrasound tech looked at me with sadness in his eyes and said “Baby didn’t make it”. I remember thinking at first that he meant the first twin that we had lost and then I had this sinking realization that he was talking about the other one. I remember just laying there as he explained the reasons this could have happened and feeling completely numb. Someone had just told me my baby was gone and I couldn’t cry or move or do anything I just lay there.

When he was done I went in the other room and called my mum and that’s when it started to sink in. As I said the words “ we lost the other baby” and the reality of what I was saying hit me like a freight train. Everything we had hoped for and prayed for was gone in a moment.

Have you ever felt a pain so strong you think it might kill right there and then? Or a grief so deep that you thought it would consume you where you stand? That’s how I felt as I called my family & friends to let them know the tragic news. Honestly I wanted it to all end, I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. Nothing felt worth it anymore, I didn’t know how was I going to go on without them.

Thankfully my mum was already planning to fly in the next day. That morning all I wanted was for 1:30pm to arrive and it couldn’t get here fast enough. Somewhere inside of me I felt like if my mum was here I might just have enough strength to make it through, at the least the next few days. As we arrived at the airport I ran to the arrivals area I just wanted to get to her as fast as I could. When I saw her I just collapsed into her arms and the tears came streaming down my face. Then she kissed my head and looked at me like only a mother could, with knowing, loving eyes and a strength that always amazes me and said “This is not the end, your story doesn’t end here.”

Somehow in that moment although the pain wasn’t any less painful and the grief wasn’t any less deep I knew somehow I was going to be okay. It was like she was echoing the words of my Heavenly Father saying “I know you feel like you can’t go on and there is no light at the end of the tunnel but I’m here and this is not the end of your story.”

Not today, probably not tomorrow or next week or maybe even next month but eventually I knew one day I would be okay. I also realized that I had two choices I could stay where I was and let the grief and pain consume me or could decide to put one foot in foot front of the other and start walking forward. Now those steps might be very small at first but at least I would be moving.

When tragic things happen to us we are left with so many unanswered questions. For me the questions were:-

  • Why did this happen?
  • Could we have done something different?
  • Will it happen again?
  • Could I risk facing this pain again?

In most cases the questions will never be answered and the loss combined with the unknown can be so jarring that we almost feel frozen. We think that we can’t possibly move forward.

When pain is so deep and loss so intense we find that there are days when we think that we don’t have strength to get out of bed and to start the day. Even the most simple tasks seem overwhelmingly hard. Those are the days when we need those around us to carry you through. I am thankful every morning to see my husband’s face as he wakes me up with a cup of tea and a kiss and for every little and big thing my mum did while she was here from loads of laundry and trips to Starbucks to allowing me to weep in her arms. I am thankful for text messages, and Facebook posts from friends and family all over the world who are lifting us up in prayer. I am thankful for every person who has brought us a meal or called to check how we are. Some of these things may seem so little and insignificant but each one helps. They are like the tangible hands of Jesus carrying me through the day when I feel like I don’t have the strength.

At first I also thought that if kept living & moving forward then somehow it would be like I was saying that I didn’t miss them or that they weren’t here long enough to have an affect on me. What I have realized though, in even just this short amount of time is that we will never forget the ones we have lost. They are part of us and always will be. I am sure that I will always miss our babies and wish they were here but I want to be a person they would be proud to call their mum and so if only for that I will face the pain and the grief and decide to keep living.

As we allow ourselves to feel the pain and the loss and the acknowledge the fear of the unknown we start to be able to move forward. There are days when my husband and I just weep, we still feel so broken and so lost. But as the fog begins to clear we realize that little by little, we are facing the pain and moving forward, hand in hand, step by step, day by day.

I am forever changed by those two little lives that grew within me for those 10 short weeks. I am their mother and that will never change. Right now my heart is broken but as I give the broken pieces to Jesus and allow him to heal my heart because I know eventually he will put the pieces back together. I will always have a scar and that means I will never be the person I was before but slowly one day at a time I will put one foot in front of the other and I will learn to hope again. Because one thing I am sure of is that my God is always faithful and I can hold onto the fact that my babies are safe in his care and that one day I will see them again.

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Healing in Unexpected Places

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I had the joy of being able to visit Pawleys Island and catch up with friends and family. It was a great week,  we had a wonderful time seeing our friends and getting to spend some quality time with our family. For me one of the greatest joys was getting to spend time with my nephew, he is four months old and is one of the happiest babies I have ever known ( I know I’m probably biased… but still!😉) We would hang out on the rocking chair while my sister did some gardening, or would giggle while we were driving in the car, he would cuddle and fall asleep on me in morning prayers.

My time with him was so precious and I cherished every moment of it. Now for any of you who are aunts, uncles, grandparents etc. you have probably experienced your own special times with your nieces and nephews, but for me this last week was a reminder again of the amazing redemptive and healing power of Jesus.

My husband and I were told a number of years ago that we had a 5% chance of having a baby. When we were first given the news I was devastated. All I had ever wanted was to be a mother and now the likelihood of that was very slim. I was brokenhearted and confused.

Every time a friend would tell me that she was pregnant, I would be torn between excitement for them and my own sadness that I would probably never get that opportunity. I was genuinely excited and happy for them, but the sadness was still there and my old wound reopened – each time forcing me to deal with the mix of emotions once again. The only way I could move on from the sadness and the sense of loss was to spend time with Jesus and be really honest with Him. There would be times I would just sob; I mourned the loss of something I never had.

Last August my sister told me she was pregnant and I went through those same emotions all over again. I was so excited for them but had this deep level of sadness too. For weeks and maybe even months I struggled with being able to fully experience the joy of this new life with my sister.  Thankfully through prayer, honest conversations with Jesus and time I finally was able to let go of the sadness and confusion and started to experience more of the joy of this new life that was entering our family.

One day last October my sister sent me an ultrasound picture of my nephew, as I looked at this picture I was overwhelmed by the love I felt for this little baby that I have never even met. It brought me to tears and this time they were tears of joy. Then on January 26, 2012, my nephew, Finley Sanderson David Culmer, was born and I was filled with joy. As I saw the pictures of this little baby I was brought to tears again; this baby was the newest member of our family and I couldn’t wait to meet him. Just two weeks later we had the opportunity to fly to South Carolina to see him. There was still a little apprehension of how I would feel when the reality of it was in front of me, but when I held him all the apprehension melted away and I was once again overwhelmed with love for this precious little baby.

I can’t tell you how much healing this precious little child has brought to me. I love him so much and miss him every day! Thankfully with today’s technology, we can FaceTime and fly back to see him every few months. 

Although our journey to parenthood is still far from over I know whatever happens the Lord has a greater plan than me. One day we will be parents I know that without a shadow of a doubt! There are still days when this journey is harder than others, but I am so thankful to God for blessing me with the gift of my nephew and for knowing how to heal my heart in the most miraculous and amazing ways!