Warning: Deep waters and storms ahead. Not kitchen related at all. No colorful pictures.
This year so far has been a series of peaks and
valleys. There’s been some serious
spiritual testing happening for us. I
feel like we are in a crucible, but I have no idea what we are being crushed
for. The thought actually scares me. The peaks - the highs - have been really
high. As high as the lows have been low. Our latest low has left us in a deep crevasse
that we could never get out of on our own. Thankfully, even in our lowest moments, I know
that God will pull us out somehow.
Four and a half months ago, we were contacted by an agency
that had an expectant mother who wanted to make an adoption plan for her unborn
son. She picked us to be his
parents. For four weeks, we thought we
were going to have a little boy, born in May.
Two weeks before his due date she decided to parent him herself. I don’t blame her for changing her mind. To me, making an adoption plan for a child is
inconceivable. She showed tremendous
courage to even plan for it in the first place, and since her support system
returned, it is not surprising that she changed her mind. But Kevin and I grieved.
We were still grieving when the agency called us again, the
week that first baby was to be born.
There was another expectant mother who saw our profile and wanted to
talk with us. It was short and awkward conversation, stilted and at times
one-sided. What do you say to the woman
who is deliberating over who to raise her baby?
What do you say to the couple who is desperate for a child, your
child? But she picked us, and hope, that thorny
rosebud, began to bloom again.
We tried not to be excited about this next match. The baby wasn’t due until November, so there
was plenty of time for her to change her mind, for her family to get involved, for
the father to change his mind and become unsupportive of the adoption plan. But as time passed, she was still on
board. She was going to her therapy
appointments. She made an appointment to talk to us after her next ultrasound.
We tried not to think, not to plan, not to tell. We didn’t even talk names, which was an ongoing
conversation during the first match. We
wanted people’s prayers, but we didn’t want to make the devastating
announcement when the plan changed. It
was excruciating to do the last time, and I didn’t want to have to do it
again. But it kept going as
planned. And life started to look up for
us. And we started to tell people. Not
just our immediate family, but our church family, too; friends, colleagues.
Wednesday, as I walked back into work after my lunch hour, I
got an email from our social worker at the agency. When would be a good time for her to call
us? Immediately, I got a pit in my
stomach, certain that our expecting mama had changed her mind and decided to
parent. I called our worker and left a
voicemail. I replied to her e-mail. I called her again. And again.
About an hour later, she called me back with devastating news. They had just finished the ultrasound; Baby Boy
had no heartbeat. The doctors sent our
mama home, planning to bring her back the next day to induce. (I found out Thursday evening that she had
gone into labor spontaneously and had to call emergency services. She delivered our precious baby boy stillborn
on Thursday morning.)
After talking to our social worker, I called my husband and I
left work. I called my mom. I called Dana, with Sacred Selections (our
grant foundation). I had them call the
other people who needed to know, because I couldn’t have that conversation
again. Kevin called his family. And he went to church and told our spiritual
family. I went in on Thursday morning to
finish up some stuff that I am responsible for (it will probably have to all be
checked again, because I’m pretty sure I was not focused enough to really do
those tasks well), and left around noon. I stayed home Friday, too.
I don’t know how to process this information, this situation. Writing it all out is probably the most
beneficial thing I’ve done so far.
Mostly, I just feel numb, and I try to keep myself distracted. It becomes too much, too overwhelming when I
think of the sweet woman who had to give birth to our baby boy alone. I want so badly to drive across the country
to her and to hold her and cry with her.
I want her to know that she is not alone in her grief; that she didn’t
fail us, or the baby, or her family, or anyone. I want her to know that our little boy is safe
in the Father’s hands. I want to show
her how she can see him again. I know to
some people, that sounds presumptuous, but that’s the truth of where I am. And you should know, in case you’re
wondering, when I say our baby, I mean hers and mine.
And we’ve heard a lot of, I’m so sorry, I don’t even know
what to say, we’re heartbroken for you, we’re praying for you. Truly, that’s the best thing to tell us,
because even though I don’t know why God allowed this to happen, I know He is
faithful to answer the prayers of His children and to comfort them.
Even in my faith in God’s loving care, I find that grief is
a lonely place. This grief in particular
is very lonely- no one knows what to say to you when you’ve lost a child,
either by your match dissolving or your baby being stillborn. (‘This one wasn’t
meant to be;’ ‘There must have been something wrong with him.’) They don’t know
what to say to you when you’ve lost all your potential children, either. It makes people uncomfortable to hear about
infertility or a lost adoption. (‘Maybe God doesn’t mean you to be parents;’ ‘Why
don’t you just adopt;’ ‘Your baby is
out there’) If you talk about it too
much, they don’t want to talk to you or be around you. But sometimes the grief just bubbles over,
and you can’t help it spilling out so that you redirect every conversation to
what is eating at you. The loneliness is
not just because of people not knowing what to say to me or not wanting to hear
my sad story. The fact is, I don’t know
what to say to them either. Truth be
told, in the deepest part of grief, I don’t want to say anything to
anyone. As much as I want to be
surrounded by and crave the attention of people who love me at these times, I
also desperately don’t want to talk to anyone about anything. This is probably
not healthy, but it is the place I have found myself. Maybe that’s a normal
part of grief. I have found myself at
times in the last few years and recently searching for support in dealing with
these particular griefs. They are different,
but the same. Each one cuts so sharply, so deeply, but they carve away
different pieces of my heart.
The part of my brain that sits outside of this emotional
stew is taking notes- it is intrigued by the numbness. Depression is like a dank, dark hole. If you
get far enough down, you don’t even see the light anymore. I think I understand
why people tend to either gain or lose a lot of weight with grief and
depression. The numbness is like not
being able to see the light. You don’t
feel anything, and if you haven’t slid too far down in the hole, you want to
feel something- to see the light. You remember
the light. You remember that know you
NEED to feel something – you NEED to see light.
Eating too much provides feeling -the fullness of being over-sated. Carbs
provide this easily, and something about the sugar and how it is metabolized
feels good- or at least feels at all.
If you’re a little
further down in the hole (or if your depression hole is different than mine)
you stop wondering about not feeling anything.
You don’t notice being hungry, or you simply don’t care about it. If you think about it, you can remember
feeling about things, but you are so caught up in the immediacy of your grief
that you don’t take the time to remember feeling. It’s easy not to care about it, hard to make
yourself care. I’m not there- Lord willing
I will never slide so deep in the hole for long enough to have that particular effect.
I haven’t spent much time in the kitchen since Wednesday. So the name of my blog is a misnomer. There’s
no happy recipe to go with this post. We ordered Chinese delivery that night- they
bring you a ton of food for a very reasonable price- and have been picking at
the leftovers since then. I’m not even
sure if I should post this. It seems to
be for my own benefit and edification than anything else. I don’t have a blog following (no surprise
there, due to the infrequency of the posts); there’s really no audience for
these sad ramblings.
And yet, as much as I have looked for support, for someone
to understand what I’m going through and to tell me that I will survive, I wonder
if I shouldn’t post, just of the off chance of some other woman who is
searching for comfort will read this and at the very least know that she is not
alone. If that woman is you- you are not alone in
your very particular grief. If you know
this woman, point her here. I can’t
imagine any other way to make this situation meaningful than to share it and
hope that it helps someone find comfort.
I know that this may make you feel uncomfortable, or sad, or confused. I’m
there with you. Maybe reading this will help you to comfort someone else who finds
themselves numb and broken from grief.
Blessings and peace to you.
