I want control...or do I?

I keep asking myself what I did wrong. How could I get an infection? I take care of myself. I was exercising during this pregnancy and eating healthfully. I took my prenatals religiously. I don't do drugs, drink while pregnant, or sleep around...How is it that I got an infection?

Of course, I'll never know. The doctor doesn't even know. Only God knows. And it all comes back to this, that God is in control. I'm the typical oldest child, bossy, my-way-or-the-highway type of person. Ask my 3 year-old, he'll tell you! I want to think that there is something that I did to cause this, so that I can make sure that it doesn't happen again. And this is a trap. It sounds good though, doesn't it? I would love to find the answers so that I could protect myself from ever going through this again. But the truth of the matter is, that I should be glad that I'm not in control. How awful would it be to have to watch every move I made during the next pregnancy?

Then there's the issue of IVF (which was what we had to do after 2 years of infertility in order to conceive Chase). At first I really wrestled with this choice, wondering if I was taking things into my own hands. And then it dawned on me, that I could not create life. Who did I think I was? I could try the IVF treatment, but whether or not a baby was the result, was ultimately in God's hands. Did you know, they can inject a sperm straight into an egg and it still may not fertilize? God is in control...and that leaves me free to live! It leaves my husband and I free to pursue IVF treatment if we can't conceive on our own. It leaves me free to be pregnant again and not worry about anything that is out of my hands such as losing my next pregnancy in the same manner that I lost this one.

On my grief boards, I remember reading awhile ago that a girl was told by the "positive thinking" crowd, that if she'd thought positively while she was pregnant, her baby wouldn't have died. How ludicrous is that? But that statement gets at the crux of the problem with that philosophy. If my thinking can change a situation, then it's my fault when bad things happen to me. In my 2 years of infertility the most frustrating thing that people said to me to "help" was "you just need to relax and it'll happen". Because if I relax the sperm will swim in the right direction, right? Right. Wrong! I'm not in control! I could relax until I was a Zen master and I may not be as stressed about my situation, but the act of relaxing would not help me get pregnant. And it's freeing to me to know that my lack of relaxation techniques did not cause our infertility. What a burden that was to bear! To think that it was all my fault that we couldn't have another baby.

Thankfully, Jesus never told the blind man that if he'd just thought positively when he started losing his eyesight, he wouldn't have lost it. No. The man needed healing and Jesus knew that. Remember? It wasn't his fault, or his parents fault, but it was so that the Glory of God could be revealed. His blindness was not something he or his parents caused. None of them were in control.

This doesn't mean I'm going to flush my pre-natal vitamins down the toilet or anything. I'll take the precautions that I know to take, but in doing that, I may be left, even after doing everything right, without a baby. And that's a good thing, because it wasn't in my hands. If I could actually control the outcome of my life with my own actions, it would be a very scary place to be. And if tragedy occurred...How would I be able to move past the grief with all of the guilt I would feel knowing that I HAD been in control. Thank you Lord, for being sovereign. Thank you Lord, that I am not. Thank you Lord, that I can face a new day and maybe eventually another pregnancy knowing that it is in Your hands.

And that is why, I am working really hard at this point to move past the question of where I contracted that infection. Because it's not a good thing for us to be in control.

MIA

I haven't written much lately because I haven't had too much on my mind. Life has returned to "normal" for now.

I had my follow-up with my OB last Friday and learned pretty much what I already knew. I had an infection that caused my water to break. The good news is, these are rare to begin with and the odds that it would happen again are low. That's relatively comforting. I don't bet on the odds though after this experience. I just have faith that God is in control. It's the only way I can move forward.

So now I am back to the gym. Ow! It's amazing how out-of-shape you can get in just 4 weeks! And I'm back to my regular work around the house fixing dinner and caring for my 3 year-old. It's good to get back into a routine again.

I did find last night that the grief hit me pretty hard, and I've heard it can be like that at first because you don't have time to deal with the grieving process until everything is still and quiet, and that's when it hits you hard. Then I hear that one day you realize you didn't grieve at all that day. I'm still waiting for that step. This is a slow process.

Peace that Passes Understanding

So many people who go through something like this question God's goodness. Maybe I'll have that moment too, but so far it doesn't even make sense to me to question that. God is good. Chase is in heaven because God sent his own son to die. How could I possibly be angry about that?

God gave Chase to me for 18 weeks. It may not be as long as I wanted, or as long as it should be if sin hadn't entered the world, but it was still 18 weeks of having a child in my belly. After 2 long years of infertility, I enjoyed every minute of that. How can I be angry that the God who gave Chase to me decided to take him away? Jonah got mad at God for taking away a vine that God had provided for shade. God called him out on that..."Hey, Jonah! Who do you think caused the vine to grow? What right do you have to be angry about this?" And I find myself in the same situation. Who do I think gave me this child? What right would I have to be angry about this? I just don't find a place in my heart that thinks God is at fault.

God miraculously guarded my fertility. This is really important because we've been infertile for two years. We had to have IVF done in order to conceive Chase, and odds are, we'll have to go that route to become pregnant again. The fewer complications we have added to our list of current issues, the better. My Reproductive Endocrinologist was very pleased with the outcome of a very scary situation that didn't look like it had a good ending.

After being diagnosed with placenta previa, I had 2 options when my water broke and an infection set in. Have a c-section, which would make subsequent pregnancies extremely high risk due to the classical cut they'd have to do (since my uterus was so small at only 18 weeks), or have a D&E and risk scarring of my uterus, which makes it harder for a fertilized egg to implant. One doctor even threatened me with a hysterectomy if things went very downhill. Not one person brought up the possibility of a normal vaginal delivery. But we prayed for it, and we asked our friends and family to pray. God answered. The placenta completely moved within 24 hours and not only did I have a normal delivery, it was an uncomplicated 3 hour labor. How do I shake my fist when I was part of a miracle like that?

And above all else, my son is not dead. He's in heaven. I'll see him again. All because God provided a way. How do I get angry at God? I just can't figure out the logic on that one. God is good ALL of the time. Yes, even in this...God has been good. This is what the Bible means when it speaks of peace that passes all understanding. This is what is meant by building your house on a rock. The storm has come, but because my life is built on the rock of Jesus, I am able to have joy. This life is temporary and when I've been in heaven 10,000 years, this will all be a distant memory. That's why the storms can blow, but through God's grace (not my own works), my faith isn't shaken.

Unmarked graves

My baby doesn't get a headstone. This bothers me.

We went down to the graveyard today just to see Chase's grave site and grieve for a bit. We hadn't been back since we'd buried him. For those of you who don't know how it's done when you lose a baby this young, the babies who die before birth, or shortly thereafter are buried in one mass grave every six weeks. That's how it's done around here. They aren't given a headstone with their names. I don't understand why. I'd fork over the money for all of those babies to have their names known. The good thing is that the burial and everything is taken care of by benefactors, so it's all free. You don't have the financial burden of an unexpected funeral on top of the shock of losing a baby. But the literature from the funeral home said that they don't allow stone markers with the names of the babies on them.

I noticed today that some of the other babies grave sites had small monuments or stone markers with Bible verses on them. Mike and I are thinking of doing something like that for Chase's site. Maybe we'll work the word "chase" in there and accidentally capitalize it...I LOVE his name--we can be nice and sneaky with it.

But we get back to the issue at hand. Why can't we put their names on stone and memorialize it? Is it because abortion is still legal at 18 weeks, so he isn't really a person yet? He was born alive. He lived in this world for a few minutes. Why can't I put a stone up so people know that there was a Chase Lukens Hall on this earth? That's what makes this so hard. In a few months, no one else will remember my baby. It'll already be as if he were never here once they replace the turned up dirt with sod.

Maybe there is a valid reason for this. It said in the literature that we got that they don't do it so they can mow. But every other grave in this graveyard has an aboveground headstone. So that reason doesn't seem to fly. Maybe there's something I don't know about mowing graveyards. But it doesn't seem right to leave my very loved and much wanted baby buried in an unmarked grave.

The only way I get through this, is because I know that while his body is there, his soul is not. And I'm sure Chase is not one bit worried about not being known on earth, since he is now known in heaven. But his momma's heart sure breaks over that grave site.

Wednesdays

This used to be my favorite day of the week. Aiden and I would go to Bible study and afterwards we'd go out to eat with my friend and her two kids. Then we'd come home for late naps and soon after we woke up Daddy would be home. It was the best day of the week.

Now I hate Wednesdays. 3 weeks ago today we lost Chase. 2 weeks ago today we buried him. I'm beginning to realize that Wednesdays are bad days. I wake up weepy. I feel on the verge of crying all day long and I spend the day trying to function for Aiden's sake. It's a day when I just pray for the strength to make it from one minute to the next without weeping.

I didn't realize it would be like this. In fact, when I first was grieving I didn't even know what day it was and all of the hospital days ran together for me, so I had to really think about the order of things to figure out which day was which. But now that my mind isn't clouded with drugs, I have it all straight. Wednesday is not good to me.

Guilt

It's really hard when something like this happens not to have guilt over it. I'm realizing though, that guilt is a sin. Guilt implies that I think I had control over Chase's death. Experiencing guilt means that I'm putting myself in the place of God because I think I could have actually changed the situation. Whoa! That's definitely not what I want to do.

There really is nothing to be guilty about. I called the doctor the day my cramping started. I called again when the cramping became a strong backache and I had some other strange stuff going on. I was told it was normal. I went to the ER the minute I saw blood. I was told I was fine and that I wasn't going into labor anytime soon. The next morning my water broke. So I did all I could to let the doctors know that something was off.

I was not in control of this. I'm never in control, even when I think I am. God is sovereign. I don't believe for one second that He wanted this to happen. I do believe He allowed it. I don't know the reasons. That's because I'm not in control. Being out of the control seat is a good place for me to be!

Naptime

It's the quiet time of day for me. Aiden's naptime. It's the hard time of my day because I can sit and be still. No interruptions. This is when I relive the moments of Chase's life, and inevitably the circumstances around his death.

This is when I want my baby. I want to be sleep-deprived and struggling through the first weeks of nursing. Don't get me wrong, I would never blame a tired new mom for complaining about these things that I want. I've been there, and I know it's painful. It's just that this pain is so much worse. I'll be the meekest new mom you've ever seen when the time comes again. I hope I get another chance. After 2 years of infertility, it's hard to keep my chin up about that.

I've heard so many times how lucky I am to have Aiden. And I am thankful, I'm not denying that blessing for a minute. It's just that it feels like people try to minimize the pain that I feel over losing Chase, just because I have another child. It's not like you can swap them out. Chase would have had his own temperament, ambitions, and likes. I mourn the loss of who he was. Does that make sense?