On May 18th, Julia would have celebrated her 6 month birthday. Mattie and I were flying to Seattle that day to spend a week with my parents. Having a trip to pack and plan for as well as a plane to catch definitely helped distract me from any melancholy feelings on Julia's birthday. We just got back today. Mattie and I had a great time up there with my family. I was hoping to do a bunch of blogging up there. But the combination of my parents' horrible internet connection and my many late night conversations with my mom (which I wouldn't trade for anything) meant no blogging for me last week. So here I am at home tonight and getting a moment to "catch up" a bit after a dreadful time getting Mattie to bed. It was seriously horrible. So bad that Bob is in bed and I'm out here in the living room decompressing from the whole thing (and it's only 9:30pm). Mattie can really struggle with transitions like coming back from a trip or being somewhere new. (I think she's probably pretty typical of a lot of 4 year olds... but not all 4 year olds are half as stubborn and vocal and dramatic as she is. She can take things to a whole new level. But I digress...)
How am I doing 3+ months after Julia died? In some ways okay, but other ways "worse." I am more sad now than I was right after she died. It's a lot of different things that contribute to that. There are a LOT of babies being born right now in my circle of friends and that is just a constant reminder of the baby I don't have. Life is back to "normal" with just Mattie. Life with just Mattie is mostly what we've known. And there is something about that "normal-ness" that just reveals even more to me that life was not supposed to be "back to normal." My life was supposed to be different: a life with 2 children, a life with a child with Down syndrome. Believe me when I say that I was scared of what my atypical life was going to look like with a child with Down syndrome. But that's what I was gearing up for. And in some ways, Julia's death brings a bit of relief from that fear. (Though I am all too aware that life is indeed uncertain and just because Mattie doesn't have Down syndrome and our family is all "healthy" today, doesn't mean that we are exempt from more pain and hardship in the future!) But the bottom line is that I miss HER! My life without her is *not* normal. I miss holding her and stroking her soft read hair and gazing into her eyes. I miss watching Mattie love her with a softness and tenderness that I don't get to see in Mattie very often. I miss watching Bob love her and care for her and interact with her. I loved what Julia brought out in each of us. She was good for our family in many unexpected ways. And now she is gone. At our couples' Bible study the other night, I was venting and emoting during our sharing time reflecting on the past 4 years. After 4 years: 1 year of "trying" the old fashioned way, 3 months on Clomid, 3 months on Clomid with IUIs (artificial insemination), 3 rounds of injectible fertility medication with IUIs, 2 pregnancies, 1 miscarriage at 18 weeks with no explanation of death, 1 birth, and 1 death I feel like I haven't progressed at all... I am exactly back where I started... with ONE child. I only feel like I've been through the war. THAT is frustrating. It's not just that I lost a child... but I can't just go "make" another if we wanted one. Not that I could replace Julia. I can't help but feel so jealous of women who just "plan" to get pregnant and do. Unless you have experienced the pain of infertility, you have no idea the toll it takes and you, your husband, your marriage, your life. And after what we went through with Julia, I'm not sure Bob and I have the guts to try again. I'm not sure even if we had the guts, if we even should. But we're not going to think about that for another 9 months or so. I do know that I am forever changed from all that... some for the worse, probably, but I would say character-wise, more for better, I guess. A guy in our couple's Bible study commented that we indeed have progressed- maybe not in making a baby, but in our character and relationship with God. And he's right about that, I suppose. I believe that God doesn't waste pain. In a sick sort of way, pain is too precious to waste. Pain in our lives is to be used by God. Pain is kind of like a deep cut. We have 2 options. We can try to mend the cut ourselves or ignore it and the cut will either become horribly infected and we end up in more pain than we started or the cut develops a tough outer scar that is a daily reminder of that wound. Or we can bring our deep wound to a physician who will clean out the deep cut (this will be very painful at the time but only for a short time) and who will stitch the cut together so that it heals properly. We will always remember the cut was there, but only a great physician can help it heal properly. God is our Great Physician. Only He can heal us in a way that is most healthy. However, it is up to us to bring our pain and our deep wounds to Him. We have to be willing for Him to work on our pain in His way and that might mean experiencing more pain on the road to healing. Too many times, people try to ignore their wounds or stuff them away. However, over time a large scar can form on their heart and harden it. I also feel that in the process of really healing our deep wounds, that God must from time to time reopen them and have us deal with them again. Or He has us reopen our wounds so that we can reach out and help someone else who is experience similar pain. All in all, if we ultimately give God our pain, our wounds, and our hearts, He will use that for our ultimate good and for the good of others. He will bring glory to Himself through it. Isn't that exactly what He did on the cross with Jesus?
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