Half as Hard, Twice as Good

This morning I'm feeling so thankful for sweet friendship, safe place friendship.  Friendship where you can go  honestly and freely to share your joy, excitement, pain, suffering, your need for prayer, and the ugly parts of you that others would judge.  But the most important part of this kind of friendship is that, while you can share the parts of yourself you are not so proud of, you can't stay there because the other person encourages you.  This kind of friend understands your heart, acknowledges your feelings, but doesn't allow you to wallow in negativity.  It isn't always easy to be told you need to change your attitude but being invested in those kind of friendships are so worth it.  Below are lyrics to a Sara Groves song, Twice as Good from her album Fireflies and Songs.  If you don't have it, get it, it is so good.  I downloaded mine from Amazon.com

when I am down and need to cry till morning

I know just where I am going
when I'm in need of sweet commiseration
to speak out loud

raise a glass to friendship and to knowing
you don't have to go alone
we'll raise our hearts to share each others burdens
on this road

with every burden I have carried
with every joy it's understood
life with you is half as hard
and twice as good

with my good news your dancing on the table
babies born to celebration
the joy of life oh what a sweet communion
shared with you

I know we're growing older
can you imagine what that will bring
it's all a mystery to me now
but this one thing

will be half as hard, and twice as good

Rain

I love the rain.  The soaking, cleansing kind of rain.  Especially on a dark morning like this.  Josh has always loved the rain, even when he was in college and he had to walk to classes in it.  I can't say I loved the rain then, I think it just annoyed me because it would get the bottoms of my pants wet and make everything squeaky.  I started loving the rain a few months ago.  The night that I was in labor with Grant, it rained and stormed so hard  and it seemed so fitting for what we were experiencing inside the hospital.  As strange as it may sound, it almost seemed right that it stormed and the sky was angry.  It rained a lot in those first days/week (I'm not exactly sure what the time frame was now, that detail is blurry to me).  I remember reading complaining comments about the rain on Facebook, because not many people love rain in June, but I remember feeling again that it was fitting with how I felt at that time.

This morning, I'm having a good morning.  I was up while it was still dark out (my favorite) and I had time with Josh before he went to work.  But as I'm sitting here at my desk, I can hear the rain coming down in what sounds like waves or sheets and it is comforting to me.  It reminds me of a time that was extremely painful (both physically and emotionally) and while it is not something I want to go through again, it reminds me of that time of connection that I had with Grant.  This morning, that reminder is comforting to me.

Brave Thursday

One of the parts of being pregnant that I loved the most was every Thursday when I would change to a new week in my pregnancy.  Each Thursday I would get an email notification of what milestone my little baby would cross that week.  I realized that there was no way for a website to know exactly what my specific baby was doing but it was neat to know what the baby would be doing at or around that time.  Thursdays were special.

Grant was born on a Thursday.  I'm not sure I really realized that correlation at the time though.

In the weeks after he was born, Thursdays began to be really hard days for me.  Days marked with wondering why this happened to me, feeling I was wronged, and a lot of crying.  I remember one Thursday morning I was talking with my mom before work.  We don't mess around in the morning when we talk.  There is no time for small talk when we have a short period of time to talk before we each have to start working.  A friend of mine had been induced the day before and I was certain she was going to have the baby that day.  

Let me take a second to explain that for me there was a very strange range of emotions that I have felt in regards to the pregnancies of friends who remained pregnant after my baby died.  I guess the best I can explain it, would be a bittersweet feeling.  I have felt so relieved when my friends' babies have been healthy while at the same time feeling so sad at my situation.  I say that to explain that I wasn't feeling jealous of my friend, just feeling that very strange conflict of feelings within that morning.  

So anyway, we were talking about that very strange feeling I had, to be happy for your friend (truly happy) and feel so sad at the same time.  I remember telling my mom that I just didn't understand why this baby couldn't have been born on a Tuesday.  It is then that my mom shared words with me that have changed me.  My mom has this way of letting me know that she's listening and validating my feelings without letting me wallow in my self pity or whatever my negative emotion of the day might be.  I can't remember her exact words, but they went a little something like this.  I understand that Thursdays are hard for you, but maybe you need to think of them in a different way.  We don't know that Grant died on a Thursday, we don't know when he died.  What I do know is this, on a Thursday, you are braver than I have ever seen you.  On a Thursday, Josh was braver than I've ever seen him before.  We all had to be brave that Thursday.  On a Thursday, there was a new beginning, when you were brave for Grant and you did something that was so hard.  So maybe you should think of Thursdays as Brave Thursdays instead.  

I think we all have "Thursdays" in our life.  Those things that we see as something negative instead of seeing them as an opportunity to celebrate, to appreciate the ways that we've been changed because of them.  Changing the painful into a positive requires us to reframe our thinking.  It might mean that we have to stop and listen to what someone else has to say to us about our situation.

Since that time, I've been able to look at Thursdays in a different way.  It isn't always rainbows and butterflies when I think about Thursdays and what they meant to me, but I can look at them and appreciate the work God has done in me.  How he used a Thursday to change me and make me braver than I've ever been.

What is the Thursday in your life?  How can you change your thinking to make it a Brave Thursday?

Willing Loser

I got the chance to catch up with my sister-in-law tonight.  We cover a lot of subjects when we talk and she is such an encouragement to me.  We landed on one subject that has been a recurring one for me in the months since Grant was born (it is always hard for me to decide what I should say about that time, do I refer to it as when Grant was born or when we lost Grant, I never know.  But we didn't lose him, we know where he is, so Josh and I like to refer to it as when he was born).  So often we think we have to have it all together in order to serve, be effective, encourage others, etc.  As my sister-in-law and I agreed tonight, we don't have to have it all together to be effective and we don't want to pretend that we do have it all together.  Throughout the Bible we see ordinary people "losers" as we called them tonight. :) who were effective for the Kingdom because they were willing to be used.  I don't have it all together, I have pain in my life, I mess things up, sometimes I'm downright sloppy with the way I go through life, and I probably never will have it all together, but I want to be a willing loser who is ready to be used by God.

Baby D

I am so excited to join the blogging world.  In the recent months I've been intrigued and inspired by reading the blogs of others.  I've been throwing around the idea of starting a blog for a few weeks now and have had one friend in particular who has been encouraging me to try it out.

So why the title of the blog?  My husband and I found out we were expecting our first baby on Valentine's Day this year.  Our due date was set for October 14 and it was such an exciting time for us.  I've dreamed about being a mommy since I was a little girl and I've always said it is the one thing I've always known I wanted to be.  Soon after finding out we were expecting we started dreaming of names for the baby (we decided we wouldn't find out what we were having and make it a surprise).  At our first appointment we were able to hear the baby's strong heartbeat and had an ultrasound scheduled a few weeks later.  We saw Baby D for the first time in March at 12 weeks.  Once we passed from the first trimester to the second trimester, we were told that our chances of miscarriage went down.  Each week was a new mile marker and I felt more at ease as time went on.  I loved reading the updates from Baby Center telling me what Baby D was doing in there and how the baby was growing and developing.

12 weeks - face

12 weeks - arms

At 20 weeks we had an ultrasound to see how things were going in there and to determine if the placenta-previa I had was still a factor.  I was nervous and excited to see how our baby had grown.  While in the ultrasound room I wasn't really able to see the screen.  We got print outs of a few pictures and honestly, I was a bit disappointed.  I had this idea of bringing home adorable profile pictures of our baby's face but the tech was having trouble getting pictures of the baby due to the position the baby was in.

Josh and I went to lunch and then had an appointment to go over our ultrasound.  We spent the lunch time discussing the fact that while the pictures weren't ideal, we were glad to see our baby again.

We only waited a few minutes in the exam room before the doctor came in.  I honestly don't remember the exact words he said, but I do remember thinking it was the worst practical joke ever.  The doctor explained to us that he had bad news and that our baby was not alive anymore.  I couldn't believe what he was saying and it was clear it wasn't real to Josh either.  It must've been the shock of the moment but I don't remember getting really emotional about it until the ride home.  The doctor explained that I would need to go through labor and delivery very soon.  We decided that we would go home pack our bags for the hospital and go back to the hospital around 4:30 that day.

Grant David was born the next day at 10:52 in the morning.  I really could go on and on with all the details of what occurred in that 24 hour period.  I want to be careful what details I share with the world about that time though.  I will sum it up to say that while the day before when the doctor told me what I would have to do, I thought it was the worst option in the world.  How cruel to make a grieving mother go through labor when her child is no longer alive.  But in the end I realized how important it was for me to do that as Grant's mommy.

It  has been 109 days since that day.  In that time our faith has been increased beyond what we could've imagined.  Our relationships with everyone (and I do mean everyone) in our lives have been strengthened.  We've developed new relationships with people who share similar stories.  We've experienced the power of prayer in a way we'd never experienced it before. I wouldn't have chosen this path on my own.  I still would prefer to be a few weeks from my due date as I originally expected I would be at this point.  However, it has been amazing that this little boy that I didn't know, other than the connection a mother feels with her unborn child, has changed my life so dramatically.  It is my hope that our story, Grant's story, will continue to touch people's lives for years to come.

The purpose of this blog is to share our story of becoming parents and the hope we can have because of God's promises, share things that I find interesting and inspirational (sewing, papercrafting, saving money), and just encouraging people to take nothing for granted.