Life isn't fair. We have never been promised a fair life, but I would venture to guess we all feel like we deserve to be treated fairly. The idea of fairness is a really difficult one for me. I am a special education teacher. My job is to help equalize education for the students in my classroom. Although each student has different needs and strengths, I am supposed to design lessons, assignments, and assessments that allow all students to equally access and learn the information. Some students get copies of notes, have shortened assignments, or get extra time, but that is all in the name of keeping things equitable, or "fair," for everyone.
Let's jump to a different area of my life. Parenting. There isn't a teacher trying to help this aspect of life be "fair." Just a few of the injustices of parenting:
- infertility
- miscarriage
- stillbirth
- losing a child
- divorce
- single-parenting
I have not experienced many of theses injustices, but the point remains that life isn't fair. People don't deserve or earn infertility (or any of the other items listed above) just as they don't earn or deserve fertility. It just happens. It is personal and private, but it becomes an identifying factor about your life, both to you and to others. Although I would rather not have everyone I come into contact with know about my personal struggles because of miscarriages and working to adopt, this very private part of my life has become almost my entire identity. This has been a challenge.
My oldest son struggles with this same idea. His life isn't fair. He didn't have great birth parents. He was taken away from those parents and has experienced a great loss. He had to live in foster homes. He has PTSD. School is hard for him. He is smaller than the other kids in his class.
Most days, he just can go on with life pretty "normally." On bad days, he spends the day mourning the inequities in his life. When this happens, there are tantrums, tears, cuddling, physical aggression, and much more. It is hard to find the right words to help him sometimes. All I can do is hold him, tell him I love him, and then let him know that I wish his life would have been easier...but I am so glad to have him in my family.
Showing posts with label miscarriages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miscarriages. Show all posts
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Friday, May 10, 2013
Mother's Day
I have a love-hate relationship with Mother's Day. Sometime after a couple years of marriage, I started hating Mother's Day. No, I had not wanted to have a baby or had a miscarriage or anything by then, but it starting stirring negative emotions. I always felt like there were hidden messages like:
If you don't have a child yet, you haven't found your life's meaning.
Good mothers don't work. God designed moms to be home with their children for as long as possible...maybe forever.
In 2010, the first strongly hated Mother's Day rolled around. We had recently decided we wanted to have a child. Although we didn't know it, I was pregnant then. I actually skipped church because I didn't want to sit there hearing about how wonderful mothers are. Since we lost that pregnancy...and then a second one... before the next Mother's Day, well you can imagine that I didn't like the holiday any more the next year. We had actually just found out we would be moving to another state, so we spent that weekend looking for a place to live and hiding out in a hotel. It worked out quite well :) Avoidance is probably my favorite way to deal with hard truths.
Mother's Day of 2012 was a totally different experience. I both loved and hated Mother's Day. We were foster parents and had three kids at the time. We were finally "parents." I did receive a couple of Mother's Day gifts, included a very thoughtful family tree picture decoration from my mother in which we could hang wallets of all the children we might foster over the years. My husband and foster kiddos made a hand print collage that brought great sobs through my body. They were sobs of mixed emotions. I was overwhelmed and blessed that we got to parent those three foster kiddos and were now truly parents. I was grieving the loss of my two babies we never got to meet. I was deeply saddened as we were beginning the countdown for the two little kiddos to return home in a few weeks. I was hopeful that we would be able to adopt the oldest child, who had been with us since November - maybe he would be a part of EVERY Mother's Day. I was grieving the loss of the dream of having kiddos the normal way - get pregnant and have the baby. No matter what was to happen in the future, biological or adopted children or both, we would never have the happy pregnancy dream that little girls imagine when they think of motherhood. It had been tainted. I was also anxious to find my forever family and be done with all the stress.
This weekend's Mother's Day had me crying already. I cannot say that I love Mother's Day because it will always probably make me feel someone inadequate for not being "normal." That is horrible to put into writing. Let me clarify. My husband and I have been told repeatedly that there is no reason we cannot have babies like everybody else. No drugs, no interventions, just the old fashioned way. We are choosing not to do that. We chose instead to find our forever family on a waiting child list. This is definitely not how most people become parents. And yet, those are not the tears I am shedding. I cried several times this morning as I was so overcome with gratitude. Three years ago we could not have imagined that we would be in this location, with this journey to parenting, and these jobs. Could not have imagined it. But here we are. And you know what? I love it. I love my town - not very exciting by the world's standard, but it is exactly what we needed for this family. We enjoy our jobs, and we are both doing what we love every day. Most of all, however, we love our family. I was thinking that my kids came into foster care the same time we found out we were pregnant. We waiting the same number of months to find each other. For me, three years is a long time. For them, three years is a lifetime. How can this really be what I have been blessed with? Three kids who love us unconditionally and overwhelmingly? Who don't question the fact that we were meant to be together? How can I not blubber like a fool?
I have already received my Mother's Day gift. Unlike last year, it was not sentimental or homemade, and that doesn't bother me. Last year, the kids we were parenting were just stop along our journey. They taught us a lot about ourselves and parenting, we loved them a lot, and we weren't meant to be their parents forever. We needed to take hand prints and memorize the creases because we wouldn't get to see them every day. This year, I received a bike tag-along (actually my husband uses it because its too hard for me, so I still use the bike stroller). We used it last night to go on a whole family bike ride to DQ. All five us on two bikes. Reminds me of a book, Bears on Wheels. But I digress. Anyway, it was a great gift. I will be able to use it all the time, spending time with what I love most. So maybe I do love Mother's Day?
If you don't have a child yet, you haven't found your life's meaning.
Good mothers don't work. God designed moms to be home with their children for as long as possible...maybe forever.
In 2010, the first strongly hated Mother's Day rolled around. We had recently decided we wanted to have a child. Although we didn't know it, I was pregnant then. I actually skipped church because I didn't want to sit there hearing about how wonderful mothers are. Since we lost that pregnancy...and then a second one... before the next Mother's Day, well you can imagine that I didn't like the holiday any more the next year. We had actually just found out we would be moving to another state, so we spent that weekend looking for a place to live and hiding out in a hotel. It worked out quite well :) Avoidance is probably my favorite way to deal with hard truths.
Mother's Day of 2012 was a totally different experience. I both loved and hated Mother's Day. We were foster parents and had three kids at the time. We were finally "parents." I did receive a couple of Mother's Day gifts, included a very thoughtful family tree picture decoration from my mother in which we could hang wallets of all the children we might foster over the years. My husband and foster kiddos made a hand print collage that brought great sobs through my body. They were sobs of mixed emotions. I was overwhelmed and blessed that we got to parent those three foster kiddos and were now truly parents. I was grieving the loss of my two babies we never got to meet. I was deeply saddened as we were beginning the countdown for the two little kiddos to return home in a few weeks. I was hopeful that we would be able to adopt the oldest child, who had been with us since November - maybe he would be a part of EVERY Mother's Day. I was grieving the loss of the dream of having kiddos the normal way - get pregnant and have the baby. No matter what was to happen in the future, biological or adopted children or both, we would never have the happy pregnancy dream that little girls imagine when they think of motherhood. It had been tainted. I was also anxious to find my forever family and be done with all the stress.
This weekend's Mother's Day had me crying already. I cannot say that I love Mother's Day because it will always probably make me feel someone inadequate for not being "normal." That is horrible to put into writing. Let me clarify. My husband and I have been told repeatedly that there is no reason we cannot have babies like everybody else. No drugs, no interventions, just the old fashioned way. We are choosing not to do that. We chose instead to find our forever family on a waiting child list. This is definitely not how most people become parents. And yet, those are not the tears I am shedding. I cried several times this morning as I was so overcome with gratitude. Three years ago we could not have imagined that we would be in this location, with this journey to parenting, and these jobs. Could not have imagined it. But here we are. And you know what? I love it. I love my town - not very exciting by the world's standard, but it is exactly what we needed for this family. We enjoy our jobs, and we are both doing what we love every day. Most of all, however, we love our family. I was thinking that my kids came into foster care the same time we found out we were pregnant. We waiting the same number of months to find each other. For me, three years is a long time. For them, three years is a lifetime. How can this really be what I have been blessed with? Three kids who love us unconditionally and overwhelmingly? Who don't question the fact that we were meant to be together? How can I not blubber like a fool?
I have already received my Mother's Day gift. Unlike last year, it was not sentimental or homemade, and that doesn't bother me. Last year, the kids we were parenting were just stop along our journey. They taught us a lot about ourselves and parenting, we loved them a lot, and we weren't meant to be their parents forever. We needed to take hand prints and memorize the creases because we wouldn't get to see them every day. This year, I received a bike tag-along (actually my husband uses it because its too hard for me, so I still use the bike stroller). We used it last night to go on a whole family bike ride to DQ. All five us on two bikes. Reminds me of a book, Bears on Wheels. But I digress. Anyway, it was a great gift. I will be able to use it all the time, spending time with what I love most. So maybe I do love Mother's Day?
Thursday, December 20, 2012
3 days!
We meet our kids in THREE days! We are as ready as we could possibly be to welcome home three kids we have never met. We have everything assembled, cleaned, and organized. We have visited schools, made appointments, and planned for our absences from work.
As I was cleaning some things, I found my journal entries from my first pregnancy. I was shocked at how "quickly" I have forgotten the terrible pain of our loss. We were so excited, and a bit worried, until our 8 week appointment. Then we felt reassured that everything was perfect. We were back to pure joy and imagining the future. I don't have any entries that are not happy (what happened to the ones after we found out that the baby had died??). It just is like a frozen frame of two people, in love, waiting for the birth of their first child. I cried when I read it. It just seems so unfair that a special time like that was taken from us. I really had forgotten how life felt before all the bad news started. I haven't really thought about the trauma of it all in quite some time. I thought about sharing the pages with my husband, but I figured they would have no positive effect on his day, so I will file them away in a different hidden corner. It's okay that I forget those feelings and focus on the feelings of now.
THREE DAYS UNTIL FOREVER FAMILY! We are super excited! We are praying for a smooth transition and lots of happy memories :)
As I was cleaning some things, I found my journal entries from my first pregnancy. I was shocked at how "quickly" I have forgotten the terrible pain of our loss. We were so excited, and a bit worried, until our 8 week appointment. Then we felt reassured that everything was perfect. We were back to pure joy and imagining the future. I don't have any entries that are not happy (what happened to the ones after we found out that the baby had died??). It just is like a frozen frame of two people, in love, waiting for the birth of their first child. I cried when I read it. It just seems so unfair that a special time like that was taken from us. I really had forgotten how life felt before all the bad news started. I haven't really thought about the trauma of it all in quite some time. I thought about sharing the pages with my husband, but I figured they would have no positive effect on his day, so I will file them away in a different hidden corner. It's okay that I forget those feelings and focus on the feelings of now.
THREE DAYS UNTIL FOREVER FAMILY! We are super excited! We are praying for a smooth transition and lots of happy memories :)
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Thanksgiving
Flashback to Thanksgiving 2010...
We had recently lost our first pregnancy, my grandma was diagnosed with cancer, so I flew home for her surgery, and my husband's grandpa died while we were visiting. It was pretty hard to find something to be thankful for. I was pretty angry, depressed, and hopeless. A friend came over during Thanksgiving break to tell me that my time for grief was up. I was supposed to be moving forward. How could I move forward when every time I was almost at a good place again, someone else died? She brought her Bible, and read verses that condemned my attitude and grief. And that was the end of our friendship. Honestly. Although we still saw each other, it was just the beginning of the end. I spent Thanksgiving quietly at home with my husband and a friend, and I truly felt I had nothing to be thankful for. Little did I know that in the next three months we would lose another baby and my stepfather.
Thanksgiving 2011
We had just moved to a new state, started new jobs, and had become foster parents a few days earlier. We were thankful for the opportunity to parent. We set up Christmas decorations with a 4 year old (what a crazy adventure!). We drank hot cocoa, hoped for snow, and spent a lot of hours sleeping on his floor so he wouldn't be scared at night. I definitely felt like things were looking up, and I felt thankful for the changes that had moved us out of our comfort zones on every level.
Thanksgiving 2012
I can barely begin to think about everything I am thankful for without tearing up. This last year has not been a picnic, but I feel so blessed to have found my forever family! I just knew it from the moment I saw them online! They will be our children forever. What more can I say? It is the biggest blessing I have ever received. Thanks are definitely in order.
We had recently lost our first pregnancy, my grandma was diagnosed with cancer, so I flew home for her surgery, and my husband's grandpa died while we were visiting. It was pretty hard to find something to be thankful for. I was pretty angry, depressed, and hopeless. A friend came over during Thanksgiving break to tell me that my time for grief was up. I was supposed to be moving forward. How could I move forward when every time I was almost at a good place again, someone else died? She brought her Bible, and read verses that condemned my attitude and grief. And that was the end of our friendship. Honestly. Although we still saw each other, it was just the beginning of the end. I spent Thanksgiving quietly at home with my husband and a friend, and I truly felt I had nothing to be thankful for. Little did I know that in the next three months we would lose another baby and my stepfather.
Thanksgiving 2011
We had just moved to a new state, started new jobs, and had become foster parents a few days earlier. We were thankful for the opportunity to parent. We set up Christmas decorations with a 4 year old (what a crazy adventure!). We drank hot cocoa, hoped for snow, and spent a lot of hours sleeping on his floor so he wouldn't be scared at night. I definitely felt like things were looking up, and I felt thankful for the changes that had moved us out of our comfort zones on every level.
Thanksgiving 2012
I can barely begin to think about everything I am thankful for without tearing up. This last year has not been a picnic, but I feel so blessed to have found my forever family! I just knew it from the moment I saw them online! They will be our children forever. What more can I say? It is the biggest blessing I have ever received. Thanks are definitely in order.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Faith
I admit that I have a high-strung personality, and I constantly operate with a state of stress running my life. I have always been like this, and it is my "normal." I am not sure I would ever get anything accomplished if I didn't feel like this! It is the same type of stress that some people cite as reasoning for saving things until the eleventh hour. It motivates me and keeps me on track.
My current level of stress is something I cannot get used to. Waiting for the next task to complete in a series of tasks I have done over and over again, not knowing when my children will officially become mine, waiting to hear when I can meet them and bring them home. Add this on top of just the every day things (housework, parenting, groceries, school work), and I am tipping the scales of what I can handle. How am I supposed to get up each day and do what needs to be done while all I really can think about is my family? I feel like the right answer is to just have faith that things will work out for the best.
If I am honest with myself, the last two and a half years have been the biggest struggle I have ever had in my faith. I know the scriptures and cliches about waiting for God's perfect timing. They were quoted to me regularly over the last few years. I am supposed to be faithful and wait for everything to work out in a way that should overshadow all the pain and loss of the last chapter of my life. Once I have my family, I am suddenly supposed to feel thankful and joyous and understand why God chose to make my parenting journey such an intense struggle. I just don't believe this. God is good, and He is heartbroken as well. He is hurting because of our intense pain. He didn't decide my husband and I needed to learn a lesson or that we weren't good enough to be parents. Our babies died. God could have saved them, but that isn't what happened. He didn't make us lose our babies. I think the book Empty Arms by Pam Vredevelt explained this best for me. After my first miscarriage, I was really struggling with people telling me that is just wasn't meant to be, and the timing must just not have been right. It made me feel like I was truly to blame for my miscarriage and that God didn't think we were ready. What a horrible way to make a person feel! I felt pressured to turn my frown upside down and pretend I was thankful that God was teaching me a lesson and causing my struggles. Some things just happen. God doesn't make them happen, but He allows them to happen. What we do with those struggles is what shapes us as a person.
So here I am, still waiting on my family. Worried that this will all fall through, for one reason or another, and that I will be back in a state of grief and loss, and stressed out to the max. I am trying to turn my fears over to God, but it is a risk. If I turn them over to Him and something bad happens, how will I process that? Will I feel like God is punishing me? Maybe it would just be better to avoid talking to God about it because then I don't have to worry about feeling abandoned. Am I supposed to act like I have no worries about everything going on, and that, no matter what happens, I will be full of thanks? The only thing I can do or control in this situation is to be honest with God and ask for His peace.
My current level of stress is something I cannot get used to. Waiting for the next task to complete in a series of tasks I have done over and over again, not knowing when my children will officially become mine, waiting to hear when I can meet them and bring them home. Add this on top of just the every day things (housework, parenting, groceries, school work), and I am tipping the scales of what I can handle. How am I supposed to get up each day and do what needs to be done while all I really can think about is my family? I feel like the right answer is to just have faith that things will work out for the best.
If I am honest with myself, the last two and a half years have been the biggest struggle I have ever had in my faith. I know the scriptures and cliches about waiting for God's perfect timing. They were quoted to me regularly over the last few years. I am supposed to be faithful and wait for everything to work out in a way that should overshadow all the pain and loss of the last chapter of my life. Once I have my family, I am suddenly supposed to feel thankful and joyous and understand why God chose to make my parenting journey such an intense struggle. I just don't believe this. God is good, and He is heartbroken as well. He is hurting because of our intense pain. He didn't decide my husband and I needed to learn a lesson or that we weren't good enough to be parents. Our babies died. God could have saved them, but that isn't what happened. He didn't make us lose our babies. I think the book Empty Arms by Pam Vredevelt explained this best for me. After my first miscarriage, I was really struggling with people telling me that is just wasn't meant to be, and the timing must just not have been right. It made me feel like I was truly to blame for my miscarriage and that God didn't think we were ready. What a horrible way to make a person feel! I felt pressured to turn my frown upside down and pretend I was thankful that God was teaching me a lesson and causing my struggles. Some things just happen. God doesn't make them happen, but He allows them to happen. What we do with those struggles is what shapes us as a person.
So here I am, still waiting on my family. Worried that this will all fall through, for one reason or another, and that I will be back in a state of grief and loss, and stressed out to the max. I am trying to turn my fears over to God, but it is a risk. If I turn them over to Him and something bad happens, how will I process that? Will I feel like God is punishing me? Maybe it would just be better to avoid talking to God about it because then I don't have to worry about feeling abandoned. Am I supposed to act like I have no worries about everything going on, and that, no matter what happens, I will be full of thanks? The only thing I can do or control in this situation is to be honest with God and ask for His peace.
Father God,
I don't know why things happen as they do. I am still hurting every day over many losses: my two babies, motherhood through pregnancy, passing on my genetics to my children (for better of worse), my innocence and joy related to pregnancy, the children I have fostered, and so much more. I refuse to believe that You would cause these struggles. I choose to believe You, as my loving Father, are hurting through all these things too. Even when I am silent for awhile, fearful of the future and putting my faith in You, You still love me and know everything I am feeling. You never leave my side. God, I need to release my stress to You and breath in Your love and peace. I ask that You intervene in our adoption process and help us jump through all the hoops we have in front of us. Renew my faith, and help me to be a witness to Your love and compassion despite my struggles.
Amen
Saturday, September 15, 2012
I am...complicated
I am a first time blogger. I have come to a point in my life where I
don't know anyone else who has the same experiences as me, so I am
reaching out to the big world wide web. Perhaps someone else will be
able to relate. First, let me explain my life.
I am a wife to a great husband. We recently celebrated our 6th anniversary, and we look forward to scores more!
I am a teacher. I taught 6th and 7th grade math for six years. Two years ago we moved, and I began teaching 6th grade elementary. I loved teaching math, but I am also enjoying teaching a wider variety of subjects and having only one group of students rather than 100 students.
Here is where it gets complicated.
I am a parent...I have struggled with parenthood for the past two and a half years. We had a miscarriage with our first child at 13 weeks. We didn't know we had miscarried, so it was a shock when we went to our appointment to hear the heart beat only to find out our baby had died. After a few months, we decided to try again. With the second pregnancy, the doctor knew it was not progressing normally. After a month of appointments, ultrasounds, and blood draws, we miscarried our second child as well. During this time, I struggled more emotionally and spiritually than at any other point in my life. I cried out to God to save my child. I feared each day that I would lose my second baby. It was hell for me. We pursued some testing and found that, as far as they could tell, there are no reasons that we cannot have a healthy baby. Because of the emotional toll, however, we were not sure we could handle another pregnancy.
We decided at that point to look into foster parenting. We started the process and were almost done with a home study and licensing when we unexpectedly moved to another state. Because we hadn't completed the process, we had to start it all over again in our new state. After 11 months of paperwork, trainings, and background checks, we began foster in November 2011. We knew we wanted to adopt a sibling group through foster care. We would gladly have adopted any of the foster children that have been in our home, but that opportunity did not present itself. I guess a public venue is not really the place to share intimate details about something that isn't official and legal yet, but we have been chosen to adopt a family of three. It is an out of state adoption of three kiddos under six years old. The paperwork and logistics could be quite time consuming. We were one of more than 30 families that applied for them, so I can hardly believe we were chosen. At the same time, however, I KNEW when I saw them that they were my kids. Not only will we be adopting these kiddos, we currently have a child with us...so we are about to be parents of FOUR kids. FOUR. What a scary and exciting thing! I don't know how to do that much laundry, organize my house to make room for them, or plan how to spend one-on-one time with each child each day so that they can bond with us and know that they are loved and cared for. It will be a challenge.
I am excited by having our forever family, anxious to have some answers, overwhelmed by the huge changes coming our way, and happier than I could have imagined!
Maybe you can relate? Maybe you have some advice?
I am a wife to a great husband. We recently celebrated our 6th anniversary, and we look forward to scores more!
I am a teacher. I taught 6th and 7th grade math for six years. Two years ago we moved, and I began teaching 6th grade elementary. I loved teaching math, but I am also enjoying teaching a wider variety of subjects and having only one group of students rather than 100 students.
Here is where it gets complicated.
I am a parent...I have struggled with parenthood for the past two and a half years. We had a miscarriage with our first child at 13 weeks. We didn't know we had miscarried, so it was a shock when we went to our appointment to hear the heart beat only to find out our baby had died. After a few months, we decided to try again. With the second pregnancy, the doctor knew it was not progressing normally. After a month of appointments, ultrasounds, and blood draws, we miscarried our second child as well. During this time, I struggled more emotionally and spiritually than at any other point in my life. I cried out to God to save my child. I feared each day that I would lose my second baby. It was hell for me. We pursued some testing and found that, as far as they could tell, there are no reasons that we cannot have a healthy baby. Because of the emotional toll, however, we were not sure we could handle another pregnancy.
We decided at that point to look into foster parenting. We started the process and were almost done with a home study and licensing when we unexpectedly moved to another state. Because we hadn't completed the process, we had to start it all over again in our new state. After 11 months of paperwork, trainings, and background checks, we began foster in November 2011. We knew we wanted to adopt a sibling group through foster care. We would gladly have adopted any of the foster children that have been in our home, but that opportunity did not present itself. I guess a public venue is not really the place to share intimate details about something that isn't official and legal yet, but we have been chosen to adopt a family of three. It is an out of state adoption of three kiddos under six years old. The paperwork and logistics could be quite time consuming. We were one of more than 30 families that applied for them, so I can hardly believe we were chosen. At the same time, however, I KNEW when I saw them that they were my kids. Not only will we be adopting these kiddos, we currently have a child with us...so we are about to be parents of FOUR kids. FOUR. What a scary and exciting thing! I don't know how to do that much laundry, organize my house to make room for them, or plan how to spend one-on-one time with each child each day so that they can bond with us and know that they are loved and cared for. It will be a challenge.
I am excited by having our forever family, anxious to have some answers, overwhelmed by the huge changes coming our way, and happier than I could have imagined!
Maybe you can relate? Maybe you have some advice?
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