Leading to Transfer.

It has been awhile since I have blogged and a lot has happened during that time.

The past month has been filled with hope, excitement, anxiety, and the daily struggle of grief. We have learned to balance work, our home life, and the doctor’s appointments. Days that included legal, medications, lab draws, ultrasounds, and waiting on the very edge of our seat for the phone call of what to do next and ultimately when the transfer date would be. Our Gestational Carrier (GC) has been the best trooper through it all and on June 20th, we finally got the call we had been waiting for.

On Wednesday, June 27th, we transferred one embryo into our Gestational Carrier (GC). Everything went smoothly and it was a beautiful day that I will never forget.

It is also a day that I had initially battled with. I will be honest… This process has not been without struggle. And at the end of this post, what I want people to take away is that just because we are choosing to live does not mean that we do not still grieve. It doesn’t mean our days are easy. In fact, they are far from it. A glimpse into the mind and heart of a grieving parent is not pretty… Nights of waking up in tears because you can’t escape the nightmare you are living, not even in your sleep. Days of crippling anxiety and feeling physical tension in your body because the weight of the world is on your shoulders. There have been many days where I hate myself, hate my body for what it did to my family… To my children. I hate that I could not protect them. I hate that I could not do the one thing that every woman was made to do. I have blamed myself. I have felt every ounce of guilt. And there have been days when I felt like I was leaving my children behind by trying to move forward… Thinking that the sorrow I felt in my soul and the aching I felt in my bones somehow kept me close to them… That brokenness is what I felt the day they died, and that brokenness is what I have felt since.

But what have I learned?… I have learned that I can’t stay in the dark… If I did, it would ruin me. It would tear me apart and leave nothing behind. And I have learned that that is not a place where God wants me. He wants me with Him. Standing in the light.

Have I felt that He has given me more than I can handle? Yes. Do I believe? Yes. But have I, at times, felt like I have reached my limits as a believer? Absolutely. How could burying two of my children be part of any plan? Well… I have learned that He doesn’t expect me to be happy about what has been torn from my hands… But if you are willing to turn to Him and trust Him, He will take that pain and turn it into something beautiful. He will restore what the enemy has taken and you will see that you are part of a much larger story. And I believe that the next part of our story is beginning to unfold… I believe that something beautiful will come from this…

I am lucky to have a husband who continuously reminds me that I am loved, that I am beautiful and strong, and that it wasn’t my fault… He tells me on the days I feel I can do it and on the days when I feel like I can’t. He reminds me that faith has no room for fear. The two cannot live with one another. And when I woke on transfer day with tears streaming down my face, feeling like my anxiety was suffocating me whole, we went to Brooklyn and Miles’ grave… And as we stood there together, he said something so profound…

He said to me… We are not moving on, we are moving forward, and we are taking them with us wherever we go…

And there was no truer statement… Our children will always be a part of our lives. Nothing will ever change that. And though some days may be harder than others, I have to learn to be kind to myself… Something I think every loss parent needs to be reminded of…

Be kind to yourself. Step into the light.

“I began to understand that the real betrayal of my children’s lives lay not in moving into the light, but rather in staying in the dark. They didn’t live in the dark — only my pain lived there. And while I knew I would never be free from that pain, I also knew that clinging to it wouldn’t bring them back to me. I began to understand that the best way to remember and honor their life was to move into the light, taking them with me every step of the way.” – Mandy Hitchcock

The best type of friends are the ones who turn into family.

We love this family so much. They have helped us step into the light. Walking with us every step of the way. Walking with us in faith and friendship.