For 5 years a crib sat in a green room in our house.  The room was decorated with Winnie the Pooh.  For five years that crib has either been occupied or there has been a baby in my womb growing snugly until she was ready to take her place in that crib.

The crib is gone now.  It’s empty.  There’s no baby coming to fill it. 

I knew when we found out I had miscarried nearly two months ago that soon we would have no use for that crib.  But Lorelei was still happily sleeping there.  She hadn’t yet tried to climb out… that is, until this past weekend.

Lorelei decided to take the plunge out of the crib, and I decided we needed to take the plunge and dismantle the crib.  I had a hard time when I first realized I was really going to move her to the bed and there would be no use for the crib in their room any more.  But I am trying now to focus on all the milestones my “big girls” are hitting.  And how thankful I am that I have them.

We put her in the bed for the first time Tuesday night.  I had to go to a story, which I think was good for me.  I didn’t have time to dwell on the thought…

My husband got to listen to them giggle as they settled in to their new sleeping arrangements.  With Lorelei moving out of the crib and into the bunk beds, that means Ainsley is moving up to the top bunk!

He also got to handle the first time she realized she could get out of bed and leave the room.  He got to hear her sweet little voice from the top of the stairs.  He got to put her back in that big bed and give her a warning not to get up again.  (It worked.)

Yesterday, it was snowing all day and we worked at redecorating and rearranging the girls’ room now that it is painted a very girlie lavender and all traces of Winnie the Pooh are gone.  I told Josh to dismantle the crib.  It’s no longer being used.  It’s a big girl room now.  And that’s ok.  That’s what God has for us right now.

So here are a few funny things and milestones from our house recently….

Ainsley can sound out one vowel words.
Ainsley told a fellow student, “My dad is bigger than your dad.”  Yeah, he probably is.
My husband just shaved off his beard.  Lorelei has never seen her dad clean shaven, Ainsley has only seen him that way once or twice.  Ainsley said that she hopes her husband never shaves off his beard.  We told her her husband might not have a beard.  She told us that all husbands should HAVE to have a beard.  Ok….

Lorelei is now a climbing fiend.  She’s gotten the hang of it and has apparently lost all of her timidity.
Lorelei can identify almost all of her uppercase letters.
Lorelei was wearing her her purple pajamas and Josh told her she matched her newly painted walls.  She said, “No dad, I’m white, my pajamas are purple.”  Yes, she really said that.  She’s two.  How did she know she was white???? 
Lorelei’s favorite thing to say right now is “Why mommy?”  I don’t think Ainsley started asking why until she was over three.  She says “Why mommy?”  about every 5 seconds.

Now to go play those big girls of mine.
Pictures of their newly redecorated room will be in the next post, I think.  It’s really cute.

Just as we begin to start pulling ourselves up after our last trial, God is sending us another one.  My husband is definitely getting laid off on Monday.  That’s pretty scary for a family who relies almost solely on one person’s income.  We are resting and trusting in God’s promises.  We know that He’s promised to provide for us and we know that He only wants the best for us.  We have to believe that God has something better for Josh out there.  We will find out on Monday how much severance he will get.  It will be anywhere between 4 and 9 weeks.  I am unsure how much of that time we will have health insurance. 

There have been two other times in our married life that Josh has been out of a job, but both of those times I was working and we had did not have children.  Both times God opened doors for better jobs for Josh, we are praying that will happen once more.  Josh has spent most of this week at home since he knew the lay off was coming.  He had personal days to use or he would lose them.  It has been nice having him home, but he’s thrown off our daily schedule!  It’s strange for both me and the girls to have him home during the day.  And he’s antsy.  He’s one who always has to have something to do.  Right now, he’s painting the girls’ room.

Thankfully, I have worked at the school a lot this week.  I still don’t work enough or make enough to even slightly support us, but it’s something, and in this economy every little bit helps.  Josh has already updated his resume and even applied for a few jobs online.  A friend who works at ESPN has put in a good word for Josh (remember we both used to work in TV news) and other friends are looking around for us.  We know many people are in the same boat we are.  It’s a scary boat to be in, but we are “trusting Jesus, that is all.”

Our little family was sitting around the dinner table the other night having family devotions.  That night’s devotion was entitled “In everything give thanks.”  It talked about giving thanks not just for the good things, but even for the bad and hard things.  Ouch.  Josh and I looked at each as we read this devotional written on the level of a 4-year-old.  We try to drill such things into Ainsley’s head all the time; to be thankful, be grateful, for everything even if it’s something she doesn’t like for dinner, etc.  But what about me?  I certainly haven’t been very thankful lately.

I Thessalonians 5:18
In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

I don’t think God expects me to be thankful that I miscarried for a second time.  But I do believe He expects me to be thankful for other things surrounding it.  I started thinking about ways God has worked even through this last month.  One thing that came quickly to my mind was that with both the babies I lost God engineered a way to have my husband there with me when I heard the news.  Both times I could have easily been alone, but God took care of seemingly little details to protect me from being alone or having to drive home after hearing such awful news.  Since we found out, I have been anxious about being in certain situations or seeing certain people, and each time God has taken care of the situation so that I had no need to worry.  God gave me a good friend to lean on who knows my pain and can tell me that I will be ok.  Even though it was difficult to have all this happen over the holidays, I think it might have been good to have the distraction, the trip, and my husband home quite a bit.

Even as I have been trying to find more things to be thankful for, Satan seems determined to rob me of that.  Josh will likely be laid off by the end of the month.  It is pretty much a sure thing, the pink slip just hasn’t been placed in his hand yet.  We are praying some kind of miracle happens, and we ask that you lift us up in prayer, too, but we know that God will provide.  Will I be thankful even when my husband doesn’t have a job?  I hope so.

My gratitude attitude has helped as I dealt with the children the rest of the week.  I have been so short-tempered with them lately.  I had such a good time with them on Friday.  It was frigid and our car was in the shop, so we were definitely staying inside. My aunt gave Ainsley a book of all kinds of fairy crafts to make and a children’s cookbook for Christmas.  We spent hours Friday morning making fairy crowns and magic wands.  It was so much fun to just spend the day with them and do girlie things.  We also made a chocolate cake from scratch from the children’s cookbook. 

And since they’ve been absent from my blog lately, here’s my precious miracles, my girls with their fairy crowns and magic wands.  They are always pretending they are ponies right now (go figure) and ponies would have to carry their magic wands in their mouths, of course, hence the wands in their mouths.

Now those two are something to be thankful for.

Yes, our baby who now lives in heaven was/is a girl.  It is nice to assign a gender to her, to refer to her with the correct pronoun, to grieve for something I can actually picture, a girl.  Anyone who has ever lost a baby can understand how much just knowing this fact can add to the closure.  The not knowing can be torture.

But there are many more questions now.  I found out that piece of information today when the doctor called to tell me that the baby died for no apparent cause.  I won’t go into detail about how I was told one thing last week, and another this week, it’s convoluted.  I’ll just say that they now have the official report, and the baby did not have aneuploidy, or any other chromosomal problems.

This opens up more wounds for me, as I begin again to wonder, what happened, did I do something wrong?  It’s so frustrating, as I felt I was beginning to come to terms with everything.  I feel as though every time I start digging myself out, Satan starts pulling me back in.

The doctor wants me to go for some testing now.  Please pray for Josh and me.  We have so many things to think about.  The testing could show something as simple as a progesterone issue, or something worse.  It could, of course, show nothing at all.  We are struggling with resting in God’s sovereignty and at least trusting in some of man’s science. 

I know that no conception is out of God’s hands.  I know that my baby girl’s conception and her early death were ordered by God at the beginning of time, as was the conception and death of the other baby I lost. I know that if God wants us to have another baby, He will give us one.  I know that God only wants good for us, and even this is for His honor and glory.

This week I have been concentrating on being thankful, for the little and big things.  God has given me the ability to have children.  I do not have trouble getting pregnant.  I know so many women who would love to be pregnant, just once, I’ve had the blessing four times now.  I am thankful for my husband who has been an absolute rock through all of this.  I am thankful that God still desires to bring me closer, even when I sometimes push Him away.

I know that I have not handled all of this in the most godly of manners.  I wish I could be handling it better.  I am dealing with all that, believe me.  God is working in me.  I just still have a lot more to go.

This past week I had to do just that.  I didn’t have any other option.  My husband returned to work a normal schedule, my daughter had to return to school, my other daughter needed her mommy, my house needed cleaning, meals had to be fixed, laundry had to be done, etc.  In other words, life had to go on.

I also went back to work.  Actually, I had my first meeting on Jan. 2.  I was given a huge amount of work to do.  I confess that at first I felt overwhelmed, but when I started working, I realized that it would be really good for me.  I had something to occupy my mind, things to plan, deadlines to meet.   As most of you know, I function best when I am busy.

And so enters the manic period of my grief.  I spent the week, writing newsletters, press releases, planning for registration, reorganizing the girls’ room, emptying cupboards, even ripping down the Winnie the Pooh border in the girls’ room so we can start to re-decorate their room in a more girlie fashion…. and there was more, but I won’t bore you.  (For those of you who personally know me, remember “A Christmas Carol?”  Yeah, that happened just six weeks after my first loss… you can imagine my manic period for that.)

I went back to church today, both services, but not Sunday School.  I feel too exposed to be placed in a small group setting.  Last week I went to one service, and avoided talking to people as much as possible.  This time I spoke to a few people, and while most just gave me a hug and said I’m sorry, I still got the dreaded comments, too.  “But you feel fine physically, right?”  Said with the intonation of “so what’s your problem, then?”  “Are you on any medication?”  Huh?  And my personal favorite…. “So do they know what’s wrong with you, why it happened twice?”  Yup.  That’s why I waited a whole month to go back.  I would have been too emotionally raw to handle that any earlier.  Don’t get me wrong, I know people are not trying to hurt my feelings, but this is one of those times when you REALLY need to think before you speak. 

My friend Amanda volunteered to take my girls all day on Monday.  That was the day I had my doctor’s appointment.  Amanda has been the one person I could completely spill my guts to through all of this.  She has also lost two babies, and is the only person I feel truly understands the craziness that’s been my brain over the past month.  I was thankful to have that day to myself.  I needed to sort through some stuff, pray, and be by myself for a few hours. 

I think between that time alone, and my doctor’s appointment, God granted me a little peace.  I finally felt like I could move on.  Don’t get me wrong, I still have a lot to deal with.  I still cry when I merely walk by the maternity section at the store, I still can’t even set my eyes on the pregnant women in my church, I still avoid like the plague any blogs mentioning baby preparation or belly pics, I still stare at little bitty babies I pass by, I still see families of five and wonder…  But I do feel like I can finally sit down and try to see what God has for me through this.  In fact I am looking forward to it.   God’s fire is always refining.  And I could certainly use some of that.

At least part of the question of “why?” was answered today.

And it came in the form of an ugly word: Aneuploidy.  It’s not even pleasant to spell.

Here’s the definition:

“Aneuploidy is a condition in which a cell has an incorrect number of chromosomes. Human cells are supposed to have 46 chromosomes. Females have 23 pairs of chromosomes, whereas males have 22 pairs but then a final pair containing an X and a Y (females have two X chromosomes).

In aneuploidy, a cell might have three copies of a particular chromosome — making 47 chromosomes — or only one copy of a particular chromosome, making 45 chromosomes in the cell. Any change in the number of chromosomes can affect health. Some aneuploidies can result in a live birth, such as Down syndrome (Trisomy 21), but others are lethal in the first trimester and can never lead to a viable baby.

Environmental influences may be able to cause aneuploidy, but scientists believe that most cases of aneuploidy result from random errors in cell division. Most of the time, even when chromosomal testing after a miscarriage shows that the baby was affected by aneuploidy, the aneuploidy does not recur in future pregnancies.”

That last sentence is the hardest to read, for me.  It did happen again.  A chromosomal problem was the cause of the first miscarriage, too.  I just wasn’t given a word for it last time.

Finding out that it was a chromosomal problem is good and bad all at the same time.  I can finally let myself believe that there wasn’t anything I could have done to change it.  My baby was perfectly and wonderfully made only long enough to survive a few weeks in my womb. 

But it is also so hard to accept that there was NOTHING I could do to prevent it or to prevent it from happening again.  I was really hoping there was something wrong with me, some pill I could take, some hormone I could take to make sure it would never happen again. 

I went to a different doctor’s office than usual today so they didn’t have my whole chart.  He didn’t even have the complete pathology report, just the first page that said that awful word on it.  I wanted to compare the reports, find out if it was the same chromosome, etc.  But I guess it wouldn’t do any good… there still isn’t anything I could do.

I am now in the stage of miscarriage grieving where in one second want to sell all my baby stuff on ebay, have my tubes tied and never even think about having another baby, and then one second later I want to be pregnant again, NOW. 

Although this baby was a surprise, we were happy, we were excited, we felt so blessed to be having another child.  I was pregnant for 13 weeks, 13 WEEKS.  That’s a long time.  We talked about what it was going to be like to have three children, we thought about next summer complete with the thoughts of a newborn.  We were ready to add another little one to our family.  It’s hard to turn those thoughts off now.  In my mind, we were to be a family of five.

My mother in law wanted to know how the appointment went.  When I explained to her the cause of the miscarriage she said, “Well, now you should just be happy with the two you have and not try again.”  She might as well have ripped out my heart and stomped on it.  It’s not that easy to turn off the want for another child after you’ve lost one.  The thought of being pregnant again is terrifying.  The thought of NEVER being pregnant again and this is my last memory of being pregnant is absolutely horrifying.

The doctor ordered extra blood work to check hormone levels, iron levels, thyroid levels to find out if there are other problems going on or just hormone fluctuations causing my other physical problems right now.

I am trying to stop throwing myself a pity party.  I AM thankful for the girls God has allowed me to raise.  I am thankful they are perfect and healthy.  There’s nothing like two miscarriages to make you understand just how much of a miracle that is.  God has given us two gifts in those two girls.  And, of course, I know that if I hadn’t had the first miscarriage I wouldn’t have Lorelei.  I wouldn’t trade my joy baby for anything.  I need to stop focusing on what I don’t have anymore and focus on what God has given me.  I have to get out of the pit of despair I am in right now.  I am hoping just having some finality today will help with that.  I am going to try to see if I’m ready to crack open those books I ordered.  I need to start moving toward healing in my heart and in my head.  I know that God is ready and waiting to listen to me. 

Please keep praying for me and thanks for letting me talk through this journey.

We have so many pictures from our Christmas trip to Chicago.  I’ll try not to bore you with too many.  It was a good time for us to be with family.  It was hard for me especially to have to come home.  It was also a difficult Christmas, as you can imagine.  I still feel a bit stuck, like life is going on around me and I’m not quite part of it.  It was very difficult to see everyone all happy and joyful when I felt so sad inside.  Barely anyone spoke of the “big elephant in the room” which was partially by my request, but even that was difficult.  It is hard because I want people to acknowledge our loss, it hurts so bad when people act like this is no big deal, but it’s also hard to hear some comments people make.  Alright, so I’m already boring you… here are the pictures.

We spent one of our days at a place called JumpZone which had a giant room filed with those giant air-filled bounce houses and slides. 

My crazy kid.                                                            My once timid baby is becoming so brave.

Two days before Christmas we met my mom’s whole family and had a huge family picture taken for my grandma.  We then had present time at grandma’s house.


 I am including this one because this kid has the best facial expressions.  She makes me laugh…

Ben and Lorelei with Grandpa.  Those two have so much fun together.

We also went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. 

This was the giant tree in the main rotunda.  All around were many smaller trees decorated as they are in countries all over the world.  When we were kids, my parents took us to this museum every year to see those trees.  It was fun to take my kids, too.

My parents bought a Wii.  (Yes, you read that right, my parents did.  Don’t laugh my grandparents in South Carolina have one, too.)  Anyway, we had fun playing it a lot.  Josh and I want one now, but we’re waiting until we know his job is a bit more secure.  There’s already been one layoff at his plant, and more are supposed to come.  Start flying again, people…
 
Josh took this lovely picture of me plaing Wii bowling (at my brother’s house).  See that 212 score, that was me. I’m never going real bowling again.

On Christmas Day we spent with my parents and Jim, Hannah and the boys. The girls got capes with their initials on it from Uncle Jim and Aunt Hannah.  The boys each have one, too, but we never got a group cape picture.
Ainsley was excited to get her much-wanted princesses.

An attempt to get a picture of all four kids together…

And this is where the gender difference is realized…
 
The boys playing with their new “workbench.”

And the girls playing with the princesses.

Also on our Chicago agenda:   A trip to the Brookfield Zoo.   Yes, in December, in Chicago.  The zoo is open at night during the holidays and all lit up for the occasion, too. 

Jim and Hannah have passes so we were able to go for free so it was worth it to just for a little while, or until we got too cold.

Lorelei, Ben and Luke all in the same stroller…

And our friend the rhinoceros.

Once we finally made it home, we had Christmas with Josh’s parents and another set of nephews.  But I was so tired by that point, the camera never even made it out of the bag.

This past Monday we finally had Christmas with just us four. 
Ainsley was very excited about all these ponies.

And more pony stuff… of course.

And the big gift…
                           I was able to get the Rose Petal Cottage for a GREAT deal on Amazon. 
Saying hello…

The inside…

They have been playing in it constantly since they opened it. 

Keep me in your prayers tomorrow.  I have another doctor’s appointment.  I never saw the doctor last week when I went.  I only saw the ultrasound tech.  As for that appointment, it was awful and good all at the same time.  I had to see my empty uterus, but I had to see my empty uterus.  There was some concern that I would have to have ANOTHER d&c.  Thankfully, I do not.  Tomorrow will be my official post-surgery check up.  I am looking forward to it and dreading it both.  It will be good to find out it if everything is as it should be and my body is healing as it should.  But it is still hard to keep going back to the doctor knowing it is not for a pre-natal check.  It’s hard to see all those pregnant ladies in the waiting room… you get the idea.  I also have so many questions for the doctor… about some issues I’ve been having health-wise (headaches, extreme tiredness, etc.) and also about the baby.   I am desperate for as many answers as he can possibly give me.  The fluke of nature answer just won’t suffice again.  There are too many things that happened exactly the same way with both of the babies I lost that I HAVE to explore them.  The pathology results are not back yet.  They warned me that it may take awhile with the holidays. 

Alright, this is way too long.  But I wanted to get all the pictures in one post.  You really are a great bloggy friend if you made it through all of that.