~Because I wish this blog to give women HOPE through the grit of life, I welcome personal stories of faith victory. Please welcome my soul sister, Jewelfish. She has been refined through life experiences different than my own. I have invited her to impart HOPE anytime she wants here on the OysterBed. I admire her courageous optimism and tenacious beautiful faith. We have been friends for years, starting out as fellow counselors at church camp. I always feel uplifted in her presence. I hope you do, too, as you read her words......
Last year, Mr. Tiburon, my husband, and I had a moment of ultimate joy
and deepest sorrow as a couple. After a whirlwind trip to the “Big Easy” for
business (and lots of romance) we found out that we were expecting our first
child! This came with more happiness than
you can imagine! Knowing that I would
have fertility problems way before I even got married, we tried for over five
years to get pregnant. This included
trips to a fertility endocrinologist that eventually gave up on us and having
surgical procedures and lots of drugs to correct the issue to no avail. There had been so many years of prayers, and
crying out to God for us to have a baby…and here we were! I couldn’t wait to do
some sweet, extravagant plan to tell my husband that we were expecting! As soon
as I saw those two pink lines, I ran out of the bathroom in a frenzy of crying
and laughing and nearly gave Mr. Tiburon cardiac arrest! We made sure to ask
the doctors if we could tell anyone and we were given the okay, so we called
the ecstatic family and friends. Sisters
at church even had a get together in thanksgiving and prayer of blessing on our
baby in our honor. It was so special and
I was so excited to finally fulfill my dreams of being a mom.
Things
started to go wrong. I will never forget those days of fear and worry. I ended up having a miscarriage. Looking back, my husband was so full of faith
and strength where I worried about every move I made. I never knew how long of a process that a
miscarriage would be! The hours in the
hospital…days of waiting on phone calls from the doctor… three weeks of tests
and blood work just to tell me the inevitable that I knew in my soul was like a
band aid being ripped off over and over.
The doctor said that we could start trying after one cycle, so we went
back to tracking ovulation and counting days.
Since that was what worked for us before, it was natural that we would
just get back into the swing of things!
I never knew that the grief process would take so long for me,
though.
There were
times where I became so overtaken by grief that the everyday routines became
painful. It was excruciating to see
people who kept announcing their own pregnancies or stories on the news of
parents abusing their children. Work had
even become miserable. I thought I had
gotten much better until I had to face what would be my due date. Mr. Tiburon was so patient and strong. But, I became resentful of the time he spent
at work, not being available for the ovulation time table. I was angry that he didn’t understand that I
couldn’t wave a magic wand, make a wish and become pregnant. I knew that God would answer prayer, but he
also put a biological plan in place for it to happen. I knew I wasn’t Mary and conceive immaculately!
After months of going through the motions,
crying and resentment, we finally talked about how we each felt about the
miscarriage and how it was affecting our relationship. Some people are able to use loss to bring
them together and for others, loss becomes a wedge. We were determined not to let it keep us from
having a fulfilling marriage. Mr.
Tiburon let me know that my “tracking” took away the romance and made our time
together less intimate and more robotic.
I made a promise to not use my ovulation test for two months and he
would make the necessary changes to free up more time and spend it with
me. I even left my job as a preschool
teacher to work in our office so that we could build our business
together. We promised each other to be proactive
in finding ways to be together and spice things up. The biggest promise we made is to be thankful
for what God has already blessed us with…a marriage that is focused on
Him. Whether we have children or not,
our vows will stand strong through it all.
I am so sorry for your loss! I am also so glad you used it to keep you together. We've had two losses and I learned we had to intentionally choose to make it bring us together. I'll be praying for you!
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for your loss. The death of a child, no matter how old, can be an utterly devastating event that can rip a marriage apart. Trying again can be filled with fear and uncertainty. After my first known miscarriage, I still longed for a child, but I didn't want to go through the heartache of loss again. When our third child also died at about 8 weeks, it was a blow that I did not think I would recover from. Communication with my husband was vital to preserving our marriage.
ReplyDeleteThank you for being open about your experience. I pray many are blessed by your faithfulness to God & your husband.
Sorry it has been so long to respond to what everyone has written...I have just gotten back from working at Bible Camp. I'm writing this in between loads of mud-filled laundry! Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my posting. Ironically last week gave me a chance to share my grief in corresponding to what God goes through. I was teaching a study of Colossians to a group of 14 & 15 year old young ladies at camp last week and after talking about how God "rescued us from darkness and brought us intot he kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." (1:13-14) and how we take that for granted so often, that we don't realize what we have right at the tips of our fingers. We read about a 24 year old who has gone to jail for many years for robbing someone of $6,000.00 but the gun he used ended up in a museum because it was worth $100,000. He never realized what he had! The girls started talking about things that they take for granted and it brought up a lot of thoughts that had been inside me since the miscarriage. I told them that I had given up my job working with preschoolers to work with my husband, but also because I had grown weary seeing parents who had taken drugs while pregnant continue to be parents....or people who subject their children to abusive homelives go on like it's nothing...or people choosing their drugs, boyfriends or both over their own children...seeing people who didn't know that they didn't love or appreciate the one thing I would do anything for-children. I let them know that when I had hit the pinnacle of anger and misunderstanding, God stepped in and showed me that He goes through that everyday. I saw that God shows us over and over what treasures He has for us but we choose not to see it. It reminded me that God goes through what I went through. He knows pain and loss....he knows what it's like to see people not appreciate what is right in front of them. After opening up and "being real" with them, I had such an outpouring of love from them and it allowed them to open up themselves. After class that day, I cried. I cried because I felt so humbled to be able to use my pain to reach out to young women (those who have put on Christ and those who haven't) and show them what love and understanding God has for them. We also had another miscarriage scare in the middle of the week, which felt like reliving it again. AFter questioning and research, I think it was just being housed with a bunch of hormonal teenagers that through my cycle off! Thanks for your comments! -Jewelfish
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