Most of you that know me and read my cake blog know what happened over a year and a half ago.
But for maybe the few that don't or those who stumble upon this story I will fill you in.
I write this now at the beginning of 2013 more for myself and the process then anything else.
I also hope to make 2013 a better year with fun adventures in the heart even if I don't leave my home.
I hope to live more purposefully as I try to every year improve on the past. I hope to see more dreams come true and lived out. I hope to walk more fully alive and fully myself. I hope to laugh more, dance more, try more, play more, read more, exercise more, write more, bake more, and above all, Love more deeply.
In January of 2011 I started 52 weeks of cake. My plan was to bake a cake a week for the entire year. In April of 2011 I found out I was pregnant with our 5th child. That pretty much put a screeching halt on all forms of cooking. You see, I get extremely sick when I am pregnant. This precious little baby was quite the surprise. We had just had the " I think we are done" talk and then a few days later found out we were not done. :) So to be quite honest, we had a bit of hard time being excited and receiving this blessing. I think a lot of it having to do with being sick again but also it was just not on our radar. We were planning a big U.S. road trip for the summer and with me being sick it was going to be very hard. So I just pretty much became a home body and tried my best to get better and do what I could.
I also prayed a lot. I did not want to disapoint my kids and not be able to do the road trip.
Dear friends helped us out a ton. They brought food and cleaned and folded laundry and cooked and took care of our kids and helped Mark a ton. We are so grateful.
I had actually started to feel some what better around week 16 or 17. I would still throw up and felt pretty yucky a lot but I could push myself and deal with it some what. Some days were worse than others and some days were ok. I still had constant nausea but like I said I could sort of function. So we managed to pack up the motor home and hit the road. I truly was choosing to push myself. I knew at some point I would start to feel better and I just had to tough it out for my family. I also really wanted to go on this trip. We had been planning it for a long time. We left our home at the end of July. I think it was the 21st.
So we started off and were doing good. We had some good times and saw some amazing places and dear friends as well. We got to Colorado and that's when everything changed. It was August 12.
I was bleeding and cramping and I new something was wrong. I have had bleeding before so I wasn't overly worried but I was concerned. We past a hospital in a little town and new I should go and get checked out. So we got right in. With in minutes I was having an ultra sound and the technician didn't say a word. That's not usually a good sign. Then the Doctor came in and gave us the bad news. Baby Miles did not have a heart beat. We have never felt such grief and sadness. You feel so utterly helpless and lost. There is nothing you can do. I must have asked the Doctor multiple times if he was sure.
So there we were some where in the middle of Colorado with 4 kids in the waiting room and now what do we do? Well they didn't have an O.B. so they called a few other hospitals trying to figure out where to send us. They ended up sending us to a hospital about two hours away that was in the direction we were headed. Telling the kids was awful. They were so sad and didn't know what to do either.
We got to the hospital close to midnight. I was so tired and basically in labor. Mark parked the motor home in the parking lot just outside my window and stayed in it with the kids for the night. We couldn't leave them alone. So I labored alone all night. They had given me something to help me dilate and efface and it pretty much put me into full blown labor. It was so intense and I could not handle another contraction. They were right on top of each other. I had my last two babies at home and well that means no meds. But this was different. I couldn't endure the pain in that room alone and knowing I was going to deliver a dead baby. There was no joy set before me. I just couldn't do it. I got an epidural. I was so worried about doing it because you hear all those horror stories. So I texted a couple of dear girl friends and asked for help. They both said just do it. Don't worry. Get it. The epidural guy was there in a jiffy. The nurses were so loving and helpful. They truly were amazing in such a time. I am forever grateful to them all. Two of my nurses had gone through what I did. So they truly understood and got it. They had true compassion.
I ended up laboring all night. My dear friend Delayne stayed up with me all night via texting. It was as though she was with me. It makes me cry just remembering that. Also Lynette stayed up with me a long time and other dear girl friends. But it was Delayne that kept me company and prayed and comforted into the wee hours of the morning.
Baby Miles was born at 9:00 on the morning of August 13. He looked perfect in every way. He was perfectly formed and beautiful. He was so tiny. I held him and loved him and wept. I can remember his sweet face. I can remember how he looked like his own little self. I will never forget how God showed up in that room with me and let me see him in Heaven with Jesus. It was one of the most powerful amazing moments in my life. God is so good. I do not understand what happened and why Miles died. But it was not God or His will. Life just throws you a hard ball sometimes and it doesn't make sense. I can not explain it nor will I try to make sense of it. That only makes me feel crazy.
My only regret was not letting the kids see him. They were in the room next to us and I didn't know if it would be too much for them to see him or not. Later they asked but by that time they had already put Miles in a saline solution in a bag so we could take him home and burry him. I didn't want them to see him like that. A month or so later Joy had big cry over not getting to see him. We had to work through it. I am sure it would have made it all more real if they could have been able to see him and say goodbye.
We stayed two days in the hospital. The staff was amazing. August 14 is Clay's birthday and August 15 is Jubilee's birthday. It was also my nurses birthday that day (14th) so she went out and got Clay and Juby balloons and cake and ice-cream. It was so so nice of her.
We were also given a special little wooden box that a local woman makes for babies. They gave us a blanket and stuffed animal for Miles. We left feeling loved by them but empty and sad. I walked on to the motor home and burst into tears.
We still had quite a bit of trip ahead of us but needless to say I didn't feel like finishing it. All I wanted to do was get home. My baby was in my motor home freezer. I was in such pain. My heart ached like never before. My whole being ached. I would lay in bed in the back of the motor home and just cry. I would wake up and for a split second I would forget. And then it all comes flooding back. And then I felt powerless and weak. I couldn't move. Little Juby was 2 and sometimes she would snuggle up to me and lay her head on me. She didn't know what was going on but some how she knew. Its very hard being in pain like that and still have all your kids around you. They still need Mom and Dad. We still had to feed them and love them. You can't just turn off life. Although I sure wish you could sometimes. We would be driving, one second I was fine and then next I wasn't. Tears would come bursting out. A kind of cry you could not control or stop. Just this deep pain that had to come out. It would literally take my breath away. Mark and I were disconnected and didn't even know it at first. We were just in survival mode. What we needed to do was just stop and regroup.
We found a beautiful place to camp for the night. We just stumbled upon it really. We were tired and needed to stop. What ended up happening was so good though. Mark and I actually got into a big fight. We were just both in pain and trying to figure it all out. Sometimes that means a little yelling until you get to end of it I guess. So we did and then we were better. Well at least we were connected and going to deal with all the pain together, Not alone. It made me realize how easy it is when couples suffer a loss or go through difficult things why they get lost and alone in it all. You hear how divorce happens often after tragedy. It makes sense. You have to work at staying connected and not isolating.
At this spot by a river we sat and cried and held each other. The kids played and fished and collected rocks. We just sat there. It was this strange peaceful place that God was in. We ended up collecting 13 stones from that river to take home and place on Miles grave. It was a time of regrouping and figuring out what was next. We decided to just plow through the rest of the trip skipping a lot we had planned so we could get home faster.
We made it to the Grand canyon. Barely........ Our motor home kept breaking down. One time we were broken down in the middle of the desert in an Indian reservation. This was an all time low of a day. You know when you feel like you are all alone and no one cares or wants to help you? That was this day. We also didn't have much food and were so tired and ended up eating at McDonalds and Sonic Burger in the same day. It was sad indeed. Especially being the food lovers that we are.
You know life sucks when you have to eat fast food all day. We kind of laughed about it later. Stranded in the desert, hot and tired, in pain emotionally, eating crap food. Lord get me home was all I could think about. And we hadn't even gotten to the Grand Canyon yet. Well like I said we did make it there eventually. It was bitter sweet. I felt so empty inside. I was trying to be happy for the kids and make memories but even now every picture reminds me that Miles was not in my tummy and my heart was broken. It had only been a few days since it all happened. Every pregnant lady I saw I would have to suck it up and hold in my tears. Every new born baby I had to do the same. I felt so lost and so not me. A part of me was gone. And there I was in a world full of strangers in the Grand Canyon. It was at this point that Mark got me a ticket to fly home. He sent me and the three youngest home on a plane. He and Levi stayed to drive the motor home back home. I ended up only getting home two days before them because they got the motor home finally fixed and just plowed fast through the night in the hot hot desert. Thank God I was not in the miserable hot motor home with no A.C.
So I could stop there and pretty much end with the next year was really hard. I turned 40 that next month. I had some cancer cut out of my lip two weeks before my birthday. That was fun. Not...
I spent much of 40 just healing and asking questions that would and wouldn't get answered. In some ways its a blur. But at the same time vivid. Not sure that makes any sense. I ended up having a lot of health stuff come up. I was given so many antibiotics in the hospital. It really jacked up my body. I am still actually trying to get better. 40 was hard in so many ways. I missed Miles tons. I grieved, I lived, I walked through it, I faced it, I landed on my feet. Grief is not easy to maneuver. Some times I didn't know how to do it. That's when I would call Delayne or other friends. My home group really carried me that year. I love my dear friends. They are such a treasure to me. I also spent much of the first part of 40 feeling so disconnected from God. I did not know what to say to Him. I would just sit in silence with Him. I couldn't even talk to Him. There were no words in me. And even though I couldn't talk to Him I have never felt His presence so near to me. He was so close even though I was so hurt and mad at Him. He was not offended by my silence or my anger and pain. I can even now feel His warmth next to me. It was this quiet friend that just sat with me. He loved me and sat with me. Some times speaking a soft word of hope and life and truth. Tears would roll down my face and He was with me. So even though I felt this strange disconnect at the same time I have never felt his presence more. I felt disconnected because I wasn't talking to him so much and didn't know what to say but I was talking to Him. Just not with words. Some times in my heart I would utter something and then He would answer so quick and then I would just cry. He was so faithful and would always always meet me. Even in silence.
In August of 2012 I had a real turning point. It felt like the season shifted. It just literally switched and I new things were going to be different now. I had an amazing healing dream about Miles and I also talked with a friend that helped me work through a few things that I just couldn't shake. Guilt was a big one. So then September came and I turned 41. I can't believe I am 41 but I am. Now Christmas has come and gone and its January 3, 2013. I do not know what this year holds for me or my family. I do not know if we will have another baby. I only know that we are going to live and love and do life. Hopefully do it well. I love my husband. He is an amazing man. I love my dear kids. They are such gifts to us. We have plans to go to Hawaii in February and we hope to go to France in the fall. We
have two kids in school and one I home school and then Juby of course is home.
I don't know what I am doing. I am figuring that out. I want to dream again. I want to do the things that bring me life. I love so many things but making time for them is a big issue for me. So I will work on my priorities and figure out how to do it all. But for now I am starting with this little blog. I don't know where it will lead but I am just doing it anyway. :) Its good for me.
I know this was originally a cake blog but now its just a me blog. I will have to change the name now. I may turn it into some other kind of baking adventure. Who knows? But for now this is what was in me.
