Realities of Life

As the week goes by, Dan and I are realizing we are having more and more distract us from what has been going on. Good or bad? I don’t know. All we know is that work hard now and rest will come.

We are heading out on a getaway for 10 days for which we are SO excited! Since Dan lost his job, many have suggested that we get away. (I know I have mentioned that before). We really didn’t know what that would look like, so we just started to pray about it. My work was very generous in giving me 2 weeks off so that we can get away and also have time to move in with Dan’s parents. As we were searching out different options, we kept finding reasons not to go to those certain places. Then all of a sudden, in like 1 day, it all came together – and it is solely by God’s grace. Our getaway is a culmination of God using others in our life and God humbling us beyond imagination. We will embark on this trip knowing that without our brothers and sisters in Christ, this would not be possible. So we are going to take a “color tour” so to speak. Spend close to one week at a place then go up to Cadillac for a night, then to Sleeping Bear Dunes for 2. We are just so eager to have that time alone. Time to just be us. Time to just relax. Time to do nothing. Time to grow the marriage triangle. Time to honestly continue to grieve. We feel that so much has been going on that we haven’t had time to grieve our babies fully. I know it will take awhile, I understand that. But it’s been such a short amount of time and I already feel like too much is distracting us from it. So to say that this getaway is coming at the perfect time, is an understatement. Dan put it well – it’s not a vacation, it’s a retreat.

Today at the bookstore, I had two questions that I have never been asked before in my 6 years of being there. Those two questions revolved around one subject: miscarriages/losing a child. I will preface this in saying that these two women obviously had no clue what has been going on in our life. So in saying all this, I am not in one bit blaming them! The first lady couldn’t remember the title or author of this book, but she went on and on about the miscarriage, the details, how old the child was, and how emotionally hard it was for the mother. It took everything in me to not cry. We were never able to find out what exact book she was looking for, but after she left, I had to step in the back and just let it all out. I just was not prepared for that! Then about a hour later, someone else came in asking for a book about losing a baby (that time I knew what this lady was talking about), but in my head I’m thinking “goodness!” I seriously have never been asked those questions in the past. I don’t know if it’s satan trying to bring me down or if it’s God trying to strengthen me and preparing me for the rest of my life with those questions. All I know is that it has begun.

On Monday, my first day back at work, I was there for maybe 10 minutes and a woman asked me where the baby gifts were because she was going to a baptism. My eyes started to water. All I could think about was our discussions of when we would get our babies baptized – how we wanted Tim and Brenda up there with us in front of the church. How beautiful would that have been? We couldn’t WAIT to celebrate the fact that God was going to use so many people to bring these babies to life – yes, God is the giver of life, but He was using so many different people to make that happen. I kindly showed the woman where our baby gifts were, turned around, took a deep breath, and said “here we go.” Hours later I was talking with someone else and they asked if I worked full-time. I said “no, part-time.” The lady responds, “well you must have little ones at home then!” I quickly said “no, not yet” to hopefully stop the conversation. My heart was wanting to yell “actually I just found out my husband and I have 2 babies in heaven.” Sometimes I just want to scream that. Not out of anger, but those kids are just still such a big part of our life. I know they were only 3 weeks old (5 weeks according to the normal pregnancy terms). But they were just so long in coming for us we feel, that for them to be gone so quickly, makes it very difficult. Sometimes we wish we had an ultrasound picture of the embryo transfer, but the picture on our piano of the owls, is perfect. We desire to talk about them. Though it is hard at times, we love to talk about them!

Thus concludes an interesting week back at work. I love what I do. I love the people that come through the doors at the bookstore – they too, come in with a story. Each and every one of them. This week, part of our story was just a little more “fresh” so to speak. Time will bring healing and time will be healthy for us. Until then, we are just trying to take it one step at a time. That is why our “retreat” is going to be such a necessary time and time that we can’t wait to have! It has given us something to look forward to amidst the chaos. If we didn’t have this, I think we would be struggling even more.

We are blessed. Once again…”blessed be the Name of the Lord who gives and takes away!”