Like becoming a widow, losing a job you love, or countless other heartaches, having a miscarriage grants you instant admission into a secret club. It is a club, of course, that no one wants to join and it’s one with a lifetime membership. I never expected to be in it. (Letting His Hands Mend My Heart). I was already in the club of secondary infertility. A strange place to be when I had two kids more than seven years apart and another through fertility treatments. I had dreams of four kids, homemade casseroles, and being barefooted all day long. We went through …
When Thanksgiving Isn’t Happy
Happy won’t describe everyone’s Thanksgiving this year. Empty chairs at the table and broken hearts and lives will be the reality for many. Life isn’t always as festive as a Thanksgiving Day Parade with family, fun and floats. Especially when you’re head-long in the middle of a painful place. Perhaps this year you’ve lost a loved one. Maybe your mom, your dad, your spouse or even your child. Perhaps you’ve just received some sort of life-altering, heart-breaking news that has rocked your world and left you completely confused. Maybe you’ve gone through a divorce, lost your job, …
5 Ways to Support the Grieving
October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Men and women all over the world light candles at 7 PM in memory of the babies they have lost to miscarriage, still birth, or infant death. In light of this special day’s approach next week, I wanted to share with you five ways to encourage someone who is grieving. Because my husband and I have lost four babies to miscarriage, people often come to me after a friend loses a baby and ask, “How can I help?” They want to do something, but don’t know what would be most helpful. …
mourning your maternity leave {how to go back to work after baby}
I zip him up in his footed pajamas, the one that has the little smiling dinosaurs all on it. The house is quiet, not yet filled with our girls’ bedtime stories told by my husband. I hold my baby close to my chest in the silence of the dusk, soaking in his infancy. This was the moment I had been yearning for since I said goodbye to him nearly eight hours earlier. No one can really prepare a mother for the day she goes back to work. For weeks, the day had been stuffed in the back of my mind. …
Loss of a Baby
For the waves of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me; the cords of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, yes, I cried to my God; and from His temple He heard my voice, and my cry for help came into His ears. 2 Samuel 22:2-7 Decaying oak leaves permeated the air as I sat alone hugging my knees close to my chest. A crisp, fall breeze combed through my hair as if trying to untangle my raveled thoughts. A year of bitter trials left its …
Forbidden Grief
My children, husband and I were eager to share our lives with another brother or sister during my third pregnancy. Then without warning, our eagerness turned to devastation. Our twenty-week sonogram showed that my unborn son had Trisomy 18. We were told by all the professionals that the best thing we could do would be to terminate our pregnancy. That is when the pressure to abort began. The doctor visits and phone calls to my home were constantly persuading me to end my pregnancy. Well meaning family members also assured me to listen to the doctors. The pressure was …