Thursday, May 15, 2014

A New Journey...

Yesterday was the worst day of my life.  We lost her.  She is gone.  Never to be held alive, never to see her grow.  Our future with Karis is over, never to happen or experience.  Words don't come close to capturing the deep, burning pain of loss in my heart at this moment.  Someone has punched me in the gut, ripped out my heart and I will never recover. 

"God, what are you doing??  It feels like we are pawns in your hand, getting ripped around without care or concern.  It feels like someone is on the other side of this orchestrating the worst possible scenario and watching us live it out.  I mean really, it can't get any worse from here.  Why couldn't you give us more time with her?  Why did you take her from us so abruptly?  It's as if the wound on my heart from the first ultrasound was just starting to scar and get used to our new normal, and you have allowed it to be ripped off, only to bleed and hurt all over again, except worse.  I'm not angry at you, I feel completely hurt by you.  I just don't understand.  But I don't ever expect I will understand.  We had chosen hope.  We had chosen to believe.  We had chosen to embrace her.  We had deeper faith in you.  We were shouting out how good you were.  And this is what we get?  More terrible, terrible news, the worst yet.  Can we get a break?  Can you let us catch our breath?  I feel empty.  How are we supposed to recover from this Lord, how?"

Yesterday morning, I woke up to my normal routine of walking the girls to the park.  Except I thought this time we would be adventurous and drive to Notre Dame, the "bigger park".  As I pushed Avery on the swing, I noticed I hadn't felt Karis's tiny, tiny kicks yet that morning.  I tried to push it out of my brain and convince myself that I would hear her heartbeat at our ultrasound later that day.  We had a follow-up with the specialist to confirm the findings from a week and a half ago.  I prayed for the doctors to look and see that they had it all wrong and this was all one big mix-up and she was actually going to survive and make it.  I felt like Martha in John 11:22.  Jesus just arrived on the scene to witness that her brother, Lazarus was dead in the tomb.  Martha's response is "I know even now God will give you whatever you ask."  She knew Jesus could still heal him, even now.  As I pushed Avery on her swing I prayed, "Lord even now.  You can change all this."

I went through the same routine.  My sister-in law came to watch Avery, as Kory and I drove to our appointment.  We to the same room, smiled at the same people, waited in the same seats, and walked through the same door to the ultrasound room.  We got the same warm jelly squirted on my belly, and then it happened.  The same, somber, heart-wrenching silence.  I looked at the tech's face.  And I shot back and looked at Kory.  We both looked at each other, scared.  Why did it feel like the same horrible silence was filling the room, telling us again something was not right.  "I'm so sorry," the tech said to me removing her hand from my belly, "there's no heartbeat."

I burst out in the same explosion of pain, tears and heartache.  Kory wrapped me up in his arms just as we had a week and a half ago.  We sat in the same desperation of hurt, except this time was worse. Much, much worse.  This time we weren't grieving the thought of loss.  We had lost.  She was gone.  Her little heart was no longer beating inside.  Her spirit and soul were elsewhere, in heaven, for us to never know on this earth.  My heart ached a deep ache of a mother who had been asked to give her daughter away.  I didn't want to let go.  I didn't want this to be the end.  I wanted to hope, I wanted to believe.  "Lord, how could you?" My heart kept asking him.  "I want her here with me."  I kept trying to tell him this, as if things weren't concrete. 

The same genetic counselor walked into the room and gave me her sympathy.  I got ushered to the same room, where we talked with the same doctor.  I threw away the typed-up paper I had brought of all the questions I had, because now all my questions changed.  I could no longer ask questions about her condition and about her living.  All my questions shifted to inducing labor and burial.  How could this be?  I had pushed my fear of not feeling her earlier away and chose to believe God for a miracle?  Yet again, my fear was confirmed.  The worst had happened.  I had texted all my friends to pray for a miracle, and they were.  Now I had to text them back and tell them that there was no miracle, in fact, there was death.  "God, why would you not want to heal?  You would get so much glory through a miracle.  Everyone is going to be so broken with this news."

The doctor tried to prepare us for what the next week would look like.  I couldn't take it in.  I was blank.  He talked about inducing labor, chosing a funeral home, where we would bury her, death certificates, and how she may look after delivery with her condition.  It was too much.  It was too much a week and half ago.  I thought a week and half ago the bottom had fallen out, now the bottom was gone...never to return. 

We drove the same way home.  The rain sprinkled on our car, the same way it had a week and a half ago.  I saw kids playing in the streets but didn't have the strength to wave or smile.  My smiles and hope were lost, would I find them again?  As we pulled up to my house, I thought "I do not have the energy to do this again."  I walked through the door and cried in Kels's arms, again.  I didn't think I would have more tears, but they came. 

That night Kory and I didn't even try to ask the questions of where we would bury her or when we would induce labor.  We let ourselves feel blank and empty.  We let the darkness and the sadness come in.  We didn't question God, we mostly let ourselves feel sad and heartbroken. I grieved for our loss, I grieved for Avery's loss, I grieved for our family and friend's loss.

Then I thought about Karis. Do I grieve for her?  Did she experience loss when her heart stopped beating?  She lost the experience of being apart of our family on this earth.  She lost memories here, and having Avery as her big sister.  But what did she gain? She went straight from my womb to the arms of Jesus.  She was looking into his eyes, feeling his love.  She was complete, healed, full of life and joy.  She was experiencing perfect peace.  As soon as she climbed out of Jesus' arms, I can only imagine the great-grandparents lined up to welcome her.  Did she experience loss? She did miss out on the brokenness and hurt of this world.  Thank goodness.  She will never have to know what a broken heart feels like.  When someone tries to explain sadness to her, it will be foreign.  When someone talks about tears, she won't know what that is or looks like.  When another tries to explain the pain and darkness of the world, she won't be able to imagine it.  This world left no mark on her.  It had no place in her life.  She's home with her Savior.  I breathed deep.  We were the ones that lost, but she did not.  She gained.  And we will someday.

As I laid my head on the pillow that night, the thought of her in heaven was comforting, but it didn't take the pain away.  I resonated deeply with the song below, "Though You Slay Me" by Shane and Shane.  I felt as though today I had been slayed.  I been taken from, I had been ripped apart.  But yet, I knew God was still on the throne and was still good in the midst of such horrible and tragic news.  I still would praise him, I still would bless him, and I still needed to run to him.  The cross is really the only place to run when we experience suffering.  We do not have a God who is unable to sympathize with us (Heb 4:15).  And yes, I want to know Christ, even in his suffering (Phil 3:10), because just as we share in the sufferings of Christ, our comfort abounds in Christ (2 Cor. 1:5).

 "Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him." Job 13:15

"Though You Slay Me"- Shane and Shane 

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