Return to Work

Returned to Work

Tuesday marked mine and Heath's first day back to work.  As you know from my previous post I was extremely anxious about returning to work and this so-called normal life I'm supposed to lead.  My time spent at work on Monday made a world of difference to calm my anxieties.

Furthermore, Tuesday started out so well for several reasons but the primary reason was the way my devotional read for that day. 

             March 24: This is a time in your life when you must learn to let go: of loved ones, of possessions, of control.  In order to let go of something that is precious to you, you need to rest in My Presence, where you are complete. Take time to bask in the Light of My Love.  As you relax more and more, your grasping hand gradually opens up, releasing your prized possession into My care.  

                                 You can feel secure, even in the midst of cataclysmic changes, through awareness of My continual Presence.  The One who never leaves you is the same One who never changes: I am the same yesterday, today and forever.  As you release more and more things into My care, remember that I never let go of your hand.  Herein lies your security, which no one and no circumstance can take from you.

 Our devotional has become a beacon in my path to navigating this challenging time in our lives.  This particular devotional spoke directly to me just like different days did while Millie was still here and initially after she passed.  While it feels impossible to just "let go" of my most prized possession, I did feel some comfort in knowing that instead of me taking Millie to daycare for my first day of work she was in the care of our Lord and therefore she was going to be with me the entire day. I was also comforted to be reminded that the Lord knows I am going through "cataclysmic changes" but He has never left my side and that He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  After reading this devotional I felt renewed knowing that my Lord has not let go of my hand, that He was going to guide me through this challenging day and he most certainly did.  

         

I was welcomed back to work by many smiling faces, a beautiful bouquet of purple flowers with a butterfly card, a cup of Starbucks coffee and muffin and my co-workers' offers of assistance.  My day was originally scheduled for 7 evals (which is a lot, extremely mentally challenging and a ton of paperwork) but my first two patients didn't show up.  This allowed me time to chat with my colleagues, catch up on all the gossip I missed, to learn about the new changes and time to just ease into my normal duties.  I ended up treating 4 patients since my last one of the day canceled.  Four patients was a very manageable amount and all of the patients were people in need of my help and it felt good to be able to offer it.  When I left work the sun was shining brightly and the warmth surrounded me to continue to lift my spirit even higher than it already was.  My spirits had continually been lifted throughout the day as I received many calls, texts and facebook messages of encouragement.  My sweet husband even sent me several message to check in on me and make sure I was doing okay!  

 I continue to have to take it one day at a time and sometimes even one moment at a time.  I have been following a beautiful woman on Instagram that lost her first child, her son, last July.  She is extremely inspirational in her journey towards healing and I have found myself relating to her often.  Even though she is a stranger that I do not interact with, it has been so helpful to know that there is at least one other person out there surviving this world as a mother without a baby in her arms.  Today she spoke about the journey of trying to move forward without losing the memories and feeling the challenges of holding on while trying to let go.  Her post allowed me to voice some of my feelings that I hadn't previously known how to put into words.  My response to her was this: I find that this balance of maintaining memory without suffering severe pain is so challenging because of how brief the time with my child actually was.  The love I felt is deeper than anything I have ever imagined but so is the pain.  The time with my baby was so brief that sometimes I feel like I am drowning in pain and it's hard to find the happy memories to grab onto since there are so few.  There seems to be only wisps of happy memories that float around me but the pain of losing her is an anchor that I must drag with me everywhere I go.  With that being said I find that I am still in a place of denial but not in the typical grieving sense.  I am in a place of denying myself the joy of remembering my beautiful baby because it is still so immediately tied to the excruciating pain of losing her.  I am better able to navigate my days by keeping Millie in a place of my mind where I can sense that she is there but doesn't become a full thought for fear that the excruciating pain of missing her will railroad my ability to focus on the happy thoughts.  While it is very challenging to be alone with my thoughts of Millie, I find that talking out loud about her with others is much easier to manage.  I came across this quote and feel that it hits the nail on the head, 

 Just know that if you say something that makes me cry then you probably said the right thing.  If I am crying because I am stuck in my own thoughts then I probably need help coming to the surface because the anchor of pain is pulling me too far down.

.love.

  

Encouragement

Encouragement

 

 

I just wanted to send out a quick thank you to everyone that has reached out to me after my post yesterday.  Your words of encouragement have really helped to lift my spirits. 

 

Heath was able to comfort me last night during a major melt down and helped guide me towards our faith in God.

 

Thanks to the comfort and encouragement from friends, family and co-workers I was able to face going into work today for about 1 hour to do chart reviews and check emails.  It was good to see my colleagues and to be able to feel comfortable in the clinic.  Spending some time there today really helped to ease the anxieties I was fearing for my first day back to work.

 

This afternoon I was able to complete a 4 mile run (with a few brief walks) on the trail behind the house.  This is the trail I ran up until I was 6 months pregnant with Millie.  This was where I would daydream about our future and be amazed at how my body was able to carry us both so skillfully.  Today on my run I was able to talk to Millie and refocus my energy towards talking to God as well.  It felt so great to challenge my body and feel it try to push me through my weaknesses.

 

Then for dinner, Heath grilled us some delicious salmon on a cedar plank while I was out running and we enjoyed this with some organic steamed broccoli.  It felt so great to nourish my body with such a healthy meal. 

 

Now we are hanging out with Coalie cuddling her as she recovers from her spading surgery today.  She is really out of sorts which is breaking our hearts but we have the chance to "parent" her which feels good.

 

So thank you everyone for continuing to reach out and provide support when it is very much needed.  It has been so appreciated and has really helped me feel more confident about handling my return to work tomorrow!  Love to you all...xoxo



Loss of Identity

Loss of Identity

As more time passes I am finding it much harder to cope with the loss of Millie.  Initially I was so comforted by the fact that she left this earthly world to be in heaven where she would never suffer at all.  We received a book titled My Journey to Heaven by Marvin Besteman from my dad's cousin which was extremely comforting.  This book helped me to see a glimpse into heaven where I know my baby is so happy and being cared for so lovingly.  But for some reason as more time passes I am having a harder time finding that place of comfort I was in initially.  Where I once trusted in God's plan, I am now finding myself more angry at Him.  I am beginning to feel more self-pity and trying desperately to find a way out of it before the pity digs it's claws into my soul.  I think this self-pity is mostly compounded by the fact that we've also experienced an extreme loss of identity.  We no longer know how to identify as parents, as a mom and a dad, when we don't have a baby to care for. 

We spent months during pregnancy getting ready for a baby but didn't feel like parents or grasp the reality of parenthood until we learned that Millie was sick.  We were suddenly catapulted into the world of parenthood during the third trimester of pregnancy, having to make very serious decisions and completely alter our lives for the safety and health of our little girl.  We knew our journey into parenthood was not going to take the standard route and we would be forced into an even more stressful style of parenting than new parenthood naturally is.  For almost 12 weeks we did experience the extremes of parenthood.  We loved extremely, we cared extremely, we held on extremely, we trusted in God extremely and we made extreme decisions.  However, never did we prepare to have the identity of 'Mother' and 'Father' ripped away from us.  While we know the title of 'Mother' and 'Father' has not been taken from us, the rolls associated with those titles certainly have been ripped away.

We were preparing to HAVE a baby.  We bought and received all the standard and fun baby stuff. I read tons of books and blogs. We painted and furnished a nursery.  We interviewed a pediatrician and toured their facility.  We studied how to have a natural delivery. We went to a car seat safety check.  I taught my body to produce milk. But most of these things were for naught because we never (or only briefly) got to use or experience them.  It has been very painful to adjust to this reality.  We had to remove the car seats from our vehicles and put the stroller in the basement.  We had to call and cancel scheduled doctor's appointments for Millie.  I'm giving away food that will expire and plan to donate my frozen, stored milk to a milk bank.  We are going back to work 1 month earlier than originally planned for our maternity/paternity leave.  It has become awkward to be on maternity/paternity leave without a baby.  We desperately needed this time to mourn and learn how to face our new reality but I don't think I will ever really know how to exist in this state of 'motherhood without a baby'.

Our loss of identity and new reality means that instead of learning the routines of a baby and suffering through sleep deprivation we get to go about our regular old lifestyles without complication.  Instead of being rooted to our home to care for our infant, we got to go take a week-long trip to Savannah.  While this trip was really enjoyable it was not restorative.  It still hurt like hell because every new thing we did reminded me that we shouldn't even be able to take this trip.  I felt guilty walking around and smiling in pictures when my reality is that there is deep pain sitting right under the surface.  I felt lonely walking around being tourists with all the other tourists yet no one understood the painful experience we just went through.  On the outside we look like a regular, happy couple in town to celebrate a special occasion but on the inside my mind is screaming 'WE JUST LOST OUR BABY GIRL!'  I couldn't stand to step into the tourist shops and see baby clothing.  I can't even look in the direction of baby sections at stores because it hurts way too much to look at the things I can't buy for my baby.  I'm finding it very difficult to navigate the world around new mothers and pregnant women.  Of course I am definitely happy for their joy and don't want to take that away from them but it cuts deep into my soul that they get to have their baby and I don't.  Or the pain of seeing a pregnant woman and yearning desperately to be pregnant again where I could feel Millie moving, feel physically connected to her and know that I was helping to protect her from her illnesses.  

I think my developing self-pity and anger at God stems from two things.  Firstly, the fact that my body is still a cruel reminder that I should be a mother because I am still making milk, my incision is still tenderly healing and my abs are still trying to regain their strength.  Secondly, the fact that I feel like time is causing my memories of Millie to fade.  I worry that when I think of her in my mind I don't see her but remember a picture of her taken with a camera.  Her smell is fading from the things in our home and it's harder to remember her sweet baby scent.  Luckily I can still remember how she felt, especially how it felt to hold her against me.  Because of this I know I cannot hold anyone else's baby because I cannot let holding their baby interrupt my memories of holding Millie.

Overall, I am fearful of returning to work on Tuesday.  It's just another layer of how it doesn't feel right to go about normal old life when our world has been so deeply shattered.  It feels awkward to walk around letting strangers assume I live a regular life when in reality I am trying to figure out how to exist as a mother without a baby to hold.  My emotions feel so 'On' or 'Off' and that I could burst into tears at any unforeseen moment.  I certainly can't walk around with a sign that explains my situation so I have to decide to pull it together quickly or risk explaining our situation and making strangers feel uncomfortable. Or sometimes I feel perfectly fine and then begin to feel guilty for feeling fine. Ultimately, I have relied on having Heath by my side because he can help me cope during these moments of emotional collapse.

Of course those of you that are reading this blog have always known about our situation and are the support that helps me continue to navigate this new existence.  You are the ones that are helping to comfort me as I try to reenter regular life.  All of the cards and calls help to remind us that you care and acknowledge Millie's special presence in our lives.  We have received sweet gifts to help remind us of her and to remind me that love will help us survive this.  I am continuing to read our devotional book and another book gifted to me by a friend titled I Will Carry You by Angie Smith to restore my faith in God's plan.  Furthermore, I am seeking out support groups and resources to help us connect with others that have been through this extreme life event.  Overall, it helps to put a voice to the feelings and thoughts I have been experiencing lately so I thank you for listening to me try to explain our experiences.  

Here are some more precious pictures of our family...

I promise my next blog will be of our trip to Savannah because it truly was a really nice experience!

Surviving

Surviving Our Loss of Millie Moo

I just wanted to take a moment to let all of our wonderful family and friends know that Heath and I are surviving.

This has obviously been one of the single most challenging experiences in our entire lives.  There are many, many things that have helped us to cope though and here is a sample of the things we have relied on:

• our daily devotional book that we received as a gift the day Millie was born.  The daily devotionals have specifically paralleled the trials and tribulations we have experienced each day since she was born.  This has helped us tremendously to be able to take each day one day at a time and look to God for support.  While it's easy to feel mad at Him and feel confused by His will we ultimately understand that He has a plan for us and for sweet Millie.  We continue to thank Him for each moment He let us spend with her.
• our understanding of the medical world.  We had originally thought that knowing about Millie's condition in advance meant that the medical world was going to be able to save her from severe outcomes.  After learning that she was so much more sick than expected and beyond the healing capabilities of medical doctors, we realized that learning about her condition in advanced saved us from severe suffering when we learned that her time on Earth would be short.  What I mean is that we didn't spend our days in numerous medical tests, searching for solutions and being unable to accept her fate.  Instead we immediately went into enjoying every single moment gifted to us with her. 
• our knowledge that she is an Angel. At some point early in her short life, Heath and I realized that Millie was an angel placed here on Earth to spread love throughout our family, friends and perfect strangers both near and far.  Never in my life have I experienced so much love as what surrounded this sweet baby girl.  She was the most perfect little baby despite having severe medical complications.  She brought so much peace and love to this world during her short 23 days here and from that Heath and I draw an absolute Peace and Love. 
• she was going to be sick.  Because we knew before her birth that she would be sick, Heath and I grieved her "normal" upbringing long before she was born.  We were always hopeful and praying for her healing but we knew she wasn't going to walk, talk or play like most kids do.  We knew we weren't going to get to take her home right away.  We knew her life would be very medically involved.  So when we learned that she was terminally sick we didn't spend time mourning 'what would have been' because we had already mourned that loss while we were still pregnant.  Again this allowed us to spend our time appreciating her instead of mourning our future losses.
• she is placed next to family.  Heath and I feel absolute comfort in knowing that she is placed next to her great-grandfather and great-grandmother King.  She is in the cemetery at the church where Heath was baptized.  She is minutes from Heath's parents where family can visit her often.  Heath and I have already visited her twice since she was placed on February 23rd.  We are also comforted by the very sweet words that Heath's aunt Jane spoke about Millie at her burial.  The prayers and her location of burial have brought us and will continue to bring us a wonderful sense of peace.
• friends and family that have reached out to us.  So many, many people in our lives have reached out to us in so many generous ways.  From calls and texts and facebook messages to gifts of food, books, windchimes, pictures, jewelry, flowers, etc.  From prayers to cards to time spent together.  People have reached out in whichever way feels right to them and that brings us joy in knowing we are loved and cared for. 
• the pictures, videos and mementos that are Millie Clara.  We have tens of thousands of pictures of little Millie Moo thanks to all of those that loved on her and for her absolute patience with being doted on!  We were lucky enough to have a professional photographer come to the hospital and another come to the house to take the most precious pictures of our sweet baby girl.  These professional pictures were provided to us through the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep foundation and for that we are so very thankful.  It brings such a smile to our faces to see these beautiful pictures.  We also have numerous videos of Millie where we get to relive her little baby movements and cute noises.  And then there are all her little mementos, her clothes and blankets that she used where we can still smell her sweet scent.  These can occasionally make us feel sad but mostly they only make us feel really happy and loved for having spent time with her.
• the unending love of our puppy, Coalie.  This sweet little dog helps us every single day to feel joy.  Coalie snuggles so close that she is practically in our laps.  She spends every moment of every day close to us and helping us  to heal.  We pour all of our love into Coalie and she returns that love to us ten-fold. She senses the loss of Millie in our home and she provides ultimate comfort to us by her awareness of this loss.  She is helping to heal our hearts just by being her. 
• the strength of our marriage.  Heath and I have always made communication a priority in our marriage and this has helped to carry us through the most devastating experiences in our lives.  Every day from the moment we learned we were pregnant we have spent time communicating.  Communicating about our worry over the viability of our pregnancy early on, to the joy in celebrating her during baby showers, to the sadness and mourning when we learned she was sick.  We have prayed together and continue to do so as we navigate this new period in our relationship together.  We are continuing to turn towards each other instead of apart.  While we have so much support around us, we have no greater support than in each other and for that we are grateful. 

There are certainly moments of tremendous pain and even jealousy at times.  Moments where would should be carrying a baby in a car seat with us or pushing a baby in a stroller with us.  Moments where it shouldn't be so easy to go grab a bite to eat because we should be dealing with a new baby's sleep/eat schedule.  Moments where we wonder why other friends got to bring home a healthy baby but we didn't.  Moments where we get mad having to make decisions like how to plan a funeral or what to put on a headstone.  Moments where we shouldn't be able to take a trip because we should have a brand new baby to care for.  But we quickly recognize that we can't dwell in these sadnesses and we can't stop living our lives even though we are without a giant piece of our hearts. 

We love and miss Millie Clara so very much.  We find comfort in continuing to talk about her and celebrate all that she has brought to us.  We appreciate every single person in our lives that has reached out to us and made us feel so wrapped in love. 

To all of you that care about us, please know that we are surviving despite our tremendous loss...