Waiting in the Hallway

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The foster license process was a whirlwind, and then suddenly, the licensing rep walked through our house in May, and it was complete, we were licensed.

The license completion felt like the end of a long race.  We had the pep talks along the way, we had the moments of mind over body to sit through class after class.  We set down our privacy, opened up our lives, our family histories, our personal stories to the State.

As May ended without a call, I thought perhaps June would be the month we got a call.  Then, June stretched out in front of us, full of lazy days and crazy camp schedules.  Birthday parties and friends filled our days, and the phone didn't ring.

Now, we sit at the beginning of July.  Thoughts are turning to the school year, school supply lists and the final plans for summer.  A vacation week is arranged, and in the back of my mind lingers the thought, "Do we need more space in the car?  Or will the phone stay silent?"

On the one hand, the empty spots in our home feel like a happy ending.  The reality that a child doesn't need that space because they're home and whole is a good thing.  That a parent and child haven't had to be separated is good. 

But I worry about the one who is suffering with no one to speak up.  I worry about the child stuck in a dangerous place, isolated from help.  Every mass, I pray for those children.  "God, send them an intercessor.  Help them find help.  St Michael, guard these precious little ones." 

Every week, I cry a little and pray there isn't a preschooler hiding under her bed somewhere without us to keep her safe.  I pray for the baby, neglected and isolated, losing contact with the world around her.  "Mother Mary, wrap them in your mantle."

On Pentecost, "Holy Spirit, give those who see child abuse and neglect the courage to stand up for those children."

On Father's Day, "Heavenly Father, help us to go where you lead to protect Your children."

So we wait, and we pray, and we entrust all those children in need to God, recognizing all the time they were His to start with.

A Phantom Due Date

May was a slow and steady progression in denial.  In carrying a weight around my shoulders of every should have been. 

As the days slowly passed on the calendar, the smallest offense was met with fiercest scrutiny.  Why couldn't everyone around me see the torture we were living in?  How could they not feel the crushing oppression?  How could they feel joy in times such as these?

I should have been pregnant, full term.  I should have been in the doctor's office checking that the baby's small head was positioned for birth.  I should have been up at night with frequent bathroom trips and heartburn.  I should have been washing baby clothes, holding them to me as I smelled the forgotten fragrance of newborn clothing. 

Forgotten, but always longed for. 

Instead, I faced down mornings of unwanted ease.  No bag is packed, no special load of laundry necessary. 

The baby isn't coming.  The baby died long ago.  And while the transition of Fall to Winter to Spring feels like it should have made this long ago loss somehow less weighty, the full weight falls on my shoulders as I scrape my way ever closer to the day that should have been.

The busyness of school ending for the year dulls the edge of the pain for a while.  There are too many places to be, too many ways I need to be present and celebrating the girls I do have to dwell on what I do not.

But then, the school year ends and it is the final week of May.  The May 30th due date looms large above me.  Each morning, I feel an internal gong sounding an alarm.  Pushing me, propelling me to a sense of urgency, of something forgotten. 

When I remember again, the knot of dread in my chest comes out as angry exclamations at everyone in firing range.  No dish is properly placed, no chore promptly completed to the satisfaction of my raw, angry grief. 

Pictures of babies begin to appear in my Facebook feed.  Babies born when my baby should have been. 

I throw myself into workouts, into busyness.  I carefully take the supplements and medicines to support balanced hormones.  Every attempt to keep the full weight of the grief off me. 

It's a weighted ball I throw into the air.  Gravity returns it to me time and again.  Until, finally, it is May 30th.

Texts come in from friends, prayers rolling over the waves of sadness.  Then, it is all grace.  It is the first day of lightness.  I have labored through my loss and come out on the other side.

Not to forget or never feel the grief again, but feeling birthed onto the other side of it.  It isn't a present tense loss anymore.  I have crossed over into past tense.  Finally released from the pregnancy countdowns and babies born where mine should have been.

Hard days will follow, but the crisis has passed.  The final hurdle in completing this segment of the grief journey.  The pregnancy is complete in all timelines.  Now, the anniversaries and days ahead will be marked with varying degrees of difficulty, but I have passed this time of expectation and longing and the days no longer each carry so much weight.

The phantom due date has come and gone.  I feel to my soul the words of Jesus on the cross, "It is finished".

On that day, the words that carried me, the grace that sustained me was found in the friends who held vigil with me.  Who remembered what May 30th should have been and offered their day for mine.  And in that experience, of once again wrapping myself in the offerings of others, I am knit more closely to them, and united through it all in the Body of Christ.

If you have a sister in Christ who has gone through pregnancy loss, I encourage you to reach out on the day of her due date.  She needs to know she does not remember alone.  She needs to know you walk beside her.  

Pio Prints: A Review

Pio Prints provided a shirt for my review.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.

With PCOS and my other fertility struggles, diet, nutrition, and exercise are always pretty top of mind.  Self-care is generally important, but it's also particularly important in my health challenges.

So, when Pio Prints asked if I'd be interested in a review of their workout tank, I figuratively (because it had been a little bit since my last workout) jumped at the chance to try some new workout gear.....because we all know when you're struggling to get back in the groove of working out, there's nothing like something cute to help you over the hump.

When it arrived, I was eager to try it on and see how the fit was.  It's an A-line cut tank, so it's narrower at the top and widens to the bottom hem.  The back center has a gather to help form the shape.  I love the fit and cut of this narrower top to wider bottom because it's fitted where it needs to be and then flowing over the reasons I'm out there jogging in the first place.

The other great thing I love about the cut is that it doesn't come down too low in the front.  Because, ladies, when you wear a compression sports bra and hate high collars touching your neck, you generally end up with workout shirts that you have to monitor to make sure they're not slipping down on you in the front.  *This* is not one of those shirts.  This shirt is high enough in front that you're covered, but also low enough that you don't feel confined or choked by a collar rubbing on you while you work out.

The weight and feel of the fabric is also great.  It's soft and smooth and was perfect for a sunny day jog with a very furry puppy (Ginger).

After our jog

The price point for this particular tank is $25, making it the perfect treat for your workout slump, hitting your newest milestone, or a thoughtful birthday present for a friend who loves the saints and fitness.  I'm putting another one (or two because I'm having a hard time only working out in my favorite shirt) on my Mother's Day/birthday wishlist.

If tanks or workout tees aren't your gig, they also have great shirts, cards, journals and mugs.  Support a family and shop small.

Stop by Pio Prints online or on Instagram. 

The Pharisee In Me

About a month ago, I did the thing I shouldn't do and engaged in a Facebook debate.....because we all know that's productive.

I didn't know it was a debate when I commented, but it's just so darn hard to walk away when it turns into one and you're TRYING TO SAY SOMETHING :P

A mom asked for opinions on baptism timelines...which seems to be heating up as a conversation piece as we enter Lent and there's a mix of what dioceses do in terms of Baptism during Lent.

I commented that I appreciated the model of the Greek Orthodox Church giving a set time of six weeks when the mother is then welcomed into the church with a special blessing and baptism can then happen because I feel it honors that need to heal and recover from childbirth, but still moves with prudent haste towards baptism.

What I got back was pretty strongly worded, and Catechism citing content on why I was basically taking the souls of my children into my own hands if I didn't get it done before I was even up to sitting through mass.  Maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much.

Commenters went on to tell me that I was presuming on God's mercy to think I could wait what I thought was reasonable because:

1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation.⁶⁰ He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them.⁶¹ Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament.⁶² The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are "reborn of water and the Spirit." God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.

 But they skipped the next bit:

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"⁶⁴ allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

 I left that conversation feeling so disheartened.  Especially as the mom of two souls who passed in utero and the foster mom of one sweet girl who I took to mass every week for 2.5 years without the ability to baptize her.  I was being told my belief in obedience to the pastor on whether or not to baptize during Lent was misplaced obedience and that I was foolhardy to put so much reliance on God's mercy over making haste to baptize....to the point of leaving a parish over it.

In the moment I blocked the conversation from my feed, I felt something inside me break.  I thought this, this is how people leave the Church.  I felt so hopeless and sad for my dead babies.  I felt like rules were overpowering mercy, and I just cried over it all.  As I lay there and dried my tears, I wondered, what if this had been the last thread holding me to the Church?  What if this had been the thing that had broken in me that felt unfixable?  What if these surely good and holy women were the precipitation of my downfall?

They wouldn't have even known it.  But they could have been, even with every good intention.

There's a tension between mercy and truth.  We must always always reach for the truth, and the layered beauty of our tradition and Catholic heritage are so so good.  But, where are we placing our interpretation of the rules or preferences over compassion?  Where am I failing to see that God's mercy is not to be outdone, and I'm not the boss of it?

Where am I drawing a line in the sand over a timetable that God never put in place?

I'm struggling with finding those answers inside myself, but I'm trying to move towards a default of seeking to understand before being understood.  Because even when it's an inflexible rule, seeking to be heard before listening will never win a heart, and that should be the business we're in.

On Choosing to Quit

As we're staring down the calendar at a new year, it's a time of reflection on our choices, a time to evaluate where we are and what's working.

We've been a homeschooling family for most of our parenting years.

As our oldest entered sixth grade this year, we made the choice to transition from homeschooling to our local parochial school.

Our four year old is also in preschool there three mornings a week.

LB had been asking for a while to go to traditional school, and SP LOVES her preschool.  So much so, she told me she was very sad when I made her stop going after PK3 (otherwise known as Summer Break).

But the deciding factor for going back to school this year was me.  I need some breathing room.  I need to not feel like I'm failing to do ALL THE THINGS constantly.  I need time to work from home without that precarious balancing act of childcare hanging around my neck.

I needed to stop trying to do it all, all at once, without a break.

For over ten years, I've worked sporadically from home as an Instructional Designer, developing online training and tests for companies who would rather hire that out than keep someone on staff.  I've balanced working from home and homeschooling through the younger grades, but as schooling became increasingly complex, I constantly felt like I was behind on grading, not following up enough, or just generally not doing enough.

I felt a lot of peace about making the decision, but I also felt that stereotypical, "we're not doing the most involved thing we possibly can so we're probably failing".  Because isn't that the message we get from all the worst parenting gurus?  Do all the things and do them my way or you're the worst.

This school year has solidly reinforced what I've known to be true for a long time.  We're all doing our best, and it's going to look different for everyone. 

My best for this year might be different from my best for next year.  And it for sure looks different than last year.

Going back to traditional school has taken the entire burden of LB's education off my shoulders.  I still find myself grading homework most evenings, or reviewing upcoming assignments, but all the mental space of planning and organizing it has been freed. 

Choosing to quit the homeschool life has had some downsides - can you say early bird wakeup calls? Mornings will probably always be rough for me, but we're making it.  I can't put the school week on hold when life starts to be too much.  I can't time the school day around our family life.  It all happens on their schedule. 

Still, the hour+ I spend shuttling people back and forth, the early mornings (which my husband helps with A LOT), the homework assignments, the extra committee meetings, it's all been working out.

It's been a positive shift to have a more rigid structure in our day, and the downtime it's afforded me has allowed me more time to work on my Etsy store, as well as my Instructional Design business, meaning my husband was able to move to a position with fewer hours last month.

Although the thought of sending SP off five days a week next year still gives me pause, and I'll never rule out homeschooling completely, in all I've learned that sometimes, quitting is the very best choice after all.

Walking Beside You

Walking in the door, I set down my purse and stare at the pile of papers I still need to sort. Later, later I will.

First, a moment here with you. To share the hardness and joy of this special path God has me walking.

How could I have known I would stand in this place?  It's so humbling and so heartbreaking all at once. Humbling in the blessings constantly raining down on me, heartbreaking for those few most precious drops falling just out of reach.

When I found out I was pregnant last month, I had this imagery of sitting at the feet of God in overwhelming gratitude at a blessing beyond understanding. When we gave that baby back to God less than two weeks later, I was humbled in a different way, by different blessings.

I feel more profoundly wrapped in love and grace than I've ever experienced. It's still a hard and heart wrenching path, but I'm in awe of the love and kindness poured out in front of me.

Just when I thought I was coming to a place in life where I had something more to teach, something more to give, I'm reminded of what a blessing it is to be a gracious receiver.

Every sorrow refines my soul, and the suffering burns compassion into my heart.

As I look into the face of another mother awaiting the day she will meet or see once more the face of her child in heaven, I see her more clearly than before. My sorrow can speak to hers, "I know you sister, I see you. I wait with you."

This road of life is hard, and suffering will meet us along the way. Take heart, sister, you do not walk alone.

For more reflections from women on varying stages and places in their fertility journey, I invite you to join us at Waiting in the Word. 

Made for Heaven

This month is Pregnancy Loss Awareness.  On October 1st, all the memes and Facebook posts started showing up.  While I was reading them, I was laying on my couch, binge watching on Hulu and miscarrying a baby.

On September 22nd, I took a pregnancy test and hopped in the shower before I read it.  After a quick shower, I took a cursory glance at it before pitching what I assumed would be yet another negative test.  The faint positive that appeared jolted me, surprised me, and caused me to exclaim, "Oh my God!"  I'm an "oh my goodness-don't-take-the-name-in-vain" kind of gal, so the shock value was definitely high.

The next few days were doctor's phone calls, blood draws, and scheduling additional testing.  35 and previous pregnancy loss adds up to a lot of early testing.

As I scheduled tests, I had a hard time getting excited by the pregnancy and new life growing.  Every time I went to the bathroom, I was waiting for spotting to start, for something to go wrong.  I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  After all this waiting, how could dreams finally be coming true?

In the midst of struggling to find excitement, I had this moment of pure clarity staring at myself in the mirror.  No matter what happened with the pregnancy, there was a new soul.  A complete, unique soul and person who would exist for all of eternity NO MATTER WHAT.

After about a week, I finally started allowing myself to hope a little more that this baby wouldn't be just for heaven.  As my pants started to feel a little tighter, I added items to the secret Amazon shopping list.  I started to plan and dream again.

Including a dream so vivid, I saw the face of my baby as I delivered him.  Bright blue eyes and a bald head with faint glimmers of peachy red hair.  Rounder than SP's face and pinker than LB's.  A little boy uniquely himself.

On my second hcg draw, the numbers didn't do what they should, so more testing was indicated. 

Just as I was starting to not check for spotting every time I used the bathroom, the spotting started.  On Friday, September 30th, I had some light spotting and as I realized what was happening, I sobbed and said many many many f-bombs.  I called Hubby and tried to stay calm as I left multiple messages on the doctor's voicemail.

The spotting stopped, and the nurse instructed me to continue on with the hcg draw planned for the next morning, as well as gave me worst case scenario instructions.

On the day I was headed in to do the next draw, the miscarriage started.  Testing that day showed that my hcg was in fact dropping rapidly.

I went home under directions of what worrying signs to watch for and rested all weekend. 

When the bleeding first started Saturday morning, I cried out for a miracle.  I prayed for intercession, I told the baby he was wanted and he was welcome.  But, I also told him I forgave him if he wasn't strong enough to stay.

About an hour later, the bleeding increased and the process of miscarrying was in full effect.

That night I sat on the floor of my shower sobbing and cursing God until the hot water ran out.  I said every angry, bitter word inside me and left the shower feeling lighter and spent.

I waited all weekend for painful cramping and contractions.  They never came.  Some slight discomfort was relieved by a little medicine, but for the most part, it was physically painless.  A small miracle and grace in the middle of a hard weekend.

As the weekend progressed, I reached out to many friends asking for prayers.  And as I did, I felt myself wrapped in grace so tangible as to be beyond understanding. 

I had expected to be so overwrought that I would have a hard time functioning in daily life; instead, I found myself a little tired, but able to manage without much struggle. 

I found myself not wanting to pass on the news because it seemed to upset others more than it upset me.  Almost like the whole enormity of what I'd been through was so big, I would need time to absorb it. 

Or maybe, as I told my mom, we've been through so much that it didn't hit high enough on the Richter Scale to be traumatic. 

I think the best explanation is that we've been buoyed in prayers.  I've seen blessings and grace everywhere.  The way my husband and I walked through this together versus how we managed after Mara was like a terrible and wonderful milestone of how we've grown. 

The last few days, I've noticed myself easily irritated, and while part of that may be hormones realigning, I think it's the grief starting to poke through the cracks.

I'm sure it's not actually true, but it seems every commercial is pregnancy tests, formula or diapers lately, and if my Kindle doesn't stop showing that baby car seat as the start screen ad, I'm going to lose it. 

I was supposed to have a baby for my 36th birthday.  And now I'm not.  I was going to buy a new stroller, but there's no need for that now.  I saw the bag of cloth diapers in SP's closet that I was daydreaming about putting on a tiny little bottom, but now I'm not.

So much of what is lost in a miscarriage is the dreams.  Still, I feel a surety that another baby is coming.  Not to replace the one we lost, but as his or her own unique and wonderful person. 

This pregnancy proved the surgery was successful, at least in part.  We're another step down the road on our journey.  We're hopeful that next time, it will be a baby we get to hold.

Until then, here are the few photos I have to mark the life of Francis Therese, named after the feast days we celebrated in the midst of his loss.

Four days before we lost Francis - I'm so glad I took this - and took the moment to celebrate his life

From the weekend on the couch

Turning back off the pregnancy setting was one of the worst parts