Thank you.....

So today is 1 week since we lost Baby Joy.  I was completely overwhelmed with the positive response I received from my post about our loss.  I had people I haven't talked to in a long time reaching out to me and comforting me, letting me know that I wasn't alone in what I was experiencing or feeling.  It was because of that and all the prayers I was able to get through last week as gracefully as I did.

I know I probably didn't take it as hard as some, although maybe I took it harder than others, but I was able to see God working in the situation and that gave me hope and the ability to pick up and keep going.  I took about three days to mourn.  It was a lot harder than I thought it would have been before I experienced something like that. Since then, I've had mixed emotions, but for the most part I am doing okay.

The one thing I've experienced (that I was told I would) was the fact that it will never go away.  That baby will always be a part of  my life.  This is so completely true!!  This is probably the hardest aspect of things.  I find myself thinking "at Christmas time I would have been telling everyone that we were expecting"  like we had planned.  I've caught myself thinking about how far apart Jubili and this baby would be.  Thinking about how far along I would have been this week, how big the baby would have been.  I honestly didn't think that I would do those things.  I thought I could mourn, and just pick life back up and go on but I really can't without this baby being in my daily thoughts.

 I never realized what a connection I have to these babies at such an early stage until now.  And what a special gift that God has given us to be able to love a baby so unconditionally and so fully before we have even met them, or even if we don't get to meet them!  It makes me understand the Love that God has for us just a little bit better.

Anyways I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has sent me your prayers, comments, messages, phone calls, texts....your support has not been forgotten or taken lightly.  I've learned that it's in these very moments we know who our true family, and friends are, as well as who our new friends should be!  Thank you, words cannot express the gratitude I have for all of you!

Dealing with our loss........baby Joy

This blog is not about seeking attention or sympathy, I have debated for the last 24 hours if I really wanted to write this or not because it may be one of the most personal things I've shared on here.  I've prayed and prayed about it and I came to the conclusion that God never wastes our pain, and if this post can help one person who needs to hear what I have been through the last three days then I am more than willing to lay all my personal stuff out there no matter what hurtful comments I may get.  I realize most people keep these things to themselves but I believe my life is not a normal life.  I believe that my life belongs to God and that every single thing that I go through he wants to use to help someone else, and he wants to use for his glory.  So as you read this  and maybe comment, please do so gracefully and think before you speak.

The Lord has given me the gift of dreams.  To some that may sound strange but for the last  9 years God has spoke to me with dreams.  I've had dreams of what is coming, dreams about what has happened and why and dreams that just haven't made sense yet but I know are significant.  I had a dream when I was pregnant for my first child that I was having a baby boy.  I saw him born, I held him in my arms I felt his warmth and kissed his head.  I saw his face, and that face has been embedded in my mind ever since.  When I was pregnant with my fourth baby I had another dream about this boy, he was older around 4 years old, he was the youngest and I saw him standing at the front door of our house.  He was mild tempered, sweet, a mamma's boy of course.  His dirty blond hair laid perfectly over the top of his head and he spoke so sweetly.  I've held onto these dreams because before I was pregnant with my first child God gave me a name for a baby boy.  Yet I've had 5 little girls.

Don't get me wrong there have been many times that I've doubted my dreams and thought they were just dreams, but so many times they have been right....I had a dream my sister was pregnant with my niece...she was!    I had a dream a friends husband was being unfaithful...he was and many many more.  Anytime I doubt these dreams, I have ended up regretting it because they come to pass.

So needless to say I have been praying for the baby boy for a long time. I think that if I didn't have these dreams of him, the name, Nathan and I may have not had as many children as we have.  I believe God has given me this hope of a boy in order to open our hearts to so many children.  And maybe I'll never get the boy but even if I don't I know that his reason for giving me that desire is to widen our hearts for more children, because when we first got married we only wanted 2.

Our youngest child Goobies, turned one year old on September 14th this year.  She is now 14mo. old and this is the longest we've gone without having a child after the last one was born.  We went the last year not having any desire to have another child yet because we have so much going on that I actually prayed and asked God to give me at least a year break!  And he has.

Thanksgiving day this year my husband and I spent with family.  We saw my family then went to his parents house.  We had the kids spend the night there so that we could do some black friday shopping for their gifts this year.  While we were out I just got a feeling that I needed to get a pregnancy test so on our stop at Walgreens that is what we bought.  The last month we both have been having baby fever and desiring another child but we have a rule that we do not "TRY" we just let God give us that blessing when it's his time.  So we came home to rest after a few hours and I took the test....it was positive!  I waited a few more days and took a few more tests and they were all positive!!  We were SO excited, but decided not to tell anyone just yet.

 I started having symptoms, even started trying to prepare for when the symptoms really kicked in in a few weeks.  But we didn't prepare for what happened next...

On Tuesday evening, I had a dream that I had lost a child.  Someone had cremated the baby and put its ashes in a baby coffin.  When I got there after getting a call that my child has passed away, I was devastated and crying but also had joy in the midst.  I was devastated because I did not get a chance to see what child it was that passed, but I felt joy like everything was going to be okay.  I took a bag of chocolate and laid it on the ashes and then I woke up.  I thought at first the dream was about Pumpkin and Little Bear because they were having their first sleep over the next day...I thought it was just me being a clingy mother, but I had this achy feeling that something was wrong, but I pushed it aside.  I then started thinking about the pregnancy and realized that some of my previous symptoms had disappeared, but then I realized I still had one of them so I felt okay.

The next day after picking up the girls from their party, I realized I was starting to lose the baby.  I went to the ER and they weren't really much help except to confirm what I already suspected, and then after talking to my OB the next morning I knew what was happening for sure.  I felt like I was just hit by a truck!

I remembered being there for several friends and family when they had lost their children like this, and I remembered thinking "I'm not sure I would be that upset if I lost a child that early, after all it's hard to believe it's real anyways till you get the first ultra sound"  boy was I ever wrong!  I've decided that losing a child this early makes the top 3 list of worse things to happen in life.

  I talked to a few friends, my sister in law who has been through this, she was such a blessing.  She helped me so much and I was able to really deal with the grief and accept it and find peace through it quicker than I though I would.  She encouraged me to tell the girls that they had a sibling in heaven, and to give the baby a name because after all it still was a child.  I quickly picked a girl name because even though I wanted that boy this time, I just felt like it may have been a girl.

I sat down with my oldest two, Pumpkin and Little Bear, and I explained that the reason mommy had been so sad and had to be at the hospital was because God had put a baby in my belly, but the baby stopped growing and passed away.  It is now in heaven with Jesus.  They stopped for a minute and processed all that I said, I saw their sad faces and then all the sudden they both at the same time started smiling and looking at each other and both blurted out "WOW MOM YOU SHOULD BE SO EXCITED!!! YOU HAD A BABY!!!!  LOL  At first I didn't think they understood what I was trying to say to them so I tried saying it again..."no you don't understand...the baby didn't grow, it was so tiny we couldn't hardly see it, and it died, it's in heaven with Jesus!"  and again they both started giggling...."MOM you had a baby!!  What if we have a brother in heaven!!??!!  I'm so excited!!"  lol.  I couldn't help but laugh and cry at the same time!  My sweet girls lifted my spirit so much and really gave me such a different perspective of what was happening.

They were right, I did have a baby and no matter what happened to it, I should be rejoicing that I had another blessing...even if I didn't get to see it.

During the day I tried hanging onto my girls' words but my grief would get the best of me.  I prayed over the dream I had trying to make sense of the whole thing.  I also asked for God to surround me with people who would pray me through this, but yet I didn't want to tell everyone yet.  I started getting messages from so many people telling me they didn't know what I was going through but they were praying for us....one in particular told me that God laid it on her heart that my pain was from the loss of a child.  That message in particular was so uplifting to me because I knew that God was really in this whole thing.

Later that day I realized what my dream had been about.  The cremation was because I was unable to see the baby, and of course I was upset because I didn't know who the baby was.  But the chocolate represented love and celebration, which is why I felt joy while I was pouring the chocolate on top.  I immediately thought about my daughters reaction "mom you should be so excited!! You had a baby!!"

They were right!  One thing God always reminds me during trials is that he never wastes the pain!  I realized that while it is painful, it was a blessing, another reward, and all children deserve to be celebrated.  That's when I decided to change the name I picked.  "baby Joy" seemed much more fitting.

I struggled with posting this because most people do not put this out there for the whole world to see, and I personally DID NOT want to do this, but I felt someone out there needed to hear it!  I realized that I needed to do something to remember "Baby Joy" so I put a life event on my facebook page that says "in memory of baby joy"  but I kept it private.  I've gone back and forth with sharing it or keeping it to myself.  What will people think, will they think that I'm trying to get sympathy, or will they make horrible comments like they did when the Duggar's lost their baby about how my poor body needed a break?  I didn't want any of that! I just want prayer and that's it!  No I'm sorry's, nothing because I know it was God's will...I know he had a purpose!

I believe that this baby's purpose was to give me joy and to show me how to have joy in the midst of one of the worse things a woman can go through.  In her short life, she was able to give my husband and I a renewed excitement of being parents, and me a renewed excitement of motherhood.  And while I did not get to hold that baby in my arms, I loved it the moment I knew it existed, but I know that it is in a better place being held by an even better parent than I could ever be.  Our baby has gone home to wait for us, and I look forward to seeing her one day.

Until then,  I am hanging onto God's promises, I am still going on with life, and still have my moments of grief, but when I think about her I think of Joy and I believe that is God's promise to me...to rekindle my Joy.

I am so thankful for all your prayers, it really has made this whole thing easier to go through.