God's little blessings...

I feel like it's been forever since I've written a blog post, I have so much to say I almost do not know where to start to fit it all in in a smooth way; so if this post is a bit scattered (lol) that would be why.

April 25th, Nathan and I went to the perinatal center to find out if we were going to have another sweet little girl, or our first son.  I had so much anxiety about it!  On one hand I have been longing for a boy for the last seven years and my desire for that little guy has not subsided one bit, however; on the other I am so unbelievably scared to have a boy!  I've never had a brother so...having a little boy around would be foreign to me, and a bit scary!  I have thought every baby I have had so far was going to be a boy, so I'm not great at guessing, but I was convinced that this one had to be!  All my pregnancies were different in their own way, but this one had one thing that I knew I never experienced before, an aversion to meat!  Mostly beef!  The smell of it, thought of it made my stomach churn!  I also took the gender prediction test that you pay $44.00 for at the drug store and it said BOY, so I was COMPLETELY convinced that this time we were having a boy!  Imagine my surprise when we found out that we were in fact having another baby GIRL!

Of course I did cry for a minute when I found out, I tried my best to hold it together until we left the appointment but when my midwife came in and started asking me questions I just lost it completely!  So many things were going through my head!  Since before Nathan and I were married I felt that God gave me a name for a boy; I have had periodic dreams of that little boy over the last 7 years and have held him and talked to him from the time he was a newborn till he was five years old!  I felt like God has been trying to tell me all these years that we are supposed to have a boy!  I also had told Nathan I thought this was going to be our last child.  I am over 30 now and I'm tired, I do not like pregnancy one bit and each time I do it it has gotten harder than the last.  Does this mean I didn't really hear God?  Does this mean we are supposed to have more children?  Maybe I just clung onto something that wasn't really from God and said it was??  What was going on??!!  My crying and disappointment wasn't because I didn't want another beautiful girl but it was because I thought I knew what God had in store for me and I was wrong!  I spent the remainder of the next few hours doubting my ability to hear the Lord, and doubting my understanding of what he wanted for me in my life.  Then after all the questioning and sobbing, Nathan says to me, "If you never had those dreams we would not have 6 beautiful daughters!  If you never had those dreams, we would have stopped after 2 children!  If we had the boy after the first or second child we would not have anymore than that.  If God didn't give us this desire for another child that we do not have yet, then baby #6 would be our last, but we can have another!"  His words were so true!

I was then reminded of something I had read in one of Beth Moore's books.  She said that she wanted a boy so badly but ended up with a few girls.  She realized that God had given her an amazing task of raising Godly women!  Made me feel a bit intimidated but I think I'm up for the task!

So once I got myself together and was able to take some time to change my mindset that it was now a girl instead of a boy, it was time to find a name!  Again, another thing that makes me anxious!  I feel like we've already exhausted all the names that we've liked so finding another girl name that held up to our standards was going to be a task!  We didn't want something that started with a letter we already had so A, S, E, T, J, were out.  It had to have a good meaning and also be fairly rare, nothing you hear ALL the time.  So after much searching and rummaging through my over used baby name book, we found a name.

     "Vaerity Cossette"  which means "Truthful and Victorious!"

So needless to say I am extremely excited to meet our little girl!  I'm at 24 weeks right now and the days cannot go by fast enough!

So becoming a family of 8 means we have to increase the size of our van.  We no longer will be able to take the entire family together somewhere.  We currently have a 7 passenger van and will now need to upgrade to a 12 passenger!  The downfall we JUST paid off our van so not having a van payment has been wonderful!!  We've also been on the search for another house.  We currently are in the same home that we purchased when we first got married and have been out of room for some time now.  We started looking for homes back in October of 2012 and did not have the best of luck.  We found a white house we loved, put in an offer and it was accepted.  Thirty minutes later they accepted another offer from someone else!  So we went on with the search!  We found a great house that we loved even more than the last one and put in an offer.  The house was a short-sale and so it was possible it would take a while!  So we waited, and waited, and waited....we received a few updates on the house but never good news, then after a 5 month wait we were told that it probably wasn't going to happen, the bank wasn't being cooperative and we need to move on.  So we looked at another home.  It was a forclosure but a great price, we put in an offer and it wasn't accepted.  At that point I was becoming further along in my pregnancy, so we decided that we were going to wait till next year to "look" for a home, however if something came our way that was EXACTLY what we wanted and nothing less we would go look.  Nothing did.

This week we got word that after waiting 7.5 month on the short-sale the bank has finally promised that they will approve and close on the house within 45 day!

This was nothing less than a miracle!  I was excited but kinda numb about it.  Nathan and I went back and forth about if it's the right decision to go ahead with it, while we thought it was perfect for our family we did become content with not moving this year!  I don't want a larger home JUST because it would be more comfortable, or just because we want it, I want it to be God's plan for us!  So after lots of praying we decided to go ahead and resubmit our offer, and if it is God's will things will go smoothly and work out well...if it is not it will fall apart and either one will be fine with us.  So we will be praying and would love others to pray for us through this as well!

In the meantime, we found out the news about the house while we were on vacation.  We had planned to go on vacation with Nathan's family this year but because of our time constraint with the pregnancy and not being able to travel after the second week in July we had to go ahead and go ourselves before then.  The only thing available was Massanutten, which turned out to be a lot of fun with the girls!  We visited the water park, got to ride ponies, went fishing and just had fun together as a family.  I'm so thankful that we are able to give our children fun family memories like this!  I hope they will cherish them forever!!

It's so dark.....

So this may be a bit of a "dark" post for some, others may relate and hopefully actually get something from it.  I've realized the last few weeks that there are so many people around me, myself included, who have been living life in the darkness without anyone else knowing.

Last year I experienced some of the darkest days of my life.  Aside from the many devastating circumstances surrounding those days, I experienced the most terrifying, life changing experience called postpartum depression.  After four successful births without having to experience this, my fifth birth- I was not so fortunate.  Many hear postpartum and just think it's a new mom sitting in her bed crying her eyes out over nothing, but what they do not get is it's not nothing!  Postpartum is one of the most traumatic experiences I've ever gone through.

I will try my best to explain what this feeling is like but unless you have actually gone through it yourself it may not be easy to really grasp.  Let me give you a picture of a typical day in the life of postpartum:  You go to bed the night before only to wake after noon the next day.  When you wake up, you are still so tired and your body feels weak.  Your head feels like it weights 50lbs and the effort it will take to get it off that pillow is not worth it!  You see the sun peaking through the slats on the mini blind and the brightness makes your eyes sting and your body crave pure darkness.  You hear your children outside your closed bedroom door playing and occasionally trying to get in your locked door but you don't want them to see you like this, they will never understand- so you distance yourself from them to protect them.  Your baby cries to be nursed as your husband brings her to you, you latch her on and lay next to her as she eats and that is the only moment all day long you feel like there is any ounce of life in you, and any reason for your being.  Once she is finished your husband takes her away and you go back to your bed, under the covers and cannot stop crying because the darkness is too much but yet so is the light!  Crazy thoughts enter your head about how your children would be better off without you- and they are not thoughts of pity on yourself because you are incapable of having pity on yourself- you are your biggest critic!  No matter how hard you try to get out of that room and go back to the person you used to be, there is no going back, you are stuck in this seemingly never-ending cycle of guilt, regret for not being able to be the mother that you want to be!  When you try to get out of that room and walk out into the living room the light is shocking.  You feel exposed, unable to move, and unable to function- you crave the darkness again!  Ultimately you feel there is no way out!  No way out of this darkened life, this cave you are living in, and you are doing nothing for anyone but making life harder.

Yes that was my entire 2012!  On top of this I had many circumstances in my life that were abnormally traumatic and suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, as well as severe anxiety.

I'm sure most are shocked by my post about this because no one knew that about my life last year except my husband.  Even close friends did not know it was that extreme because I kept most of the details to myself.  I became a very closed and personal person last year.  Where I used to be a completely open book and didn't care what anyone thought, I closed myself down and tried to disappear.  I realized after the first few months of going through this that people didn't want to hear how I felt and what I was going through.  People didn't want to hear me tell them that I was losing myself and was thinking about committing myself because I wanted to end it all!  I had friends walk away from me because my life was too negative for them and I couldn't just talk about positive things!  I realized that the more I talked about it to others, the better I felt, but the less friends I had left.  So I stopped.  I tried a counselor but I just felt like I was talking to a wall when I was there.  They just wanted me to talk and never asked me any questions, then when I was done they were like, "ok see you next time."  I wasn't getting help I needed. I wasn't getting the help I was reaching out for. I had no idea what to do except get through one day and into the next.

This is such a controversial topic for so many, especially Christians.  Christians are each others biggest critics.  We like to look at another Christian and say "Oh there is no way they are saved, they have to take depression medication!" or "I thought they were Christians, did you see who she was hanging out with?" oh and how about "I cannot believe they read The Twilight Series, I thought they were Christians!!"  Seriously Christians- did we receive forgiveness because we are all perfect or did we receive forgiveness because God had grace and mercy on how sinful we are!  Does God really look at that book we read or medication and refuse our salvation because we are human and we are not living according to how other Christians think we should live?  NO!  We are told not to live according to how the world wants us to live, so why should we live according to how Christians in the world want us to live?  We need to live according to how the bible tells us to live!  This is the exact reason that people feel that they cannot express what they are going through to others for help because they will be told "you aren't relying on God by having to be on medication, or because you are feeling that way, you are a sinner!"

I took my seven year old out today to panera for lunch.  We sat and talked a bit while we were eating and after a while I heard a woman behind me say, "isn't it such a beautiful day!"  I looked behind me and there was an older lady standing up to leave.  I replied, "it sure is I've missed the sunshine!"  She began talking to me and we discovered we were both Christians and she actually knew my husband's family.  She began to tell me that she has had the worse few weeks of her life.  Her 38 year old son had tried to kill himself by blowing himself away with a gun!  Her husband an a worker on their farm had found him on the property and rushed him to the hospital.  They were all Christians, the husband, the wife, his three kids.  They all began praying for a miracle!!  He ended up surviving and within 2 days he was in the step-down unit!  He did suffer some brain damage but he was alive!  The doctors were completely shocked and asked them "what did you guys do?" they said "we just prayed!"  The sad thing and the thing that stuck out to me the most was that NO ONE KNEW ANYTHING WAS WRONG!  A grown Christian man who probably felt like no one wanted to hear it, was in such a dark place and couldn't see a way out that he felt the best thing was to take his own life.

Since last year I have overcome the depression tremendously.  Since getting pregnant again I did have a slight relapse and fell back into it for a while recently but this time was different.  I'm not sad like I was, I don't cry, I just couldn't get out of my room.  I have good days and bad, more good this week and as the days go on it has gotten better!  I realized that while in a situation like this it is so easy to tell someone "just read your bible," or " just cry out to God" but what we don't realize is that the entire experience people ARE crying out to God but their situation is staying the same.  Why is it staying the same?

James 1:2 "count it all joy my brothers when you face trials of different kind..."  SERIOUSLY!  So in the middle of the darkest days of my life, instead of crying out to God "FIX THIS" or "HELP ME" I should try to find joy?   How in the world do you do that?  Well I can tell you now its not through seeking out friends to lay all your burdens on, at least it wasn't for me.

A few weeks ago while struggling with a milder version of this I really felt like I was finally hearing God after all this time.  I realized that I have been so suffocated by the darkness that I was incapable of finding joy, or light anywhere around me.  There was nothing positive, there was nothing I could hold onto and know I could get to the other side with, the darkness clouded my thinking.  All I needed to do was to stop looking at the darkness, stop trying to figure out how to get out of it and concentrate on worshiping my Maker!  The God who made dark and light, the God who created heaven and earth, and the God who gave me my very breath.  No I'm not talking about reading my bible, or even praying...I'm talking about WORSHIPING!   That is where the Joy is!

The lady at Panera concluded her story with this:  She told me that after her son was stable she drove out to the site where they had found him on the farm.  She said that it was a very dreary cloudy day and the sun was nowhere in sight!  As she sat in her car staring at the place her son had shot himself she felt like God told her to get out of the car and WORSHIP him!  She walked over to the spot he was found and lifted her hands to the Lord; as she did the sun started peaking through the clouds and it got brighter and brighter until it was just so unbelievably bright she couldn't take it anymore and had to go back to her car.  A few minutes later a worker on the farm came over to say hello, she asked him "have you seen the sun come out today?"  He said, "no ma'am the sun has been behind these clouds all day, not even a glimpse!"

This lady could have embraced the darkness of that car and the sorrow of her problems and life that she was living, but she decided to just step out of the car and throw up her hands and she found the light- simple as that!

I decided after my conversation with God a few weeks ago to Worship.  I came out of my room, walked into the lit up living room and turned on a Hillsong DVD.  My body was cringing from the light and ached for the darkness again, but as I began singing and Worshiping the maker of light an darkness, all that faded and it was just me and Him standing together in the light.  No more sorrow, no more pain, no more darkness, just pure light.

Please do not judge your fellow Christians to be sinners just because they struggle with something that they need help getting out of, and please do not walk away from someone who does not have the strength to see light in the darkness.  Just because we are Christians does not mean that we cannot walk through a dark tunnel and get lost- be the voice at the other end helping them find the light again!  I get it can be draining, I've been on both sides of the story, but the level of involvement does not have to be extreme. Lending an ear to listen, a text that you are thinking of them, a email that you have prayed for them today!  You do not have to spend hours on the phone with that person counseling or reciting bible verses, but do drop them lines of encouragement!  You will never know how much one small message that says, "thinking of you" can mean to someone who feels the world has forgotten all about them.

Baby Cooper #6

So as most of you have just found out, we are expecting baby #6!!  Nathan and I found out in December right after I had my 3rd miscarriage last year.  I wanted to keep it quiet until I knew everything was okay so we decided until I have an ultrasound and see the heart beating no one can know.  It was so hard to keep it quiet that long, every time I am pregnant I want to yell it from the roof tops and celebrate, but I just was a bit hesitant after so many losses last year.

I decided that this time I would go with a midwife instead of an OBGYN.  All the others I had with an epidural and under a doctors care, but this time I wanted something that was a little more fitting to my lifestyle.  I visited a local midwife about a month ago and absolutely loved them!! I had my first actual visit on Tuesday for an ultrasound and she spent at least 2.5 hours with me, just making sure I had all my questions answered, doing the ultra sound, and talking with my family.  It was seriously the best experience with a medical professional I've ever had in my life!  We brought all the girls to the appointment, she was very kind and told me how it doesn't bother her at all and how she has 4 kids herself!

When we went in for the ultrasound I finally told the girls why we were there.  I explained to them that God put another baby in my belly and that we were there to make sure the baby is healthy!  They were ecstatic!!  And were even more excited that we got to see the baby!!  The baby looked healthy, had two feet buds, and two arm buds, and a beating heart!

After seeing this I felt like I could breathe a bit.  I had been on edge for the entire 8.5 weeks expecting that something would happen at any minute.  While we aren't still out of the woods yet I just couldn't keep it to myself anymore.  The baby was alive and well and deserved to be celebrated!!  So I formed a plan to announce the baby.  I've learned over the previous 5 babies that any baby over 2, and our families tend to show concern.  Each pregnancy after 2 they had legitimate concerns that we could financially handle things, or maybe we should get a larger house and while those are legitimate concerns, these things are the easiest for me to trust God for.  God has always allowed us to have enough money to pay all our bills, plus extra, God has always provided clothes for our children, diapers when needed, and food.  God will also provide us with a larger house when its His timing.  So for me those things aren't important because God controls all that anyways, just like he controls how may children we will have.  So in order to get our families past those concerns I've learned that we have to announce the pregnancy in an exciting way!  So this time I decided to send flowers with a balloon to the grandma's at work that said "congratulations"  Then on the card I wrote "Congratulations on grandbaby # 17 (11), Due 9/6/13.  Love Nathan, Toneka, and The Minicoopers.

Overall our response was great!  I think everyone was pretty excited to have another little one on the way!  Especially our girls!

The baby is due on Nathan's birthday!  Which is very exciting!  So we will be spending the next 7 months trying to find a new house, and a 12 passenger van!!    So prayers that God's timing will come soon!!! ;)

Circles of sickness....

It seems like 2013 has been a lot longer than just a mere 14 days!  I seriously feel like I haven't see the sun in weeks, and if I do happen to get out into the sun I may just start to sparkle!! ;)  Life here in the Cooper house has been full of sickness since Thanksgiving.

This year has been the worse for us in the sense of sickness.  Prior to this year it was almost like clockwork.  When the weather changed from Summer to Spring we got sick; after a long early winter and once we hit mid January we ALL get sick, and then of course once we went from cold to warm in the spring...the girls got sick again.  This year has thrown me for a loop!  

We bought a membership to a local pool this summer.  We went swimming for an entire month and at the end of that month- we were sick the rest of the summer- ALL of us!  Everyone has been sick off and on.  One will get sick then all will be well for a week and then someone else will get sick.  We've seemed to hit our peak right now and haven't been able to get a break.  

Right before Thanksgiving I was sick, as well as a few of the girls with colds.  Then a week before Christmas we got the stomach flu!!  My poor husband was a saint!  We were all sick at the same time except for him.  He had the girls laying in a circle in the living room with blankets and pillows and a puke bucket beside their heads.  I was in my bed also with a puke bucket!  One bucket would get full, he would go wash it out and another would get full.  It was continuous for over 14 hours!!  He did nothing but wash out puke buckets!!  He slept for two  days after that !!  lol

We were all well a few days before Christmas (I have no idea how long it lingers though) and seems like we ended up spreading it around a bit on Christmas Eve to family:/.  We also had a visit after the New Year from my Brother in law and his family- again they also go the virus two weeks after we had all been well!!  Of course they could have picked it up anywhere but you never know.  

Then we were hit with strep, and cold viruses that we were told we can't do anything about but wait it out and let the whole family contract and get over.  And then Nathan's back started acting up.  In the last two weeks I've never seen him in as much pain before.  He has been in such severe pain that his medication isn't working, he can't stand up, he is constantly having to alternate between hot and cold compresses and the pain has caused him to get sick to his stomach, and become dizzy.  At first we couldn't understand what was going on with him getting dizzy and sick-we thought maybe it was a virus, and then we finally put together that it was happening every time he was in severe pain.  So-  we are again contemplating surgery and will be calling his pain management doc this afternoon.  

Friday night Sweet-pea came down with a high fever of 103.5.  I gave her a bath- ibuprophen and tylenol every few hours, the normal "get the fever down" routine.  I decided to take her to Kidmed but when we got there they were closed!  I went to another urgent care facility but they didn't take our insurance so I ended up back at home with hopes that we would make it through the night.  She went to bed only to wake up again a few  house later at 103.5 again.  We went through the routine again and this time it went down to 102.5 and within an hour it was back to 103.5.  We called the doc and they seemed to think she was okay; however, after watching her continue to have rapid breathing and congestive cough I was convinced she had pneumonia!  We took her to the ER and that was her diagnosis!  She was a little better today.  Her fever was down, but still there and she was a cranky mess, but she was on the mend.  

Somewhere between Saturday and Sunday Hobble-Bobble, Little Bear, Goobies and Pumpkin have all come down with some type of respiratory problem that has needed a nebulizer.  When we tried using it, it wouldn't work!!  We pulled out our back up and it still wasn't working!!  So we called all over town trying to get new parts for it and NO ONE had parts that were accessible this weekend for them!  Thank God that they weren't horribly severe!!  Until tonight!!

Pumpkin got up at 3am gasping for air.  She had severe croup and her chest was tight and heavy and hurt.  We have dealt with her and croup since she was a baby and until the last two times she has had it, it hasn't been this bad.  Tonight was the worse.  I put her coat on her and stuck her head in the freezer like the doctors suggest.  She sat there for a while and was still wheezing desperately!!  Nathan and I started to make plans for who should take her to the ER sense our nebulizer wasn't working, and there was no way we could let it go.  After an hour of giving her water and sitting her in the freezer, I decided to pray over the nebulizer.  I plugged it in and it WORKED!!  Now after three treatments she is still not sounding very good.  I gave her some benadryl in hopes that it will help, but if not we may end up at the ER or Doctors office sometime again today anyways.      

In the midst of all of this, I started my classes on Saturday!  It has taken everything I have to not drop my classes this semester!  All I want to do after they go to bed, is going to bed!!  I just have to keep telling myself - it will be over before you know it!!!  Until then-  I'm going to continue pressing on because it will one day be worth all the sacrifice-  right?  

Oh and just to clairify-  this is not a post of me complaining, but me just sharing what life is like with you.  In the midst of our worse day-  all of us puking in circles- I would not trade my life for any other!  I have more love than I know what to do with at times!  I am a very blessed person!   

2012 Overview

2012 was probably on the list of Top two hardest years of my life.  However, it is probably also one of the top two years that has changed my life for the better.  I have experienced more loss in the last year than I have in my short 30 years on this earth, but I have also experienced more life lessons this year than any other year as well.

I feel that the Lord has used 2012 to clean out my life, fertilize the soil, and get it ready for all new seeds to start sprouting in 2013.  I'm looking forward to many things this year: new friendships, continuing my college courses, finishing out the school year homeschooling my girls, and waiting on any new blessings that God would want to throw my way.  

Pumpkin will be 7 feb. 5th this year.  I cannot believe she is going to be so big already!  In 2012 she learned how to swim, joined the swim team, was a cheerleader for upward, and started the second part of 1st grade.  She is reading well now, and  loves horses, my little pony, video games and spending time with friends.  

Little Bear was 5 this past May (2012).  Little Bear swim lessons this year, she finished out her ballet class in June, and also was a cheerleader for upward this fall.  She started Kindergarten this year and is starting to read now.  She really loves dress up and anything that has to do with fashion!  

Hobble-bobble was 3 this past June, She was too young to do anything with her sisters this year so far as activities, but she loves Veggie Tales, Spiderman, Larry boy, and My little pony.

Sweet-pea was 2 this past August, she loves pinkie-pie pony, and my little pony.

And Goobies was 1 in September.  She is talking a bit now and has, for some reason, decided once she turGooned a year old that she wanted to start taking a passy!  I have NEVER had a child have a passy past a year old so I'm a bit worried about her teeth.  I try my best to hide it but she somehow ends up finding it or one of the other girls gives it to her.  She is very loving and is always hugging and loving on her sisters!  

Nathan and I have been waiting on an answer to a contract we put on a short-sale for the last 90 days.  We have been praying for God's will in the situation.  I would love to have a larger house for  all of us, however I do love our little ranch in the summer time.  With spring coming up and I am about to start planning for our garden, part of me doesn't want to leave our house, BUT if God did give this house to us I would not be opposed either.  

The shop down town moved locations this past fall as well.  Nathan and his dad moved the shop into the James Center which was just a block away from the old location.  It is so beautiful down there and we are so excited to see how God blesses the shop this year in the new location. 

Nathan's back is still about the same.  He was doing really well when we went to the doc back in August.  They told him to not schedule the surgery and put it off longer, however, the minute the cold weather hit he has been in severe pain again.  Of course some days are better than others, but we are looking forward to the warmer weather so that his pain will decrease.  

I start my classes back on the 14th this month.  I have changed my program to Religion with a Minor in Christian Counseling.  I take my first Counseling class this semester so I am very excited about that.

We are all looking forward to see what 2013 holds for our family and praying that whatever it holds that God will be able to use us all for His Glory.  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

    

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.