Wife, mother, daughter and sister

"In the blink of an eye, everything can change. So forgive often and love with all your heart. You may never know when you may not have that chance again. "

Life changes....oh and how it does! It can take years, months, weeks, to even the tiniest second every thing you thought you knew about life can change. I have never realized that more than in the last few months. Before this year started, I was just something simple: a wife to my husband, a mother to my 3 year old child and one on the way, a normal daughter to my parents and an annoying sister to my sister (haha).
But on January 7th all that changed within a few hours, I was a mom praying for her child to be ok and at the time that's all that mattered.
A few hours later on January 8th, I was a grieving wife that didn't know if I wanted to live through this and having to lean on my husband, mother that had lost a child and wanting to cling to both my children, a scared daughter and sister who needed to be held together.
Man, even when you are going through it, the minutes that can change your life don't seem to be real. The feeling of standing there being helpless to help your own child is a feeling that no one can describe and I know that's the way God felt as Jesus hung on that cross. I would never wish that feeling on anyone.
If you think that your life can't change and it won't happen to you, you can take a step back just like I had to. I never ever thought I would be the mom sitting here at a computer sharing with people my experience with losing a child. If you had told me what my future held sometime last year, I would have thought you were crazy.
Yet, here I am. I am a wife who has to lean on her husband to get by some days, mother who grieves every day in some way for a child that I willl not know until I see him in Heaven, a mother that cherishes her time with her son that's living and gets upset at myself if I get upset with him, and a daughter and sister that tries to put on a smile.
It's hard every day and it's not a feeling that no one else has ever had, but let me tell you that every person deals with situations differently even if its the same situation. You don't know how you would handle the feelings that I've had unless you walked them with me in my body. My own husband has different feelings about some things and the experience was different for him in some ways because he's the father and men work different than women. Yes, he misses his child and it was his child the same as it was mine, but he has and will grieve different because that's how we are built. We went through the exact same thing but he has feelings to deal with that I may not understand, and vice versa.
The point is that when you stand there and criticize someone for the things they do or how they handle the things they are dealt. Just think. Have you ever stood in their steps, have you gone through what they have, have you been in their mind and thoughts?
I am the mother that has lost a child. Do I know other women that have lost a child, yes I do. But they will never know the exact way I thought and I will never know their thoughts. We may connect on some things, but ultimately we are different people and we will deal with things how we individually see fit. 
Life changes...in a second, minute, hour....however long, it can happen so appreciate each second that you have and appreciate your life. 

"You never know what God has in store, and you can make all the plans you want to. But at the end of the day, whatever's going to happen is going to happen."

I have made you and I will carry you.

Gonna write today because I have felt super stressed the last couple days. It's like I let it all build and it all comes crushing down. There are things going on in my life that I won't share on this blog, because that's just not my style, but it's not things that other people haven't gone through. I just got so overwhelmed with life in general on Monday. It seems like everywhere I turn something bad is happening to someone. It just hurts my heart.
I came in Monday to work and wanted to be there for a friend who had lost a great friend on Sunday, so I listened to her and just felt my heart get heavy. It just brought back a lot of memories.
Everywhere around me is death or hurting and I know that has always go on but I just don't understand it all sometimes. I know that I have a God who knows EVERY reason for EVERYthing, but sometimes that doesn't make it any easier. I have seen quite a few things happen to people around me lately: deaths, illness discoveries, etc. I think that the main reason I've become so affected by these is I know the hurt more real now than I ever thought possible. I see children with cancer, updates on babies that are sick, etc on Facebook and it all seems to hit right on my broken heart.
I thought that when I had my first broken heart was from my first love but that was FAR from true. My heart broke the day I lost my son. I think that God mends us but I also know that there is no way to replace that piece of my heart because I will always long for him until I'm with him. My heart lives outside my body with my two sons and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
If there was one verse that I have come to LOVE in the last couple weeks, it's this one:

I have made you and I will carry you.
I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
                                     Isaiah 46:4

I got a tattoo the other day with this verse and my baby's birthdates. To me, this verse has two meanings: like God I have made and carried my sons, I sustain them by providing what they may need or want and I will hopefully provide some rescue whether it be just by turning the channel cause a scary part of a movie comes on tv (did that this morning for Landon...haha!). The second reason is that God provides all those things to me on a daily basis especially lately.
Do I fail God on a daily basis, I do, but it isn't something that I am proud of. I try to do good because I want to please him. He is my Father and I want to make him proud.
I know that Landon will probably do things that don't please me or my husband but I want to raise him in the way that he should go. He will always be my son, and so will Lawson even though I don't have to teach him because God is teaching him and he has no sin!
Moral of today's rambling ;) is that God will carry us on days like I've had this week and he will rescue me from this and let me have good days.   

My faith sometimes falters

Oh the ups and downs of life! As the events unfolded in Oklahoma yesterday and I learned of all the children's lives lost, it hurt. It hit me all the way to my soul that more parents have joined the grief that my husband and I have gone through the last couple of months and it made me break down. There are no words. I don't understand and I had a bad day yesterday and just wanted to know with all my heart the purpose of taking children's lives. I know I need to have unfailing faith but sometimes I fail in that. I do ask why and I do want to do things over. It just hurts all the way to my heart. I know exactly what the phrase means when they say your heart breaks for someone because I may not have been in that exact situation with those parents but I know the heart break of losing a child and it is the worst feeling I've ever experienced.
There's disbelief and pain  and heartache and wishing that things were different. I cried to my husband last night and kept saying that a lot of events that unfolded before and during my pregnancy are just so bizarre. Why choose during my pregnancy for me to contract CMV? It would not have affected my baby if it had been contracted at any other time, but because it was at a point in my pregnancy, I am now without my child. He controls everything, so why let my husband and I have such problem getting pregnant and then let me go so far into my pregnancy only to take him? And as I'm sure those parents wonder why would he let their child be in the path of that tornado.
I don't know why I ask myself and God these questions because He never promised us all the answers and sometimes its better that we don't know. I am human however and just wish there was a better understanding in some situations but then it wouldn't require as much faith. And that's what He wants us to have is faith.
Maybe my small purpose in life is that I can show someone love and support in the event of a child's passing. If I can help one person even just by listening or by writing these blogs, then maybe that is part of my calling.

"When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strenthen you."

"Dear God, I've tried my best, but today if I lose my hope please tell me that Your plans are better than my dreams."

The love of a mother

Mother's Day was a day of rejoicing for the son that I have that is growing into a little man and a day for me to reflect on the son that I don't have here to watch him grow. He would have been 4 months old and I would have been holding him in my arms. Instead I had to go to the cemetery and put some new flowers out for him. I know that my son was smiling as I cried there talking to him. It was one of the hardest days I've had in a while trying to control my emotions. As I pulled up to his grave I was overwhelmed at how pretty it was! The sun was shining through the trees and everything was so green. His grave is under two trees and they are beautiful. I cried just at the site because I had not been up there since March and nothing was blooming or green yet. We put his flowers in a small green tractor planter and put an owl birdfeeder on the shepherd's hook beside his grave. It turned out so cute! So boyish just like he would have been, just like his brother.
Oh how I missed him yesterday and thoughts that I will never get to celebrate Mother's Day with all my children physically but in a way he can warm my heart from the inside so I can feel loved in so many ways!
I spent the day with my mom and grandma and they are most of the reason that I can be the mom I am today because they taught me how to love. God has an unconditional love and I think that the closest thing to that here on earth is a mother's love. 
So this is to the mothers that have children that are living, children that are sick, children that may have had a life of less than two weeks in your womb, children that were stillborn or too sick to move on, or anyway that they came into this world, be thankful for the chance to be a mother cause some women do not get the oppurtunity to bear children or watch their children grow. Please love them unconditionally just as God would!

A mother is she who can take the place of all others, but whose place no one else can take.

Mothers hold their children's hands for a little while, but their hearts forever.

More than my own

I have lost a life-Not my own.
But it would have been easier  to
have lost my own life
than to have lost the life
I loved more than my own.

No better words for how I feel daily. God please let me have some peace as it gets hard when I see other people and how happy they are with their children. I miss him so!

It's not the kind of sadness to where you cry all the time,
but more of like the sadness that overwhelms your entire body,
leaving your heart aching and your stomach empty.
Making you feel weak and tired, and yet you can't even sleep,
cause the sadness is in your dreams too. It's a sadness you can't escape.

Moments

This weekend was full of reminders of Lawson. I got home Friday and watched the episode of Grey's Anatomy that I had missed the night before. Well halfway through I got the most vivid memories of being in those moments of them making the decision to take him and being rushed to delivery and the anxiety and how upset I was.
The episode had a woman that was experiencing the birth of baby that had hypoplastic left heart snydrome. He was fine while in the womb, but when they delievered him he would need immediate surgery and chances of him living while making it to and through surgery are slim. As they were about to perform the c-section, she said no don't take him out, he's still living and I don't want him to die. That line that rocked me to my core and instantly made me cry. That was exactly what I was feeling and I wanted the best for him and they kept saying that the best was to get him out and work on him.You could say I was hysterical. Something was wrong with my baby, my husband wasn't there because it was supposed to be an easy checkup with the monitors, and I was going into a surgery that I'd never experienced before. But the only thing that I could think was that he wasn't healthy and I was freaking out. Luckily my sister was there with me. The only thing that I regret is that she had to be there to experience this sad event and had to inform the family what was going on after he was delievered. I thought that this kind of thing would never happen to me or any of us. I have never been more scared in my life.
Billy and I had a moment of crying and just holding each other also on Friday. It becomes so humbling in those times because it is knowing that I have someone there beside me that feels my pain. Because if there is ever a time when you feel alone its when you are trying your best to believe that something this awful could lead to good.
Last night Landon and I were playing on the bed and he pointed to my belly and said there's baby sister. He still calls it baby sister and I tried to explain once again that it was a brother and he had to go live in heaven with Jesus. I just don't know how to explain to a four year old and try to help him understand because I don't have his mind. It is a difficult concept for him I'm sure because he never got to see Lawson living. I wish that my son didn't have to try to understand such a hard subject and one of the most awful things that can happen to someone. I will share Lawson with him as he gets older so that maybe he will understand. As I will share Lawson with all my children that I may be blessed to have so that they may know that each and every breath and moment of life is special.

"I thought of you today,
but that is nothing new.
I thought about you yesterday
and days before that too.
I think of you in silence
I often speak your name.
All I have are memories and
your picture in a frame.
Your memory is a keepsake
from which I'll never part.
God has you in His arms,
I have you in my heart."

The Best One

Can you be a Mother when your baby is not with you?  
I thought of you and closed my eyes and prayed to God today.  I asked “What makes a mother?” and I know I heard Him say, “A mother has a baby”.  
This we know is true.  “But God, can you be a mother when your baby’s not with you?”  “Yes you can,” He replied with confidence in His voice.  “I give many women babies, when they leave is not their choice.  Some I send for a lifetime, and others for the day and some I send to feel your womb, but there’s no need to stay.”
“I just don’t understand this God I want my baby to be here.”  
He took a deep breath and cleared His throat, and then I saw the tear.  “I wish I could show you, what your child is doing today.  If you could see your child’s smile, with all the other children and say…”  
“We go to earth to learn our lessons of love and life and fear.  My mommy loved me oh so much, I got to come straight here.  I feel so lucky to have a mom who had so much love for me.  I learned my lessons very quickly, my mommy set me free.  I miss my mommy oh so much but I visit her everyday.  When she goes to sleep on her pillows where I lay.  I stroke her hair and kiss her cheek, and whisper in her ear, “mommy don’t be sad today, I’m your baby and I’m here.”  
“So you see my dear sweet ones, your children are okay.  Your babies are born here in my home and this is where they’ll stay.  They’ll wait for you with me until your lessons through.  And on the day that you come home they’ll be at the gates for you.  
So now you see what makes a mother, It’s the feeling in your heart.  It’s the love you had so much of right from the very start.  Though some on earth may not realize you are a mother until their time is done.  They’ll be up here with me one day and know that you are the best one.”

I love love love this poem. It means so much to me! I have had to look back at it many times during these trying times and remember that he is in the best place and is closer to my heart than I think possible. I did love him from the moment I knew about him. You see being an ultrasound tech I looked at my little baby all the time. I took his picture and sent it to family the whole pregnancy. That was one of the hardest things to do was to come back to the last place I had been when he was still alive in my belly. I didn't know how to NOT see him and feel him. You may think it strange but I suffered a long time with just wanting one more touch, one more hug with my little one. It was hard for weeks and I still have days where I crave his touch and want to go get his little body from its resting place. But I remind myself that his body is not what it was and his soul isn't there anyway. This poem helps me alot to look back at and remember that he is touching me, just not physically.