home birth and experience

Your brother came so softly
born in the water
no crying
quiet contemplation
pink and rosy

how different your coming was
born in blood
no crying (no breathing)
sudden expulsion
limp and pale

everything got so dark

can't tell up from down anymore
all the sweet reminiscing of your brother's coming
marred by your passing

what power gained from birth
can not be stripped away
by death?

more art

"jars of clay" in oil pastels




untitled in watercolor pencil

no it's SERVING to heal

the lady at our agency who told me she wouldn't let us foster because she "didn't want me to use a baby to heal" had it all twisted.

I want to serve! because truly, the best way, God's way of healing us is through the service he calls us to do. when our minds stop focusing on ourselves and our problems, and instead we develop God's heart he restores us.

i want to serve.

so we have been hunting for a new agency, and i am so excited to tell you we found a perfect fit this afternoon! so we have to go through the (hopefully) short, simple process of switching agencies and updating our homestudy- and then we can wait to see what God is going to do!!

grieving for life

i realized something yesterday. since Aquila's death i have had a burning, consuming desire to be pregnant again. I would say and think- i am not trying to replace Aquila, and i wasn't ....
BUT i realized that any baby i might be blessed with will not be her.. wait? isn't that trying to replace her? no, not rationally at least... but i realized i was trying to fill this hole...to try and go back to when i was pregnant and there was hope, and happiness, and expectation...

but nothing will ever fill the hole of my baby girl. my family will always be missing one of it's members. this (pain) will NEVER go away..it will change and soften, but it will never be gone. nothing i can do will make it better.

now if you havn't had your baby die right before it came out of you i don't think you could understand how i could delude myself on a subconcious level. but , i have a feeling any mama who lost her baby before birth understands how i got there....

just know that if you see my family with it's five boucing, messy children out and about, mybe at the grocery store, maybe at church- that allthough my hands are full, my family is not. there is a gaping hole where my daughter Aquila should be. she will always be there like a missing, cut-out form in a picture... we all see her , even if you do not. So, be aware, as i now am , that there is a heavy weight of lack of...a hole that we bring with us everywhere we go, and that it is always there.

crazy look alikes

this is from top to bottom-
Aquila
Sebastian
Lucca

boy they look alike!

Lurkers?

hello out there in Blogger land-
i know that a whole buncha people are reading and not posting anything. This blog is (right now)my way to feel connected, to share, to show Aquila to the world.
i was telling my husband last night- one of the things that sucks about having a dead child (there are so many) is that i don't get to show her off. the only pictures i have are the only ones i will ever have. she won't ever do anything new that i can tell you about... all i can tell you about is me and my journey. and i love love when i get comments- because that turns it into a conversation instead of me feeling like i am rambling to myself...haha

so de-lurk yourselves please! who is reading? how did you find this blog?? what do you think ??
share :)

stillbirth art : fearfully made

stillbirth art : Affliction

Empty

my first piece of art after my stillbirth

time

tomorrow will be one month since the day ...the day my whole life changed.
my only memories of Aquila alive are ones of her in my womb. i was still pregnant one month ago. still anxiously awaiting her birth. i was full of complaints about the pain, the constant ache in my bones. i will never say (if the Lord so blesses me again) , "i am so tired of being pregnant!"
what a thing to complain about! the price i would pay to have her back in my stomach, squirming around, is not even measurable. there are so many things we complain about..things we should be REJOYCING in!
she always jumped at load noises. she got hiccups at night when i was laying in bed. when Sebastian was crying about one thing or another he would come wrap his little arms around my legs and scream/cry/sob into my belly and she would kick at him, as if to say "knock off all that racket!".
Ruby loved my belly. she would pull up my shirt poke my belly button and say "baby". then she would lay her head down on it and giggle while Aquila kicked her.
her movements turned absolutly frantic in early labor. she was trying to tell me...she was in danger. it hurt she kicked so hard and crazy.
i never got to meet her. we wait nine months to meet our babies. we imagine what they will look like, what there little personalities will be..we wait for what seems so long. but, my ending, or should i say my begining never came. i never met her. i never found out.
i feel so empty (physically). the Lord does fill me spiritually, but there is no baby in my arms. they are empty. the milk has dried from my breast. they to are empty. the bassent, the clothes, the diapers are packed up. they too are empty.

two weeks ago a sweet friend let me watch her little foster daughter (5 weeks old) while she worked. it was bliss. i had this thought in the last day that this is a little bit of something right in all that has been so wrong. i have a baby in my arms. even though it isnt my baby. even though she goes home after a few hours, i get to have a few hours where the world feels like it makes sense. i wish it could have continued, but she lives far from me and it is not in the least bit convienient for her to bring her all the way up here, instead of to the the same daycare as her other kiddos.
so we called up our agency to ask to be put on the list to foster a baby. they refused, saying they didn't feel comfortable with that. the director actually said " i dont want to you using a baby to help you heal"
thanks lady, you are a real gem.

so no baby. no baby

sleep for the grieving mom

i used to sleep so well. i have never been one to have trouble falling, or staying asleep.
but now my nights consist of trying for sometimes hours to get to sleep, between thinking (pray), fretting (pray some more), crying (pray some more), remembering (pray), imagining (PRAY)...
then, sometimes only an hour later i am up, sweating and sometimes crying from bad dreams. some are full of anger and violence, some full of death, some of sadness and betrayal. sometimes they are mearly chaotic and draining- but they are never good. i wake up several times each night, sometimes every hour on the hour. sometimes i fall back to sleep quickly, sometimes it takes up to three hours.
i am reminded of my favorite poem and this line from it-
"Your sleep is a dirty torn cloth."

and the aching for my baby in my arms, bearable in the daytime, overwhelms my senses at night.. sometimes i am sure i can hear crying in the house...
and i am reminded of another line from that same poem...

"but a baby
any baby
your baby is
the
most perfect human thing you can ever touch
translucent"

it seems unfair that i cannot even escape to sleep. what i would give for a sweet dream where i am holding Aquila (alive...) is that too much to ask? just one dream??

seeing is believing

sight:

I look in the mirror now rarely. i am shocked by who is staring back at me. Who is she??
At first i attributed it to the pale face and dark circles caused by the hemorrhage and severe anemia, but as those recede, she doesn't look anymore familiar...
Is it that my hair is covered in mourning now? no- even when i take my covering off i still can't look at her for long...
She just doesn't look like me.

i guess that is to be expected , since i surely don't feel like me. i have said it before, but it it worth repeating- time has changed on me. hours take days, days weeks... almost 4 weeks has passed since Aquila was born, but it feels like an eternity... just getting to the end of my 6 weeks "recovery" (haha) seems like millions of light years away.

so, this lady in the mirror- well she seems so far away.

the Lord's work

forgive me if this post rambles, my head rambles most of the time now.

the Lord has been working... so far i have mostly posted my darker thoughts on this blog- but i need a place to let it out. but i want you to know- especially those who know me in real life, but do not have the courage to dive into face to face conversations with me- that i am not "depressed"

quite the contrary really- i can count on one hand my dark days. with three weeks and two days under my belt since Aquila's passing i should say this is quite amazing. The Lord has comforted me more than i can even explain. maybe this is because
" the peace of the Lord surpasses understanding"
it doesn't make sense that i can smile. i can and DO feel so much JOY in the midst of my sorrow.

THANK the LORD for the amazing work he has done in my heart! he has broken down walls and led me to lay down burdens- i did not even see the extent to which the burdens i have carried have weighed me down.
truly the Lord's yoke IS light. pride, resentment, regret and anger are heavy and eat away at your heart.
and praise to him that i feel no anger to him! i truly understand and feel this passage from Job

²⁰ Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. ²¹ He said,

“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
and I will be naked when I leave.
The Lord gave me what I had,
and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!”

²² In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.

God gave me everything i have, from my first breath to my last. he has blessed me richly and abundantly. Aquila was and always will be his. and his purpose for her was not to live on this earth. i fully believe he has a purpose for her on this earth, however. i see the work she is doing in people's hearts. how amazing is that, that a child who never took a breath can influence hearts for the Lord?
Every time i have gone to sleep worried or anxious or in great sorrow or guilt, God has been faithful to rescue me from these lies, from the slipping into the mire. he over and over again puts my feet back on the rock of his love.
Passage Psalm 94:16-19:
¹⁶ Who will protect me from the wicked?
Who will stand up for me against evildoers?
¹⁷ Unless the Lord had helped me,
I would soon have settled in the silence of the grave.
¹⁸ I cried out, “I am slipping!”
but your unfailing love, O Lord, supported me.
¹⁹ When doubts filled my mind,
your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer.

Psalm 40

¹ I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,

and he turned to me and heard my cry.

² He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
³ He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord.

homebirth and death

ugh- for the last three days my world has flipped upside down. i used to be so proud, so informed, so sure...
My births went like this-
birth #1 - hospital with a CNM
birth #2 -home with a CNM
birth #3 - home with a CPM
birth # 4- (aquila) -home with a CPM

my goal after #1 and even more so with #2 was having a "keep your gosh darn hands off me" birth. My CNM home birth involved an excruciatingly painful manual pushing back of a cervical lip- which i still 100% believe was unnecessary and left me with the same trauma as when i was raped at 17.
So, i took my births into my own hands- no i did not go for a UC (unassisted birth)- but i made sure that the next midwife i found would be one who was not a pushy-i tell you what to do and you do it, you have no choice- type of care provider. i had had enough of that.
so, Sebastian was born into my hands (midwife next to the tub), in a warm birth tub-and it was a wonderful experience-perfect birth-
so, naturally i wanted a repeat of this..after all my body had made and birthed three perfect babies. why should this be any different? i reasearched birth like a mad woman before all three of my homebirths. every study i found said homebirth is safer for low risk woman than hospital birth. i truely never found anything to refute this.
i researched possible comlications, researched choices for treatments for said complications. i timed my drive to the nearest hospital- 3 minutes
I thought i covered all my bases. the ironic thing is i have seen more OB's this pregnancy than i ever had- 1 for an initial prenatal and lab work, one for a mid-pregnancy ultrasound, and one the week before Aquila was born (who offered me and induction which i regrettably turned down). all three OB's were fine with and supportive of my homebirth choice .
But, the worst possible thing happened. what is considered a "true emergency" anywhere it happens, home hospital, birth center----
full placental abruption in labor.
but. BUT...but.... if this emergency HAD happened in the hospital my baby would almost certainly be alive right now.

So, ultimately , my birth "choices" lead to my daughter's death. that is where the beginning and end of the blame falls.
i am finding this weight of guilt to be crushing....

things i hear alot of

how are you doing?
-well that answer varies minute to minute. but for the most part i would say i am 'struck down, but not destroyed'

what can i do to help?
- i wish i knew the answer to that one!

How are the kids doing?
- they are taking it . Lucca is very angry. Sebastian has nightmares, and no longer makes it through the night in his own bed. Ruby cries all night, waking up repeatedly to throw her binkie out of her crib and demand we wake up , retrieve it and pat her back. Kiryn and Tristan don't talk about it. they just fight all the time. We are setting up counseling for them and Lucca.

i am so sorry
-me too

how can time stretch like this? in 20 minutes it will be exactly two weeks since Aquila was born. right now, two weeks ago she was dying in my womb, her blood supply ripping away. every day is so very very long. minutes are like hours. in the last two weeks i am sure a million years have passed. i can't begin to help you understand if you have never been in this place, but mama, if you've been here , you know....
new years eve was so hard for me. i felt like we were leaving her behind. 2009 was supposed to be the year of aquila's birth, not her death. i was supposed to be holding her closed, snuggled to me, nursing..not staring off at random walls like a zombie.