Enough! Time to start again

It has been so long since I blogged. We moved into our new house, started renovations AND......had a baby!! I forgot how much fun a baby is, but also tiring. But there is nothing better than the cute sounds she makes (not so cute when it is at 3 in the morning).

This fall I am trying to get into a routine, though so hard with one car and Dr appointments and Bible Studies. I seem to just want to stay home with Abby, but there is Bible Study, Mom's group, and knitting group to go to. I also hope to once in awhile be able to get together with my loss group. At the same time I am trying to work on my sewing business- making quilts, fleece longies, diaper bags, and some day diapers.

In all the craziness of running around, adjusting to a new baby, and everything I feel like not enough. There is not enough of me to go to everyone, not enough time in the day and it is not helped that Abby tends to be fussy and want to be held. I am having to learn again that I AM enough in God, that HE has to be my strength and the one I go to when I just want to stay in bed and say "ENOUGH". But I will get up and go on with the day, maybe I will start taking a picture of one thing a day that inspires me.

October 15th is Remembrance Day for infant/prenatal loss and in honor of Robert and other babies gone to soon I am thinking of doing the Carly Marie Project's 31 days/31 Photographs project (more information can be found here). I think it will be a interesting to see what I choose for each day and maybe I will make one last item for his short life.

Wishing on Wishbones

Normally I try not to post about the struggles that I have, the down times. But right now nothing comes to mind to write, no topic is pushing at me, screaming "Write me, tell my story". I am sitting here just blah, even though it is one of those rare fall days in Western New York when the sun is shining, I just can't seem to get out of my own way. I have quilts that need to be finished, have knitting projects to do, a house to clean, but I just cannot seem to get ambition for any of them.

I am missing Robert and being pregnant, and realizing that if he had lived I would be delivering in about 7-8 wks. I should be getting ready and all the anticipation that comes with expecting a child, and instead I am praying for the miracle of becoming pregnant again. Also 1 wk from today is what would have been my due date for the ectopic pregnancy we had this year. I have never had a loss, had that due date approach without being close to being due. This is a new experience for me and I am not liking it, it hurts to feel like this, to want to be pregnant, to feel my baby kicking...

So now I am trying to be positive, trying to remember all that God has blessed me with. Yet I find myself wishing on a wishbone, wishing on a star, wishing on anything that I can.

Community, do you have one?

This week in church our pastor spoke on Community and how they are there to hold you up in hard times, then I join a Bible study and they talk about the same thing there. Hmmm do you see a theme here? I do and I am working at getting my community together.

But what is community? The dictionary says it is "a group of people living together in one place, esp one practicing common ownership: "a community of nuns". Another definition is all the particular people living in an area or place. I think you could take this further, a church is a community, yet not all of those people live in the same place, a forum online is a community, yet they can be spread through out the world. We speak about the Congenital Heart Disease Community or other such groups since they have a commonality that binds them together.

So if you take a community as a group that has a commonality that binds you together, who is in your community? Who is there that you have something in common with to base a relationship on?

To further a community though, it is not enough to just have a common goal, but to interact and support each other, and this is where it gets messy. When you begin to interact you have to open yourself up, to show the inner you, but you also have to see other people and decide if you can accept them as who they are.

Once interactions start and you open your lives to each other, life will always intervene. Something will happen where you feel that you are alone, that it is time to become a turtle and hide in your shell, that no one can understand what you are going through. This is the time that your community needs to be there, and hopefully there is one person in that community that you can let in, that you can cry in front of, open up your deepest hurt and not be condemned, to be allowed to deal with your emotions and have them stand by you.

As a community, when life hits and someone is drawing away, it is hard to know what to do. Do we stand by and do nothing? Is saying how sorry you are enough? Is just saying "if you need something, let me know" enough? Probably not. Most people when they hit a major bump in the road do not want to let people in. I know that when we lost Robert I did not want to see anyone, I just wanted to be alone. Our care pastor at church showed up at our door unannounced, and it was a blessing to have someone just be there. I learned through that that instead of just saying "let me know", offer to bring a meal on _____day, to pick the kids up from school and take them for dinner, to come do their laundry on ___day, whatever it is make it specific to a time and event (and this also goes for making time to get together, it never works to say call me, instead set up a certain time/date and show the person that you are serious about wanting a relationship, but that is another blog).

So this fall can you work on your community? Can you put yourself out there to truly open up to someone, to be there when life gets in the way?

Getting by with a little help from my friends

There are times you realize that your friends may not know how to be there the way you need them to be. That is when you often times either are left struggling on your own, or maybe if you are lucky someone throws you a life line.

For me that life line came in the form of a support group of women who have been there and understood what I was going through. I could cry and know that they understood the reason for my tears. We could talk about things that we all had in common, the loss of our children. And I was able to connect with an old friend who had thrown me this life line.

I am not sure I would have thought before this about going to a support group, or that it would help, or even that I would have so much fun. But maybe it was that this was not like a meeting, it was more like a bunch of friends getting together for coffee. We sat in Panera Bread and just talked, though next time I will remember to bring more Kleenex's. The common theme was the loss of our children, whether it was at 15 wks, 25 wks or 42 wks. And it did not matter if the loss was 7 wks ago, 6 months ago, or 4 yrs ago, each of us was still missing our child and each had tears at various times.

An evening spent with these women and I had a better handle on how I was feeling and knew that it was ok to be sad or to cry, that the timeline for how I was feeling would not be linear or go on the same pattern as someone else's. It has given me something to look forward to and common ground with others. Look forward to coffee and talks, to having fun at the spa, and just investing in each others lives. I hope that as we get to know each other close relationships will form with this core group of women and that we will be there for each other in the future.

Is there a lifeline you can throw to someone? Maybe it is as simple as inviting them to coffee or to a Bible study.

Is there someone you can reach out to?

Sitting at church today, in the very back of the sanctuary, where no one can see me or talk to me, I look around at the other's in the sanctuary and wonder who else is hurting? What are their secret pains that they do not speak about?

Before loosing Robert, I never really thought much about miscarriage and less about what other's might be going through in regards to fertility and loss. But now I see it much more. What woman in church is hurting because she cannot have a child? What woman has lost a baby and never spoken about it? What other hurts might there be?

As I sat there, wondering who else was crying on the inside while appearing to be okay, I wonder how we can reach out more to these women. Whether it is the loss of a child, the loss of the dream of having a child, the loss of a potential adoption, the loss of the innocence of a uncomplicated pregnancy (and the list can go on and on), what support is there for them?

I know in my area that there is a support group in the city that meets once a month, but that is a bit of a drive. There are also online supports, but sometimes you need that face to face contact and to know you are not the only one in your circle of relationships to be going through the loss (whatever it may be).

Is there something more that our churches and communities could be doing? Is there a way to reach out and touch those who hurt in silence? What can you do to reach out? Is there someone you know who could use a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, or just to be told that they are not alone?