processing my grief

My lovely friend, April, passed on to me a blog she thought I might enjoy. The mom has a bunch of kids on earth and one daughter in heaven. www.mollypiper.com

She posted this after posting a happy picture of her and her husband when she was 36 weeks along with her baby girl a few years ago.

Today, memories like this [picture] make me cry—hard. We had no idea that we were a few weeks away from one of the worst tragedies we’ll ever face.
So if you’re a mom like me, living without one (or more) of your children, take heart that this is indeed one of the hardest things you will ever live through. But that also means that you lived.
The lines around your eyes will deepen. But that also means you’ve seen. You’ve seen the chaos of pain. Your eyes have and will shed tears for people in their pain that you could’ve never understood before. This is a blessed gift.
Hold on with me. We’re gonna make it. We might not be the happy-go-lucky gals we used to be, but our lives here will tell stories of indescribable loss and the love of a God who made us to be exactly who we are—every line, every gray hair. None of it is wasted.

I'm reposting that because it helps me right now. I'm having a rough morning missing Brody and missing the what ifs and the could have beens and memories that we were going to make with him on earth.

Here's another post where I put my name in where appropriate: 

I want to assure you that I feel really held by the Lord. I feel safe. ... So there’s got to be something for me in this. There has to be. ... I want to see the beauty of what God has for me here. It means that some days are really hard. It means that I’m going to places in my soul that I didn’t know existed before this. It means that I’m a different person. But I’m getting more comfortable with the [Laura]  who’s been asked to bear this grief. I’m relaxing into the transformation a little more now.
I wish every day that [in the future] I would get to hear [Brody's] new words, listen to [his] post-nap singing, change [his] stinky diapers. Yet I know that losing [him] has changed me more than getting to raise [him]would have. That’s a hard reality, but it’s the reality I live with.
Lord, make it something beautiful.

I'm reading through her blog backwards (recent posts first) so I still have plenty of posts I can read that will surely help me as I walk through missing Brody.

I just wrote to someone, I feel guilty for being happy that he's safe with Jesus, but I feel selfish for wanting him here. It's an odd paradox that I'm just not sure what to do with. This author who I quoted has had almost 3 years I think to process her loss, and I'm going on a few weeks, so I know I have a long way to go, but I remind myself of a few things.

1. One of our good friends told us in the hospital on Tuesday morning (the day after my water broke) that God believes in us. He believes we can make it through this journey. He believes we can make it through without falling away from Him or become a worse-off person than before. That phrase "God believes in me" has stuck with me.

2. God will never give us more than we can handle - 1 Corinthians 10:13. Yes, I sometimes feel like screaming out, Are you kidding me? I can't handle this! But God obviously thinks more of me than I think of myself. (Again, see point #1.)

3. One of my pastor's favorite verses in James 1:2-4. It tells us to consider it joy when you fall into various temptations/tests/trials because the testing of your faith worketh patience. I get that. We can be happy when we grow in our faith, even if it means going through a difficult time. Beyond that though is verse 5. I've never really made the connection between verses 2-4 and verse 5, which says that God gives wisdom to those who ask. The time of a trial in your life is exactly when you need wisdom, because any time you go through something difficult, you will hit those times of "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now." That's when you can ask God for wisdom.

My mom is here now to make lunch. I think we'll watch something on Food Network too. All for now~

in case you want to know...

One reason I'm a tired girl right now and get tired very easily is because I did go through labor with Brody. Because he was born early, parts of it actually were worse than normal for me physically. One of the effects I'm dealing with right now is that my hemoglobin is low. It was low enough that they could actually have done a blood transfer, but it wasn't dangerously low where they would have to do a blood transfer (thank you, Lord!). In order to get my blood back to normal, I opted to take iron pills and do my best to eat iron filled greens and meats and other foods. One of the effects though of the low hemoglobin is tiredness. It's pretty crazy because I can do stuff around the house for a half hour or hour and I'm wiped and ready for a nap! So my challenge over the next few weeks will be to figure out how to get enough sleep, take care of my body,  and not overdo it.

All for now... working today, but highly contemplating a nap!!!

one tired mommy

I am a very tired mommy right now. Yes, I am a mommy, but no, I don't look like the mommy every one pictures when they think of a mommy. I'm a mommy whose child made it to heaven before she did. I'm a mommy who got to spend a few precious moments with my baby before passing him on to Jesus.

I don't think my head has wrapped around what exactly has happened or what I'm missing out on. Some of it has sunk it, but not all of it. I do know that the Lord gave us a precious gift: the gift of life in our firstborn son. He also gave us another precious gift: eternal life. The thought that He gave that directly to our son is pretty overwhelming. As much as I wish he was on earth, it is comforting to know he's in a much better place with Jesus.

Yeah, I don't have all the answers and don't know exactly what to think or feel, and from what everyone says, I don't need to know. But I do know that I am very grateful for everyone's support and prayers. It's incredible to be surrounded by such an outpouring of love and know that love and God's grace is what supports you through the most difficult of circumstances.

I know that God has to be doing something in me to be able to look back on the past two weeks and find good in it. I was talking with my sister-in-law and she said the same thing. It's odd because it's a tragedy that we lost our son early and our vision and hope for our immediate future had drastically changed... but somehow God shines on the good in the middle of that.

Thank you so much for your support. It's amazing and I'm truly grateful for the imprint each one of you have left in my family's lives.

Brody Mark Wegener, our firstborn son

Brody Mark Wegener was born Saturday, November 20, 2010 at 3:15 p.m. He spent an hour with his parents before going home to Uncle Brian, Grandpa Pulaski, other family, and Jesus. He will be missed greatly and left a wonderful imprint on our lives. We will always remember our firstborn son.

Thoughts, processing, and journaling will come later. 

Thanks for all your prayers during this time. It has been felt and we wouldn't make it through without your support.

P.S. Just so you know, we're taking it really slow on visitors and phone calls right now. Thanks and much love.

life can change in a second

Hi everyone!

Apparently I've been really quiet on my blog for a while, but I have a feeling I'll be blogging a lot more, because I am almost 21 weeks pregnant and now on bedrest. The short story is that last Monday morning, I woke up to go to the bathroom as normal, and my water broke. Erik quickly called 911 and the police and ambulance were at my quiet little neighborhood making a ruckus in just a few minutes. On a side note, Tucker was so excited to see the flashing lights and have the men come into our house, and he was VERY disappointed when the men on a mission kinda shoved him away. :-)

We had our first ambulance ride, Erik in the front and me in the back. And, yes, both of us were slightly disappointed that they didn't turn on the lights and go full speed for the hospital. They stopped at stoplights and everything! Given my situation, they wanted to keep me stable and steady as opposed to jerking through traffic. I suppose if my arm was hanging halfway off my shoulder and blood was gushing everywhere, they might have used the lights!

That day at the hospital was really rough. An ultrasound showed that the baby had no amniotic fluid (it had leaked out), the baby's heartbeat was stressed, I had a small infection and/or fever (don't really remember!), and I was having small contractions. I think everyone at the hospital assumed I would go into labor.

The good news is I didn't. Brody's heartbeat calmed down and the infection/fever went away. On day 4, I was able to go home to my parents so my mom ("Nurse Martha") can take care of me. Erik is here too. It's much more relaxing at here than the hospital!!

We have a long road ahead... so if you'd like to join us in prayer, please agree with us that my body is filled with the health and life of God and Brody's has miraculous healthy development and he can stay in me a long time. Specifically, no infection in my body or Brody's, that my body would not go into labor yet, that Brody could be surrounded by extra amniotic fluid and that the fluid would stay in me.

Thank you so much for every prayer, message, phone call, etc. It helps so very much.

Love you all!

in the world but not of it

So my mind is churning again with questions surrounding the idea that we, as Christians, are supposed to be "in the world, but not of it."

Jesus said in John 17:15-16 as He prayed to His Father for his disciples, "I do not ask that You will take them out of the world, but that You will keep and protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world (worldly, belonging to the world), [just] as I am not of the world."

He continues in verses 17-19, "Sanctify them [purify, consecrate, separate them for Yourself, make them holy] by the Truth; Your Word is Truth. Just as You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And so for their sake and on their behalf I sanctify (dedicate, consecrate) Myself, that they also may be sanctified (dedicated, consecrated, made holy) in the Truth."

We've been sent into the world, but not without Jesus taking in the time to sanctify us and dedicate us and consecrate us to Him. We've been set apart to God.

I wonder what that should look like. Erik and I have been reading about David in the Old Testament, and it sticks out to me that he is very, very human. (just read through the psalms and see all the times he asks God to crush his enemies!) Yet, he is one of the most honored Christians. God considered him a man after His own heart.

Then I was thinking about the New Testament and the stories we have as examples to live by, and we don't have a ton (especially compared to the Old Testament). What we do have is the book of Acts--which shows us the power available to believers because of the cross. We also have the Gospels and the life of Jesus, our main example.

I read through Mark chapter 11 today and one thought came to my head about Jesus: He was a bit odd (speaking purely from a human standpoint). Within this one chapter, He tells His followers to go take a colt from someone's house without asking anyone for permission, He talks to a tree and tells it to stop bearing fruit (and it listened!), and he answers someone's question with a question of his own, instead of an answer.

Jesus isn't the typical human, and I don't think that I would consider Him the typical super-spiritual person that some might think Christians should be today. He was, though, purposeful. Everything He did had a purpose, even if was the atypical way of doing things. The other thing that stuck out to me was that he was purposeful to spend time alone, praying, with His Father.

Purpose. Jesus' life was filled with it. I'd like mine to be filled with it too. Perhaps that's just one glimpse of what it means to live in the world, but not of it.

On another note, baby is doing well. We're almost a week away from finding out if the baby is a he or a she! Yahoo! We're super excited. God is good! :-)

The passing of a milestone

Hi there.

I'm working, but I have so many thoughts running through my head, I thought I'd take a moment to write them out.

Overall, last week was a rough week. It went really well given the circumstances, but I can tell from the stress my body had throughout the week that it wasn't easy as we remembered Brian's passing last Tuesday. Erik and I visited his grave on Wednesday and were very blessed to see how gorgeous the cemetery is with the fall leaves and how beautiful Brian's marker is. It was a really special moment to be there.

Of course, having the story-oriented mind that I do, I knew we were racing against the clock due to heavy traffic on our way over there. The cemetery closed at 7 p.m. My mind was imagining all the funny (and not-so-funny) stories that would come if we got locked in the cemetery overnight! Okay, sounds funny and slightly morbid, but it brought me a smile in a sad time.

It was really special when we got there because after Erik encouraged me to talk to Brian a bit, Erik said, "Well, aren't you going to tell him?" It took me a minute. Then I realized that I needed to tell him he was going to be an uncle! I knew he already knew, but it was a special moment to tell him in person. I really wish my kids could have met Brian, but we have lots of good stories to tell about him and how wonderful he was, and I know our kids will have lots of people surrounding them who will tell stories too.

When I think about being sad that Brian's not here for my kids, I'm simply grateful he was here to meet Erik and see me get married. Personally, I don't think he would have left if he didn't know for sure I was taken care of. Of course, I wish Erik could have known him better and when he wasn't as sick, but I'm grateful they met and spent some time together.

Making it through last week has definitely lessened my stress levels/emotions... which is good because I have a baby in me to take care of!

On a lighter topic, I bought bedding for our nursery recently! I absolutely love it. And no, it's not blue or pink. We'll find out what we're having in a few weeks. It's pale green and yellow with hints of pinks/purples/blues/oranges and a jungle theme. A shout out to my mom-in-law and sis-in-law who accidentally got our baby similar looking pale yellow giraffes (stuffed animals)... that started the whole jungle theme idea! Excited to put it up, but until it's a little closer, my wonderful mother has it stashed away in my old bedroom (the grandkids room).

Odd... my brain is racing between making time for God, planning dinners and lunches, baby showers, daily schedules, a baby coming, and Christmas lists! Yikes! :-)

Thank you for all the love you've poured out on me and my family throughout this past week. It was overwhelming and very helpful and supportive. I appreciate you, my support system, more than you may know!