Steps Back into Life

 

 

Welcome to Week 3 of Walking With You:  Steps Back into LifeShare about your first steps back into life. What helped you survive in the world outside as you took those first tender steps? Are there still tender areas for you today, living in a world that doesn’t embrace or understand the loss of a baby/child? How do you cope with those struggles? What advice would you offer those new to this walk to encourage and bring hope? How has this changed for you from the beginning? If you are in early grief, what do you fear/struggle with as you try to navigate a new normal….life without your baby?

 

 

 

I remember that my first steps were very hesitant. Very slow. Fumbling every step of the way. I could barely remember how to breath, let alone interact with people.

 

The first knock on our door when we got home took my breath away. Whose coming into my home? Where there are flowers galore and no new babies to show for them? I would talk about how our home looked like a funeral home, and then cry because we decided against a funeral.

 

We got home on a Monday. That following weekend we decided to go to church. BAD idea. I wept through the whole thing. Not a silent cry either. The service was all worship music and readings of scripture. I couldn't stand up, I couldn't feel my legs. People would come up behind me and hug me, or sit beside me and hug me. I just clung to my husband.

 

I remember we needed to run into the grocery store, I was so fearful I would run into someone I knew, and even more fearful that they would know and try to comfort me or say something to me and make me breakdown in the middle of the grocery store. I held my breath the entire time. I prayed a lot under my breath, it was more like demands on God. "You can't let me run into anyone I know", "You can't let anyone make me cry, you took my babies, it's the least you can do". Now, I know that's not what happened and that it was fully ok to talk to God that way, He knew my heart. His was broken too.

 

My husband, daughter and I took a 6 week break from life. We didn't do much with anyone on the outside if we could help it. We stayed close, took day trips, slept together, played together, snuggled a lot, cried more tears than I ever thought was possible. Dr's visits were hard. My daughter had her 15 month appointment during this 6 week "break" from life. We scheduled it a long time before. We weren't seeing our dr either because she was booked. The dr came into our room and started off with "i hear a congratulations is in order!" I cried. I had to explain to her that we lost the triplets. We delivered a few weeks ago and they didn't make it. Silence, apologies. Everything I tried to avoid.

 

 I got a necklace with their birthstone on it that carries some of each of their ashes. It doesn't look all that odd to me, but apparently to others it does. I would get questions about my "unique" necklace and would have to tell them what it is. Most had nothing to say, quickly changing the subject. Some apologized and got the heck out of dodge. A few even asked me if it was a whistle. Still stings every time I have to explain my necklace.

 

 

I am visibly pregnant right now, with less than 4 weeks to go. "Is this your first?" "How many children do you have?" "Is it a boy or a girl?" and when answered "a boy", and they see my daughter with me, "oh how wonderful, one of each!" I walk away fighting tears every time. Never fails. A few times I set them straight, but it gets old, and hard.  For sure, we live in a world that is blind to hurt, and blind to the fact that babies die. It just doesn't happen, right? I never assume anymore. I see a person with 1 child and I wonder if they too have the hurt of losing a child. Even people who know I lost triplets, who are well aware that they are a part of our family, they make comments about how Claire is going to be a big sister for the first time. I want to scream in anger. I actually still get angry when people say those things. She's been a big sister. Just because she doesn't see them everyday. alive, playing, breathing, etc, doesn't mean they don't exist. She talks about them all the time. She asks to kiss them, to see them, she knows they are in heaven and reaches to the sky asking to hold them. She's the best big sister in the world in my opinion. One of the strongest too, knowing how to love all the way to heaven.

 

 

We read about heaven a lot, we talk about heaven and how we will someday get to go and see them again. How we will all be together someday. We talk about her brothers and sister all the time. This helps to know they are near. This helps me to know they are still a part of my family. No matter what this world says or believes. No matter how many judging glances and comments I get for raising my children the way I do and will. Talking about them as a part of our family, including them when we describe being a family, those things help. They help to make me feel like they aren't so "far" away.

 

I am not the same person I was "pre loss". My goals, my vision, my dreams for my life are all different. Someone put it in an article I read daily, about how the days of blissful "mommyhood" are gone. Worrying about ear infections and colds and if your children are hitting the right milestones at the right times. That all seems silly now. Picturing  my daughters wedding day, my son's birth....it's like waiting around for the next bad thing to happen, for your next child to be taken away. Don't get me wrong, I have hope in the Lord, and without it, I wouldn't get through each day, I can promise you that. But I also don't take each day for granted. I feel like I'm always getting ready for a phone call filled with devastation, a trip to the emergency room or the dr that ends with one less person in this earthly family.

 

To encourage and bring hope to others, the only thing I have to offer is kinda redundant. Cling to Jesus. He will walk you through everything. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, to parent a dead child, to mother children in the heavenlies. Surround yourself with songs ushering in His presence. Surround yourself with scriptures describing His love for you and His plans for you, and His ways of bringing hope and peace to you. Even if you don't agree. Even if it makes you angry the first 70 times you read through them. He will infiltrate your spirit, your soul, your heart. His love for His children is so intense, there's no way to deny it if you surround yourself in the truth.

 

Phew, that was long. Sorry. Hope you could make it through it.