I know I haven't posted in almost 2 years. I think I stopped posting because it all just became too painful. Life was too painful.
We moved, well I moved us, across the country. Literally, from FL to CA. It broke my heart to leave FL. Ben was in Chicago for 4 months working constantly one the business and I was left to get our family out to CA. So, that's what I did. It was physically and emotionally exhausting. Just getting everything packed and sorted and arranged was almost more than I could handle. But single moming it on top of all that and leaving everyone I knew and loved to a new place and starting all over again? It was just too much.
There was one weekend in there, our tenth anniversary actually, where I flew out to Chicago for 3 days to see Ben. Hadn't seen him in over 6 weeks. I had just finished the move out of FL and was working on finding us a home in CA. I remember when the weekend was over and I was once again saying goodbye to another person I loved, I lost it. Completely. I silently cried as I went through security, and then found myself a bathroom stall and bawled my eyes out for a solid hour. My heart was just constantly hurting. Too many goodbyes.
Well, I eventually made it to CA, found us a home, arranged to have our truck of belongings delivered and unloaded and was so eager to get things put back together. We had been without a home for 6 weeks and were more than ready to have a pace to call our own. The truck arrived and they started to unload our stuff. Sadly, it was not a good day. I don't know what happened or how, but in one way or another most of our things were damaged, if not completely destroyed. Broken glass was everywhere, boxes were completely smashed, every dining chair was so scraped & scratched there were chunks of wood missing. The back and sides of dresses were torn off. Couches stained and torn, book shelves and coffee tables broken. My new washing machine was in pieces. And broken dishes, lamps, & pictures everywhere.
I remember looking at the pile of broken things and feeling like I was trying to clean up from some natural disaster. Like a tornado hit or something. As everything came off the truck and I saw all the ruined things I just kept telling myself "it's just stuff, it's just stuff, it's all replaceable, it's okay". And then I found the things that were replaceable. I guess when the guys had loaded the truck they pulled out my hand quilted pieced quilts and blankets from their boxes and used them to pad different furniture items. The quilt my sister had hand hand appliqués for Soohie when she was born, had several holes through it and an entire piece/square ripped out. That's when I lost it. The guys unloading the truck left. I went into my kitchen, sat in the pile of broken everything, held that little quilt and bawled my eyes out.
I remember thinking that would be the low point. That that moment right there in the kitchen would be the worst that it got. And that things would surely look up from there. So, I got myself and my kids some dinner. And while we ate I told them that I was sorry for crying over things, because things are just that...things, and what mattered most to me were my kids. And I had them and they were my greatest treasures. We went back to the house. I didn't know where to start, all the blankets...every blanket sheet, linen, curtain etc was either completely ruined, or just super dirty with holes all through it. I dug through and found the least awful ones. Put them in a mattress and put my kids to bed. Then I stayed up all night. Picking glass out of everything, hammering this that and everything else back together. It took about a week, but eventually I got most things back in order or replaced it. Once again, I thought that moving disaster would be our low point on this CA adventure.
It wasn't. I'm not going into detail about everything that went wrong. But just know, that literally everything went wrong. School. Was a nightmare. An absolute nightmare. It wasn't until after Harrison had been in school for quite some time that I found out that his teacher was making an open mockery of him in class. She constant made him feel dumb and always gave him zeros on every assignment because his handwriting went outside the lines. I also found out later that he had been being bullied, a kid was taking his lunch every day. Sigh. Poor poor little buddy that never tells me what is going on. It was a really rough year with him. But I don't wonder why.
Then there was the business. It was doing fabulously while they were in Chicago, just seemed like this awfulness was going to be all worth something bens dream of starting a company was really happening, and for that for him I could deal with all the crap going on. But then they got to CA. Tech land USA, right? And It just went steadily downhill from there. Let me tell you what a punch in the gut it is to give something your everything, your absolute everything (finances included in there), only to see it fall apart and fail. That's a pretty deep hurt.
And then there was the loss of our friends. I have never had trouble making friends. My heart ached every single day missing my friends in FL. They had been the best friends anyone could ever ask for. They had become family to me. And to lose them, just broke my heart. But, I was willing and wanting to make new friends and new connections. We didn't know a soul out there. But there was always church and that had always given us a good batch of friends. I am really not going to go into detail here...but let's just say no friends were to be made. Not one.
I could keep going on and on about all the things that went wrong in CA. Yes there is more. And during all this time I just kept praying praying praying for more strength to get back up on my feet to continue on, to make it through this hard time. I felt so abandoned. I was so alone. I kept praying for comfort, peace, love, anything to help me know God still loves and cares for me and my family and sadly, I got nothing. Everything just kept getting worse.
Until one morning in December. You should know that we had been wanting and trying for another child since before Sophie turned 2. She was now almost 5. We had had multiple miscarriages, all very early on though. Having another baby was my greatest desire. I was of course grateful for the 3 I had and had come to the realization that they might be all I get and for that I was just grateful that I ever got them. So, I really tried to just fully enjoy them and not get down about not having more.
But then to my surprise. I was late. Not wanting to disappoint Ben or anything I didn't even tell him. I just got a pregnancy test and took it. It was positive. I sat there in disbelief. I cried and cried tears of gratitude. I immediately said a prayer of thanks to my Heavenly Father for this great gift. I knew my prayers had finally been answered, that he was listening to me and that yes, he did love me. I shared the news with Ben and we were over joyed. Nothing else mattered. It was okay if everything else fell apart because we were getting what we truly wanted, a baby.
It seemed I knew that little spirit from the get go. His presence just seemed stronger to me than my other kids. I knew it was a boy. I knew he was the strong warrior type. I could imagine him doing great things on this earth. As a missionary, maybe a leader of sorts. Ben and I couldn't help ourselves, we started picking things out. I knew what crib I wanted, the running stroller I was going to get. Heck, we even bought a few clothes for this baby boy of ours. One of my favorite things was a pair of black converse newborn shoes. Just too cute!!!
As the pregnancy progressed and I got sick and nauseated and everything that comes with that I didn't even care that I was sick cause I was just so grateful and excited to be having a baby. As life continued to fall apart around us, it was okay, because we were getting our baby. Every morning, every night. My prayers were filled with gratitude for this little one. And then I would beg. Plead. That this baby would make it here safe and sound. That I would get to hold him in his arms. That my kids would get to know and love him too. I remember saying over and over that it was okay if we never made it back to FL. It was okay if I never had friends again. It was okay if the business failed completely. Just please. Please.
Let me keep this baby.
Well, I hit the 3 month mark. And we gave a sigh of relief. That is the riskiest stage of the pregnancy. We were sure we were good to go. So, we told our kids. They were so excited. They talked constantly of this new baby and what we would name him/her and who would get to share a room. It was so fun to watch their excitement.
My kids had a week long break from school the last week in February. We decided to make the drive out to UT and visit family. And possibly see some snow, something my kids hadn't seen in years. We had a great visit. But, on our last day there I woke up with full on Labor pains. I couldn't walk. I couldn't move. I knew what those pains were and I knew it wasn't good.
As I laid on a bed waiting for the pains to subside. And literally shaking from how painful it was. My sweet baby girl
Sophie climbed up on the bed next to
Me. Put her brown blankie over me. And laid next to me, and sang me primary songs. I thought my heart would burst.
The pains eventually went away, but then that night, the bleeding started. And I knew this baby wasn't going to make it. I told Ben and we sat in bed holding each other and just cried together through the night.
I knew there was nothing that could be done at this point. So we just drove ourselves on home the next morning and once we arrived in CA, went to the hospital. There, they confirmed what we already knew. The baby was not developing right, and the heart was no longer beating. They showed me on the ultrasound that I was literally about to pass everything so, I wouldn't need a D&C. Just go home. Do it there.
It was awful. Messy. And so so so painful. I lived in a bathroom for 2 days straight. And then, just like giving birth to a full term baby (just not near as painful) I felt pressure to push and there was what was left of our baby. It was done. He was gone. I was broken.
I went to my room, Ben was sitting on the bed, crying with me again. At that moment I was broken. Completely. There was nothing left. Nothing. I couldn't get "back up on my feet" again. I couldn't keep going. I was done. I was just...so broken. And so I said a prayer. I told my Father in Heaven that I was broken and that there was no fixing me. But that I needed. NEEDED. To feel his love for me that day.
That day, the sewage in my house backed up and began to flood my house with raw sewage. And I was running buckets of poop water outside to keep my house from flooding. We had to have the water completely shut off and they wouldn't be able to fix it for another couple days. That was my day. At the end of it, I wondered how that was an snswer to my prayer.
It was. The landlord refused to really fix the plumbing. As it turns out her house can't even handle toilet paper. That was a deal breaker for us. You need to be able to flush. She terminated our lease.
2 weeks later we had packed up and moved back to FL. God did love me. He knew where we needed to be and opened the door to get us there.
I'm not going to lie, it was beyond exhausting trying to pack up and move right after miscarrying...as in days after... But I was so happy to be coming home that it was okay and the pain of losing Fawkes was momentarily pushed aside.
We came back, and it became clear to us that we had made the biggest mistake in ever leaving FL. This was our home. These people were our people. Our ward welcomed us back with open arms and hugs and kisses and kindness and food and help and love over and over again. We were overwhelmed with happiness to be back where we belonged.
However, after things settled and we got moved in. The pain of our loss started to sink in with me. My heart hurt. I had wanted that baby so badly, I had wanted to be his mom more than anything. And he was gone. I felt cheated. I felt like he had been taken from me. I would look back on the year we had just had and wondered where in the world had God been through all of that?? What had I done to offend him? I had always given my all to the church and always believed that My Father in Heaven would not abandon me, yet it felt like he had. It looked like he had. I wanted to believe so much that he was there somehow and I just couldn't see it. And so that is what I hung on to. The thought that he was really there, somehow, I just hadn't or couldn't see it. I still felt hurt from the loss of our little one. But, I put my focus and energy on my kids and that was that. We were happy here in FL, and that softened the wound.
It wasn't until last fall, sometime in October, that my eyes were opened. It was the most random day. My good friend Amy Hillis came over to help me get some furniture refinished. And we sat and talked and laughed and had a great day together as we often have. And after she left, it hit me. God had not abandoned me while I was alone in CA. He knew what I needed before I even knew it. He had given me the best of friends here in FL, that he knew would help me get through the rough times in CA. Amy Hillis called me throughout my stay in CA, she talked and got me through everything including the miscarriage. I wasn't alone. I had never been completely alone. God had not absndon me. He had been there all along. I felt deeply humbled.
And then, just a few days after that, I went to the temple with some friends in the ward. I went not looking for or expecting anything. Just had this feeling that I needed to go.
And, as I sat in the celestial room. There suddenly next to me. I could feel the presence of my little boy, Fawkes. And I knew then that he had never been taken away from me, that he had only been given to me. That he was mine. And would forever be mine. That he was a special gift. The tears wouldn't stop, but they were tears of joy. I was filled with such happiness and gratitude. Yes, he had moved on, I wouldn't meet him in this life. But I know that one day, this boy and I will be reunited. And for that I am forever grateful.
And then as I sat there, to my even greater surprise I felt another spirit on the other side of me. A little girl. One that was ready and waiting to come to our family. And now, here I sit, 36 weeks pregnant with our baby girl. My heart is full.
