Tonight in this household, we go to bed with heavy hearts and a lump in our throats.
A year ago, I woke the following morning and everything changed; Halloween 2014 was the epitome of everything can change in an instant - because it did. The situation changed. Our lives changed. The course of the life we pictured changed. My faith changed. Everything in my head changed.
Reliving the fear of that moment and that day doesn't get easier. It continues to be the most chilling, terrifying moment of my life up to that point. Within seconds of waking up, and going about my morning the same way I had for the past several weeks, I was screaming in fear. It felt like a gallon of fluid left my body and was now a puddle on my bathroom floor. I was helpless. Desperate for it to be a dream. I was certain I was hours, even minutes, away from losing my twins. As a woman, a mother, a soon to be mother... when your water breaks at 16 weeks 5 days you immediately think the worse. We hadn't even had time within this pregnancy to come up with a game plan in case of an emergency. What was next? Do I wait and see my doctor Monday morning? Do I rush to the hospital? Am I in labor? Call an ambulance? Accept that at this point in the pregnancy that the babies may already be gone? There was no emergency plan for 16 weeks gestation. There were no pre-packed bags to grab on the way out. There was no calm moment to take in our home one last time, just the two of us. There was only panic and fear. Complete chaos dancing in my mind.
In some ways this day was more frightening than the day I delivered at just 23 weeks. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because there was no warning. There was no mental preparation or plan for this moment. When you enter into a situation that wasn't planned and poses great tragedy, there's almost no recovering from the initial shock. In this particular moment, my fear was bigger than my faith. I could not remove my eyes or thoughts from what had happened and what it meant for the future of our daughters.
In these tough, scary, and challenging situations, people are quick to advise you that God will never give you more than you can handle. It sounds nice, but this is not true. There is no verse in the Bible that says this. It's merely an attempt to psychologically encourage someone that they can do it, but by falsely using God's intentions. Why would we ever need God if all situations could be handled independently?
Shortly after being admitted to Labor and Delivery and learning that if my girls had any chance of surviving I needed to first, not go into labor and second, to be on bed rest at least until 24 weeks gestation. At 16 weeks, 24 weeks sounds like it's years away. Just making it through the weekend was already going to be the biggest challenge of my life and now the best case scenario was laying there for the next eight weeks. This realization quickly taught me that I could not do this on my own. I needed God every day and every second of the day for the next eight weeks minimum. He was faithful to be there and provide. Through nurses, doctors, out of town family continuously there, friends that visited and brought food, family, friends, and strangers that prayed, keeping contractions away, keeping infection away, and keeping the girls in place while helping them to grow daily. It was a tough seven weeks being on hospital bed rest, but a lot of beauty was also revealed through God's help.
Waking up on Halloween 2014, a year later wasn't even comprehendible. But here we are. We're living. We're smiling. We're laughing. We're moving forward. Our hearts are always a bit broken and empty from the pain of the loss of our Mary Elliott, but our hearts are also overflowing with love, happiness, and gratitude as we watch Sadie Ann grow and thrive. This is not the picture of my family I imagined a year ago, but I'm also not perfect at writing life's stories. God is. And our story is beautiful.
Every Halloween from this point forward will remind me of the emotions and pain that I never could have predicted. It will always be a hard day as it was the start of an incredibly difficult journey. Tomorrow we face our first Halloween that will always trigger these memories. But tomorrow we also wake up thankful. For lessons learned. Faith that has grown. Thankful for the past year behind us. Thankful for the upcoming year ahead of us.
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
1.29.2014
Thoughts on the Southern Winter Storm
I can't speak for any state, city, or area other than my own, but it's making me cringe, literally cringe, to hear people (not affected at all by this winter storm) so easily state that the south can't handle two inches of snow or two inches of snow closes the whole city.
Where I live, it's most definitely not the two inches of snow that have closed businesses, left thousands stranded on the interstate, and claimed lives. No, not the snow. It's the ice.
People see a photo of miles of abandoned cars on a major interstate with a barely-there dusting of snow and assume we're pathetic. We're scared. We're stupid. (which, from what I can tell, is already a general assumption of most of us below the Mason-Dixon line). What you don't see in that photo is the one-half to two inches of ice under that non-threatning bit of snow.
I've lived deep in the appalachian mountains. I've driven down snow-covered, steep mountain roads and I've driven around snow-coovered, sharply curved mountain roads. My car never slid and it was never damaged or abandoned. However, put a thin layer of ice under that snow, then it's a game-changer. The type of game-changer that takes lives. The kind of game-changer that causes (thousands of) children to have to spend the night at school because it's impossible for vehicles (including four and all wheel drive) to get any where. The kind of game-changer that shuts down an entire city.
The thing about the south: we're prepared for extreme heat and we're prepared for hurricane season. We expect these things during their appropriate season. What we don't expect is a large winter storm dropping hours of freezing rain, sleet, and ice and then topping it with a couple inches of snow all while temperatures stay below 20. We especially don't expect it when the day before, it was 60 degrees.
Unfortunately, not everyone everywhere is prepared for everything. We down here in the south expect a winter storm of this magnitude the way a state like North Dakota might expect a significant hurricane; the way Hawaii might expect a large tornado; or the way New York might expect a week of temperatures above 90 with impossible humidity.
Yes, you're right, everything does shuts down here in the south when any type of wintery precipitation falls. We shut down because most people down here aren't experienced to drive through this weather. Our cities and states down here don't have the infrastructure to prepare the roads prior or clear the roads quickly afterwards... for something of this magnitude that might happen once every decade.
People are stranded without food/water and in extreme cases, have lost their life; this is our reality at the moment. It's also a reality that many people, not effected, are laughing at us. People are taking to social media and putting the south at the end of a thoughtless joke. Where's the humanity?
My whole point for this post: I just hate that we are a nation, a people, a human race that act so juvenile at times - picking and choosing which devastating situations warrant sympathy. And then (some) using that devastating situation to further prove their ignorant assumption regarding our intelligence.
Let the comments flow...
Where I live, it's most definitely not the two inches of snow that have closed businesses, left thousands stranded on the interstate, and claimed lives. No, not the snow. It's the ice.
People see a photo of miles of abandoned cars on a major interstate with a barely-there dusting of snow and assume we're pathetic. We're scared. We're stupid. (which, from what I can tell, is already a general assumption of most of us below the Mason-Dixon line). What you don't see in that photo is the one-half to two inches of ice under that non-threatning bit of snow.
I've lived deep in the appalachian mountains. I've driven down snow-covered, steep mountain roads and I've driven around snow-coovered, sharply curved mountain roads. My car never slid and it was never damaged or abandoned. However, put a thin layer of ice under that snow, then it's a game-changer. The type of game-changer that takes lives. The kind of game-changer that causes (thousands of) children to have to spend the night at school because it's impossible for vehicles (including four and all wheel drive) to get any where. The kind of game-changer that shuts down an entire city.
The thing about the south: we're prepared for extreme heat and we're prepared for hurricane season. We expect these things during their appropriate season. What we don't expect is a large winter storm dropping hours of freezing rain, sleet, and ice and then topping it with a couple inches of snow all while temperatures stay below 20. We especially don't expect it when the day before, it was 60 degrees.
Unfortunately, not everyone everywhere is prepared for everything. We down here in the south expect a winter storm of this magnitude the way a state like North Dakota might expect a significant hurricane; the way Hawaii might expect a large tornado; or the way New York might expect a week of temperatures above 90 with impossible humidity.
Yes, you're right, everything does shuts down here in the south when any type of wintery precipitation falls. We shut down because most people down here aren't experienced to drive through this weather. Our cities and states down here don't have the infrastructure to prepare the roads prior or clear the roads quickly afterwards... for something of this magnitude that might happen once every decade.
People are stranded without food/water and in extreme cases, have lost their life; this is our reality at the moment. It's also a reality that many people, not effected, are laughing at us. People are taking to social media and putting the south at the end of a thoughtless joke. Where's the humanity?
My whole point for this post: I just hate that we are a nation, a people, a human race that act so juvenile at times - picking and choosing which devastating situations warrant sympathy. And then (some) using that devastating situation to further prove their ignorant assumption regarding our intelligence.
Let the comments flow...
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