Hello Hurricane

 

This time last year, I didn’t know it yet, but a big part of my tide was about to turn.

It had been a year and a half since my last miscarriage, and Jason and I were longing for another baby.  And when I say longing, I am describing a deep, multi-layered and primal, aching desire that can hardly be understood except by those who have not yet had that desire met or who have had it in their grasp and felt it slip away.

After our last loss, we waited the required amount of time and then began looking for that next baby to come along.  But none came.  Months came and went and came and went at a grinding glacial speed, and no new baby was among them.  I struggled with the emptiness of heart and womb, trying to heal from loss while trying to fill with new life. 

Finally, Jason and I sought help.  Testing showed there was no problem at hand.  “Unexplained Infertility,” the doctor told me with a half-shrug that showed he understood no comfort would come from his words.  Our option was to keep trying on our own, regardless of the countless empty months behind us, or to begin taking a well-known drug that would increase our chances of conception.  One nurse told me, “If you can get pregnant, you will get pregnant on this drug.” 

And before I knew it, I was once again standing before the tide, waiting, willing, watching for any sign of its turning.  I understood it might not.  And I understood that even if it did, I could still be immersed in loss once again.  God doesn’t promise us that everything we want will go our way.  He says that He’ll work it all out for our good.  This is not always comfort in your moment of turning – but it is a quieter, deeper, more foundational promise of well-being than we can know in that moment.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear...  1 John 4:18a

I could never understand that scripture before.  But last year it was brought home to me.  Fear comes, it does - and it always will - but when we know that perfect Love of the Father - when we really understand that no matter what things may come along to hurt or scare us, no matter what, that He'll be there to work it all out for our good - then we can weather that Fear.  It comes, it howls and blows over us, and then it passes us by.  And still we stand.

Fear.  It’s insidious.  Even when the best things are happening for us, the things long hoped for, it lurks in the nooks and crannies of your mind.  I’m no stranger to Fear.   I knew it would come, before the hoped-for pregnancy, during the hoped-for pregnancy, and even after the hoped-for baby was born.  If we don’t deal with Fear at the beginning of the season, it will just keep returning – stronger and stronger – at the turn of each new season.

Hello Hurricane | You're not enough
Hello Hurricane | You can't silence my love
I've got doors and windows boarded up
All your dead-end fury is not enough
You can't silence my love*

So I stood on the brink of the turning of the tide, and I knew – even before I saw that the hoped-for child was on her way – I knew I had to plant both feet and wait to weather the storm of Fear that would be on its way.  Oh I knew I could just abandon this desire and run.  And I knew I could also allow myself to be tossed about by the storm of Fear, becoming a wrecked, ruin of a woman.  Or I could count the costs and stand on Love.

Sometimes I would lie in bed, with my hand on my abdomen, praying for new life, praying for health, praying for courage.  Being on the edge of such a life shaking force – the conception, carriage, and birth of a child, YOUR child – can be one of the most awesome and fearful places we will ever be.  The joy and fear are immeasurable.  And knowing the taste of both, I had to face them.  I had to count the costs and face the possibilities.

Everything I have I count as loss
Everything I have is stripped away
Before I started building I counted up these costs
There's nothing left for you to take away* 

So when we saw that little extra line on that beautiful test the morning of July 4, 2011, I was able to rejoice fully – knowing that no matter what would come down the road, Love would not be silenced. 

Hello Hurricane

*Switchfoot, Hello Hurricane

Faithful

Despite chilly mornings and stubborn snow flurries,  

spring is stirring.

You have been more faithful than the changing of seasons 

                                                         ~Skillet

Klamath Falls: Mission Accomplished

Well, we did it.  We moved.  As of November 29th, nearly all of our worldly goods as well as Jason, Jessica, and Siennalee have been living in Klamath Falls, Oregon.  

Left behind in Albany is our house (as of yet un-sold), a small contingent of storage, and our sweet doggy who, alas, is not welcome in our new townhouse.  (Thank you Mom for being such a good doggy grandma and taking care of him until he can come home to us!)  My mom is also keeping the house for us until we all make further plans.  Doggy and house sitter - Mom is good people.  :)

But now, we are - finally, gratefully, blissfully - a family living together under one roof.  One roof with boxes stacked nearly to the popcorned ceilings (um, it's not a contemporary place, our new townhouse), one roof with nearly 600 square feet less than we are used to (and one less garage - as in no garage),  but - one roof with all the novel happiness of seeing each other every day and basking in the coziness of this sweet new place.  We are happy.  We are blessed.  We are together.  

This was the view from our master bedroom window as snowed and snowed and snowed the first several days we were here.  In the distance you can just see snowy Hog's Back Mountain.  And in the lower right-hand corner you can see my new Acadia (hi sweetie!) shivering under the carport.

Summer Days Driftin' Away

Somehow, I’m just realizing, the summer has passed by in a whirl of packing, unpacking, traveling hither and thither, and cleaning cleaning cleaning.  I feel a pause in the frenetic activity that has swallowed me up these past months.  And I glimpse fall waiting quietly in the wings.

I’m glad for it.  Fall is my very favorite season, so rich in color and spicy smells and good hearty recipes and family get-togethers.  I also rejoice in the tangible proof that seasons do change – especially when one has felt caught in a souped-up version of the movie Groundhog Day.

Yes, many things – blogging included – drifted to the wayside during my summer months of packing, travel, and cleaning.  Oh sure, I began several blog posts, but somehow pushing the “publish” button was simply beyond me.  Heck, at one point, I even re-designed my blog layout for the summer months, but alas, nary a post.  Ah well.

The seasons are changing, and though change brings both loss and gain, I believe my family is ready for them.  There are new plans in the works, new ideas being discussed, and an anticipation we haven’t felt for quite some time.  Sometimes in order to gain the new things, the old things – the comfortable, safe, known things – must be put aside.

So welcome, fall.  I can’t wait to see the changes you bring.

Tests, Blood, and Vampire Eyes

My quickly-numbing eyeballs were growing blurry.  I knew my niece Isabella watched me with her somber, perceptive gaze, so I did my best to grin and bear it, even cracking the occasional joke.  She didn't laugh. She doesn't find me funny.

We - me, my sis-in-law Anne, niece Isabella and nephew Lincoln - were sitting in the optometrist's office waiting for my pupils to dilate to that weird, unnatural state that seems to get eye doctors all so giddy.  Tests from my previous eye appointment had dictated this one; pressure in my eyes was showing too high, a possible forerunner of glaucoma.  So I was ushered in for another round of tests.  Not something I'd really ever WANT to do, but especially now.  House on the market.  Husband away for two weeks.  Difficult past year under our belts.  Yada yada yada.

So I sat and laughed with Anne as we rounded all the topics two women touch on when they're parked in a doctor's office waiting room and working hard to distract each other.

Finally, when I could no longer focus (literally) on the book Isabella was holding or on my drooly 9-month-old nephew lolling on the floor, the nurse called me back.  I underwent the tests with what I hoped was saint-like joy and endurance so my niece would be inspired ("I remember waaay back when Auntie Jessica was in that eye doctor's office...").

And then we were done.  Of course, I'm skipping over all the really fun details - like the gallons of extra drops (of whatever they happened to find lying around in random droppers) into my poor eyes, like the things I had to squint at and look past and NOT BLINK, NOT EVEN ONCE for.  Yeah, after all that -we were done.  And the doctor came in.  

Dr. Jonathan Berry is one of those really great doctors who comes in, exchanges the necessary pleasantries quickly, and then gets right down to business.  So, y'know, you're not left waiting.  Wondering.  Guessing at the rate his eyebrows are moving and trying to work that rate into some kind of mathematical equation which tells you how bad the news really is since evidently he isn't going to tell you for another hour, give or take another round of eye drops.

"Everything looks good, real good," Dr. Berry said right away.  And I relaxed.  My lungs gave up that extra quarter of space they'd been hoarding for the past few weeks - or longer.  Things were finally turning.  Even just a little bit.  Good news was here.

Long, detailed, and medically brain-numbing story short - my tests showed that my optic nerve (the part of the eye which deteriorates during glaucoma and eventually causes blindness) is just fine.  The pressure in my eyes was still measuring high, but they'd watch that and if things began to go south, they'd give me eyedrops to combat it.  Almost as an afterthought, Dr. Berry had me undergo a cornea test - yup, more drops.  Later he called me at home with the results.  

Turns out, I have extra-thick corneas.  This means two things: 1., People with extra-thick corneas always test out at a false higher pressure in their eyes and 2., People with extra-thick corneas are less likely to get glaucoma than those with thinner corneas.  Go figure.  Finally there's an extra-thick part of me that I can be proud of.  They'll still be keeping an eye on me - standard procedure when things aren't textbook, but all in all, it was a good report.  I'm glad.  I needed one.

A second good report came when we were leaving the optometrist's office.  The nurse from my OBGYN office called my cell with the results from a follow-up blood test I'd taken.

Brief history: after the second miscarriage last September, my doctor had had me take a rather extensive series of blood tests to rule out any cause for miscarriage.  

Now, understand that most miscarriages, even subsequent ones, are just due to sad chance.  Not coffee drinking.  Not heredity.  Not God wanting the baby to be in a better place (even though they certainly are).  We are imperfect bodies, living in an imperfect world.  I understand that it's easier for a lot of us to have things like this buoyed up by a deeper meaning behind it all, but sometimes things just aren't.

But I, wanting to do all I could to keep from losing any of our next babies, I took the test.  And in the first round, something was testing out a little higher than it should have been.  It ended up being one of those somethings which was just high enough to make it not quite a negative, but not so high as to be a clear positive.  So my doctor decided to err on the safe side and had me take a mild medication (Baby Aspirin) to offset the potential condition.  He also requested that I retake the test later.

And here we were.  I had retaken the test.  And now I sat, just outside the optometrist's office where I had been given a much-needed good report, cradling the phone to hear the confirmation of the blood test results.  

Negative.  My results were negative for the condition that could have caused the miscarriages and could affect any future pregnancies.  I did not have the condition.  My blood tests were perfect.  It was a good report.

We got home and all the girls ran to play; the drooly crawler rolled around on my floor, looking for unsuspecting objects to stuff in his mouth.  I went to the bathroom to check out my still-numbed and blurry eyes.  Staring into the mirror, I had to chuckle a bit as the blue of my irises were only barely visible behind the ominously large, black, dilated pupils.  I looked like a hungry vampire.  But my heart was more satisfied than it had been in a very long time.  Sure, the events of the past year were not undone.  The things my family waits on and prays for are still yet to arrive.  But, as I looked back into my black eyes, I knew two very big things had been brought to a very good close.  All the worry, all the tears shed over them were now dried up and left behind.  I was free to move forward, unencumbered.  Without fear.

The turning of the tide: sometimes it comes slowly, but still it comes.