Hi family & friends!
I know it has been quite a while since I've written a new post! Some people have asked me to continue to write, but I think if I sat here and thought about Lucas non-stop often enough to keep up this blog, I might just go crazy!Long story short, I'm feeling so much better now and just haven't had much to say. But now that we're coming up on a year since Lucas was born, I'm feeling a little ball of emotions growing inside my heart. I've got a few things I'd like to share with everyone. This is kind of a collection of random thoughts and matters I've been dealing with....they may jump around a little bit.
So over the last 9 months or so, I've had a lot of healing going on. The bad days are becoming less frequent, and for the most part I'm so happy to just feel happy! Happy, happy, happy! (Duck Dynasty moment!) The bad days usually just come out of nowhere. There's no rhyme or reason for them. I just wake up, and no matter what I do or how busy I stay at work, I can't get Lucas off my mind. I replay my pregnancy and his little 6-day life in my head over and over again. It's exhausting! I usually just slip in the bathroom and work and cry a little...let it out...and I'll feel a little better. Sometimes I start to worry if I should be feeling that way almost a year later. But I know it's okay. Grief does not have a finish line. It's a process...a journey really. I saw something the Grieving Mothers Facebook page that I really like. It says:
"You don't get over it, you just get through it...You don't get by it because you don't get around it....It doesn't get better, it just gets different...Grief puts on a new face every day."
I find this to be very true! And I know that I'm okay because I can look at babies and just smile and look forward to having one of my own. That wasn't possible last year. There was a precious little baby girl a few pews in front of us at church this morning...I thought of Lucas of course, but in a good way. I can even talk about him a little better now. I WANT to talk about him! I may even talk about him when it's really not necessary. But hey, that's progress. I need a construction sign on my head "Pardon Our Progress".
I may have mentioned this in my last blog or facebook or something...can't remember. I hit a personal low over the summer. June, July...the shock and numbness started to wear off. The grieving process is the strangest thing! You would think the hardest part is immediately afterward and things just get better from there! But we have this pesky little coping mechanism that "protects" our emotions at first, but it wears off after a couple of months. Reality starts to set in. Time slows down. The beginning was hard...don't get me wrong. I mean, we had to come home from California one short, walk into our house with reminders of Lucas everywhere. A friend offered to clean things out before we came home, but I didn't want that. I thought it would be better to see it. Not so sure it was! There was my Snoogle (pregnancy pillow) on our bed, pregnancy books on the dresser, Lucas's room was already full of toys, clothes, and I already bought his bedding. I couldn't even go in that room. I couldn't go out of the back porch where I would come home from work every day and just sit and relax, and that's when he liked to kick around the most. It was our bonding time. Anyway, like it was saying, you would think things would get better and keep getting better. They didn't. Three months later, I had completely shut down and shut out Ryan. I didn't want him to touch me, I didn't want to touch him. I didn't want to talk. I can even understand how people become alcoholics after something like this! I discovered a wonderful thing called WINE, and I just wanted to be drunk and live in my own little world in my head. I wanted to be someone I'm not. Luckily, I don't think I took it as far as I could have or even as far as I wanted to. I didn't care anymore. But I knew that I have a husband who loves me and I was fighting this internal battle between "I don't give a crap" and "don't let your husband down". It came down to a tearful one-sided fight where Ryan basically had to break me down. I knew what I was acting like, but I didn't care. It wasn't until I realized how bad I was hurting him that I really got the picture. I had to "snap out of it" or we weren't going to make it. I looked into counseling and by the time I was ready to make an appointment, I had worked so hard on my own that I never went. I just needed that VERBAL slap in the face to pull me back to reality.
I've slipped a couple of times though. There have been times since that I've read something or was just feeling bad, and someone has said something to me, like "You shouldn't be questioning this now." Or making me feel bad for still being upset about losing my son. Researching children like Lucas isn't always a good thing either. One time, I read something about a family who had a disabled child who doctors encouraged the parents to let go, but they said, "No, we're taking this child home, no matter how difficult, and we're going to love it because that's the right thing to do!" Oh, I fell hard! That very thing was my every instinct and everything I fought with in the NICU! Lucas was going to be vegetable, to put it plainly. We had to let him go...for HIM! But it had me questioning that decision...all of it! I was having a hard time and Ryan actually said something that hurt my feelings. He didn't mean to, and after we discussed it, he understood me and I understood him.But I was so upset and felt alone. I turned to my friend Kelly who went through the same type of loss...times 3! She said (something to the effect of) "YOU are Lucas's mother...no one else in this world is Lucas's mother...therefore, no one else knows how it feels to be Lucas's mother." She's right...not even Ryan, not even here. NO ONE has the right to tell me how I should or should not feel about losing my son. She's been such a blessing to me. She's there with support and answers if I need her. Sometimes I like to think our boys all know each other in Heaven :)
I still have a hard time when I hear of a woman having a baby who, in my opinion, shouldn't be having a baby. It's really easy to not get pregnant! I did it for years! That's where some jealousy comes in. Ryan I did it right, so to speak. We dated for 4 years, we got married, we waited until we were emotionally ready, financially ready. And look what happened. So then I see this young girl, unmarried, no job, no money, on Medicaid. And here were are, with great jobs (paying into that Medicaid for that young girl btw) paying for our own health insurance every month, we lose our child and still ended up having to pay upwards of 15K for medical expenses. And that young girl and her baby are more than likely going to be just fine and have her baby for free/little to no cost. It's not fair! Now, I know that opens up a whole can of political worms! But here's what I've recently learned. I've accepted God's plan for us. That young woman having that baby...that was God's plan for HER! If I trust his plan for me, I need to trust his plan for her. It's difficult, but I try not to be angry or jealous. All I can do is accept it and pray for her. Maybe this baby is the best thing to happen to her. This story of the young girl is a true story and it has opened my eyes. It has been a lesson, for sure!
Ryan and I finally started going to church about 4 months ago. We had been talking about it for years, but Sunday morning comes....the bed is more inviting. Well, after losing Lucas I had questions. I needed answers. Why me? What did I do wrong? Why is God punishing me? I felt that if I were closer to God, I would know WHY this happened to me. I started to have an URGE to go to church, so one day I told Ryan "We're going." Period. We found a church that we absolutely love! Very quickly, I felt a change in myself. Now, I'm saved and baptized. So is Ryan. But I've never tapped into my faith. I never picked up a Bible and actually read it. It had been YEARS since I went to church. But once we got to going, I started to get it! I began to CRAVE the Bible. I read it at home, I read it on my phone at work. I started questioning things and finding answers. There's something at work here! What if everything that happened with Lucas was to make me and Ryan get closer to God? I know for a fact that if we're blessed enough to have another child, we're going to raise that child in a Godly home. I'm a different person, spiritually, than I was before. Maybe we needed that! Maybe losing Lucas was the only way to get us there. There's a song we sing for invitational sometimes. It goes:
All I've got...All I am.
All my dreams...All my plans
I'm holding back...I'm holding nothing back from you.
Whatever it takes, I'll trust you completely.
I'm here in your hands if you need to break me.
It wasn't until the 2nd or 3rd time we sang that song that it just hit me one day. God had to break me! Now it's my move! I've got to do better! For Jesus. For myself. I've got a little boy in Heaven waiting on me. I don't want any lip when I get there!
God has his reasons for doing what he does. I feel that Ryan and I are a stronger couple now. If we can get through this, nothing else can touch us! I can thank God AND my son for that. Ryan told me not long ago that he felt guilty. Like losing Lucas was somehow his fault. We made the decision to conceive a child, we tried for him. But when I told Ryan that I was pregnant, he was only half-heartedly happy. It wasn't until just before we lost him that he actually got it. And he fell in love with his son. He thought, what if we lost Lucas because HE wasn't ready to be a father? He's ready now. I'm more ready now. It worked God! Now can we have a baby?!
On another note, Ryan and I are about to relocate to Pittsburgh! Boy, that's a long way from home! I think about how I grew up in the country...with a gravel driveway, a tire swing hanging from a giant sweet gum ball tree. I fell asleep to the sound of crickets and frogs, and often to the sound of cows giving birth in my backyard! Okay, it was a pasture...just beyond my backyard. What I'm getting at is I can't believe my children, assuming God will bless us so, are going to be "Yankees"! I just pray that we're making the right decision. I think we chose right and I'm so proud of my husband for getting this job. It's a promotion within his company...Pittsburgh is their corporate center. He'll be doing a job that he's actually interested in and knows he can excel in. To put this opportunity into perspective for you, his boss's boss's boss is the CEO of ALCOA. He's so excited and I'm happy for him. As for me, it looks like I may be able to work for the transcription service that my current job uses (I work front office for a podiatrist). I asked the owner about working for her and she said she's always looking for help and she'll get back with me on the details. Hopefully that works out! I won't have to worry about the fact that when we get pregnant again, I'll be on bed rest for half/most of the pregnancy. It would be perfect for us, but we'll see. We were just saying the other night that maybe a change of scenery will be a good thing when it comes to getting ready for a new little one.
I'll be doing another blog in 2 weeks. Lucas's birthday is on April 27th. We're spending that whole week at Disney World and then coming home on his birthday. We're planning to do a "birthday balloon" for Lucas. We're going to write a letter to Lucas and send it up on a balloon....just a symbol of it being sent up to Heaven. I've already started my letter. I'm gonna need at least 3 balloons to get my letter off the ground! I just can't stop talking to him! I've got so much to say to him. My original plan was to let it go AT Disney, but it's actually a Florida state law that you can't KNOWINGLY let one go. I think Disney has their own rules as well. So, we'll either get a Mickey balloon there and bring it home or buy one here and let it go in the privacy of our own back yard. So I plan to put my letter to Lucas on here for you all to read if you'd like. I don't know about Ryan's though. I'll take pictures too! I plan to go through his memory box on his birthday. I've kept everything. All of the sympathy cards you sent us, donations you made to charities, blankets you made for him....EVERYTHING. They will forever be appreciated. And thank you all so much for your continued prayers over this past year. You don't know how much it has meant to us both.
Love,
Jessica
