Grieving

On Monday, January 16th when I went in for my regular prenatal appointment, the midwife couldn't find a heartbeat. I was 11 weeks along, and so that should be plenty far enough developed to be able to hear something. I had been especially anxious to hear that heartbeat since just a few days prior I heard the sad and terrible news that my sister-in-law, Erika had lost her baby. She was 12 weeks along. Our babies were to be born a week apart in the middle of summer.

I had been so thrilled to have someone in the family to share my pregnancy with. And I was so happy and grateful that my child would have a cousin close to his/her own age. Summer, I thought, was just the perfect time to have a baby! Erika's sad news really shook me up. It was so horrible and tragic. It was especially painful because just a few months before, my brother and his wife had lost their baby boy in the third trimester due to a chromosomal abnormality. It didn't seem probable that there should be so much sadness and loss in one family so close together. I thought for sure that it would be impossible for something to go wrong with my own pregnancy. I had already been down that road once...and I told myself, isn't once enough? Besides three in a row in one family...that's just against the odds, isn't it?

So I went into my appointment...so confident, so hopeful. When there wasn't any heartbeat...I didn't feel too worried. I was sure that if I could get an ultrasound that we would find out that all was well and that the baby was just "hiding" from the range of the doppler. The soonest we could get in for an ultrasound was the next night, Tuesday the 17th at 6 p.m. I felt this sense of peace throughout that whole day...so I just "knew" that everything would be alright.

But as soon as the ultrasound began, I knew that something was horribly wrong. My uterus was large and measuring to the right size with the gestational sac in tact...but I couldn't see any baby. I have had early ultrasounds before, and so I knew what I should see....a beating heart... a well formed brain...moving hands and feet....instead there was nothing. Eventually the ultrasound showed what was left of my baby: a little, still, curled up ball of flesh that had stopped growing somewhere around the 7th week of gestation.

I was devastated. I went into shock...I just couldn't believe it. When I go into shock I get freezing cold and my whole body shakes...my teeth chatter and I can hardly speak. I had to meditate and pray to get control of my body enough to communicate.

I could tell that the Ultrasound technician was upset. The silence of the room was deafening. I kept on thinking that we'd find a heartbeat any second. Scott was standing, then pacing, asking questions, while she shook her head. She paused to tell me that she couldn't tell me anything about the ultrasound and that I would have to wait to get any information from my doctor after he had gotten the report from the radiologist..probably not until the next day. I nodded my head sagely...but after a while I couldn't stand it anymore, and I decided I wasn't going to play the waiting game. I told her that this was my 7th pregnancy...and that I knew what an early ultrasound of a baby should look like...and that I knew there wasn't any chance or hope for my baby. There wasn't any baby. My baby was dead. She looked relieved that she wouldn't have to pretend or hide the bad news anymore...and admitted that my diagnosis was accurate...and then she got the radiologist who hadn't left for home yet, even though it was by now after 7 p.m. He confirmed the news that it wasn't a viable pregnancy. Scott and I just held each other for about 30 minutes, unable to speak, just taking comfort from one another in a silent embrace.

After the shock wore off a bit...I had one overarching emotion: anger. Not anger at God, but anger at the injustice of the hard, cruel, natural mortal world where such things happened all the time.

I knew I would need to come into the hospital for a D&C. Scott and I were going to Hawaii in 2 1/2 weeks, and I needed to be well. The trip was paid for, no refunds...so we were going no matter what. This was our long-awaited big trip we've talked and planned for the last 10 years!!! I assumed that the surgery would be the best and quickest path to a full recovery.

I just felt so betrayed by my body. What had I done wrong? I was eating so well...and exercising daily,too. I was in better shape health-wise than I have ever been in my entire life. But I found myself analyzing everything I had done in my pregnancy, trying to find a point where I had done something wrong, wondering where I had made some mistake. Scott was very upset at this, and insisted I was not to blame myself...but to accept it as God's Will...but that was hard for me to take.

For hadn't God told us to go ahead and have this baby? This was a planned pregnancy. We have known for years that we were suppose to have one more child. (Even though I purposefully put it off for several years because Julianna was born so demanding that she wore us all out!!!) But Now felt like the right time. Whenever we prayed about it, we had received such beautiful spiritual confirmations that now was the time to go forward and have a very special child. We were awed at the strength of the response from the Holy Ghost. We have never received an answer to our prayers so quickly and so strongly!!! And I had had Priesthood blessings promising me beautiful things. I was so confused. Why would God give us this child, only to take it away so soon? It just didn't make sense to me!

I will say that one small comfort is that this loss has been easier on us than the first baby I lost. Not being new to grief, I at least new what to expect. When I was 23 years old, I was expecting a new baby when Christopher was about 14 months old. It was a normal, healthy pregnancy. I saw a healthy, perfect baby at the ultrasound at 13 weeks along. A little more than 1 month later at a regular check up there was no heartbeat. The following ultrasound confirmed that the baby (18 weeks along) had died. The baby was too big for a D&C, so I had to give birth to him in the hospital...in the very same room that I had given birth to Christopher in. It seemed so harsh to be in the labor and delivery room where mothers all around me were giving birth to healthy, whole, beautiful babies. And here I had to have pain and labor without the sweet reward at the end. It was truly my most painful birth, because the drugs they gave me to enforce labor were so horrible and unnatural. And the narcotics they gave me for the pain made me horribly ill. But I am grateful at least that I was able to hold my perfectly formed baby boy, who was as big as the palm of my hand. I could see family resemblance between him and Christopher. They both had Scott's nose. The nurses were very kind and sweet. They took pictures of us and the baby and made up a tiny little remembrance box with booties and the blanket they wrapped him in.

My body did not recover well. I was shocked that my milk came in. It was 3 months before I felt physically recovered...but it took at least a year to recover myself emotionally and spiritually. It is definitely the most painful trial of my life to date. But just because this current experience was less dreadful doesn't make it any less difficult.

In my religion, we believe that families can be together forever. We believe that through the sealing power of the Priesthood that all the children we lose in this life will be given to us to raise and love and hold in the next. But our beliefs are not specific about when the "spirit" of the child enters into the body and becomes a living soul. I was sure that my lost baby boy would be mine in the eternities, and so I gave him a name: Caleb John Dotson. And I am looking forward to meeting him someday.

But this new experience is completely different! I never felt this baby move...never heard a heartbeat or saw the ultrasound pictures. I don't know what gender this baby would have been...I don't have a name or a face to grieve with...and yet grieve I do!!! My loss is deep and painful!

A baby is in some aspects real to the mother as soon as she discovers she has conceived. Plans are made, and our whole life and perspective changes...and soon our whole world revolves about planning, hoping, and loving the new life within us. Having that taken away is a horrible blow. It is the death of a dream...but it also more than that. It is the loss of so much more. The life within us FEELS so real. You can FEEL the spirit of the baby inside you even before you feel the baby move...And to have your womb, where life is engendered, made into a tomb is a horrific turn of events.

It was very hard for us to come home, and make ourselves eat, and pick up the kids. We dreaded telling them...but we were anxious to get it over with. The kids knew that we were hoping to hear the heartbeat that day, so they loaded into the van all excited to hear the news. But as soon as they saw our faces, as we began to explain the situation, they began to cry. They took the news pretty hard. They all cried all the way home. Even Julianna was crying, "Oh no! our baby is dead? Oh no!!" The littlest ones recovered the quickest, going to sleep and waking up feeling normal and chipper...but the older kids were different. They were depressed for a while. The kids were mad at our puppy, Frankie, who was greeting everyone in frantic joy as usual. "What are you so happy about?" they yelled at him. "There isn't anything to be happy about! Go away! I CAN'T STAND YOU RIGHT NOW!"

Poor Christopher took it the worst, crying on the floor in his room in despair. He was upset. He was angry that we didn't seem to be more upset...(Parent in survival mode: must take care of children! Of course we couldn't show them the full range of exactly how upset we were!) and he was worried that he would forget....because he thought it was so horrible to recover from grief, because he thought that means that you don't care anymore. This was his first encounter with grief, and so it was hard to explain that the bad feelings come and go in waves, and that it is natural to forget sometimes so that you can function...because how else can anyone go on if they always felt as bad as they did when the terrible thing first happens? And I tried to express that even when you "recover" you never stop caring...but that time and love help put a band-aid over where the hurt is, only that the hole that is left never fills up or heals entirely...there will always be a hole there, whether or not it constantly aches. And we honor that. We respect and keep a special memorial there in that space that is left to honor that person whom we grieve. He didn't like that explanation, much...but over the course of the week he slowly felt better...and then eventually felt resigned. The most healing thing for him personally was the thought that this same baby is in heaven, waiting to come down for another try at getting a body. The belief that the only thing that really has changed is his birthday.

I know that is what my Father-in-law believes...very strongly. BUT. What about all those people who get pregnant and miscarry only to never have another baby..what then? Is their baby then given to some other family to be born to and raise, and they never get that child in the next life?

I know that many people do not consider my baby, Caleb, a real person...they think of him as just a miscarriage..not even a stillborn baby. I had family members back then telling me that this baby was waiting to come down again for his body. But that didn't felt right to me. I don't believe in reincarnation. And I frankly proved that theory wrong by having four girls in a row! We never got our baby boy back!!! Not in this life, anyway. Not unless he WAS given to another family to raise in this life...but I can't believe that, either.

So...the question for me in this grieving process that I am going through is this: Was that my baby's turn on earth? Do I never meet him or her till the next life? Or...was it that this spirit's attempt to come down and get a body that was interrupted by a faulty start and he gets another go in a few months? The fact is...I'll never know...not in this life anyway! I'll just have to walk on in Faith, trusting in the Goodness of God, and hoping for better things in the future. I have one Aunt who believes that all DNA is eternal. She had two ectopic pregnancies that nearly resulted in her death. She believes those children were real people with real spirits and that she will meet them on the other side someday. She believes that there are no duplicates in this life. That all life will be restored in the resurrection, no matter how small and undeveloped. I find her personal beliefs comforting, hopeful, and refreshing.

I am just so grateful that during this time Scott and I have had such a good relationship and have been so close. I don't know how I would have borne the pain without his steadfast support and love. He helped me truly let go and allow myself the time and peace to grieve...instead of putting it off or denying it.

I guess if my baby's mission in life was to bring my husband and I closer together...that I can reconcile myself a little easier to the loss. Scott took a whole week off to help me and take care of me. I am so thankful for him being there. Scott really took this loss hard. He was really looking forward to this baby, and felt a very special connection to the baby more so than normal with our other pregnancies. It was hard for him to deal with the pain...and most people who give well wishes and comforting words think mostly of the grieving mother, which can leave the grieving father feeling lost.

Scott has showed me complete and tender support. One day, my sister took the kids all day and we just sat on the couch and held each other for hours and hours and cried. It was so healing. I've never been able to do that before. I had put off grieving and tried to fight it when I lost Caleb, and it nearly drove me insane. At the very least it made me emotionally unstable for a while.

After I came home from the hospital, I had a week of non-stop crying. Soon, I was getting desperate for the tears to stop! So we spent lots of time trying to watch and read funny and uplifting things to make us laugh. Laughing and smiling over anything felt so good. And of course it helped to have five beautiful children around! We were daily counting our blessings!

I am so grateful for all the food and meals that were brought to me and my family! My children would have been neglected if not for all the help I received. I am so grateful for the phone calls, the supportive facebook comments, the cards with words of love and comfort. They all meant a lot to me.

Going back to church was very painful and difficult. I am the primary president, and I just knew that if I was around all those beautiful kids I would lose it. In our ward, we have recently had many healthy, beautiful babies born. It is wonderful to see them, and I just love and treasure babies and kids everywhere...but it did make me feel my loss more keenly, and feel a longing in my arms that can't quite be satisfied by the tall, wiggly, fit-throwing Julianna! So I stayed in the hall that day, and that was better. But I had to run into the bathroom a few times to go cry in the stalls. Everyone was so sweet and gave me kind words...but it was hard to respond back with even so much as a thankyou...it just brought it all back to the surface so quickly. I still can't talk about it without choking up...but I am grateful to be able to write about it and get it all out in this format. I really needed to do that!

I will say one thing for trials: the opposition in life really makes you count your blessings! You feel incredibly blessed for the miracle of life and for all the good things you daily have and take fore granted. It makes you immensely aware of all the little miracles you don't normally notice. Trials can bring you closer to God, and I have felt his love and peace...and I have been spiritually strengthened by the many prayers that have been said in my behalf!

When I lost my first baby, I was completely overwhelmed by the love and tenderness that shown to me by family and friends. I had honestly never felt so loved in my entire life. It is a very humbling experience to be the recipient of so much service and love.

This experience has made me profoundly grateful and aware of the importance of compassion, empathy, and love. My heart has been softened. My testimony of Jesus Christ and his perfect gospel has been strengthened. I have been ministered to by many families...and the ones that have meant the most have been those who have been through what I have suffered. And so perhaps God has given me another opportunity to grow in my own ability to have compassion so that I can serve another tenderly in her own future moments of grief and need.

School Highlights - Last week of January

I spent the Holidays totally decluttering my house. The mess from Christmas was too much...couldn't stand it anymore! So I spent the whole week deep cleaning each room. Whenever I do this, I am amazed with how much "junk" I come up with. I probably got rid of 6 garbage bags of trash and 8 boxes of clothes to give away. Whenever I "simplify" like this, I feel a big bound of freedom and energy. It's so refreshing!


Since the big "PURGE" we've had a lot of extra time and effort put into our homeschooling. And we are all enjoying our home education pursuits much more! I thought it would be fun if every once and a while I post some highlights from our week's worth of learning and projects.

It will also make a fun record for me to look back and see what we've been working on!

*We Spent all day Monday fixing up all our dead and dying computers. We now have Windows 7, and will need to relearn a lot of things. The kids got their computer fixed, which will be the one we use for math, typing, and other educational games. And we got a place to back up all our photos...yay! Now if only I can figure out how to post pictures from picasa to my blog...since the "Blog This" button has somehow disappeared on this new version. Dorathy made a Tuna Noodle casserole all by herself, and Courtney baked brownies. If there is one place where my kids are happy helpers...it's the kitchen! Our theme in the kitchen is "cooks get to snitch" and its fun to cook and taste!

*On Tuesday, Dorathy did her "Geo-Trekker" class online, and learned all about the countries of North America. Christopher succeeded in a couple of debates in his "Logic" class online, learning the difference between argument and disagreement. The difference between a fact or opinion...and how to determine a fallacy. Tuesday is letter writing day. We are making an effort in writing letters (since it is a dying art form) and we are all enjoying our new pen pals! Courtney helped me make some homemade caramel. It was an experiment that partially failed...but it made great caramel peanut butter for a fruit dip.

*On Wednesday, regular school took a break so we could do a ROCKETRY CLASS. We signed up for SuperchargedScience...a site where a Nasa Scienstist (and homeschooling mom) has units that covers every kind of science from K - 12. It's a really great resource where you can have your whole family learning chemistry or physics, etc. together and doing fun experiments. Christopher had a blast learning about Rockets and he designed and launched some rockets of his own. We got some great height out of them! Unfortunately, I broke his launcher when I jumped on the booster too hard and it exploded!

The kids went to piano...traveling to and from on their scooters since we've been having this awesome warm and sunny "January Thaw." My kids have made great progress on the piano in the one year they have been taking lessons...I am so excited to hear their new songs. I love hearing them practice. Now I just have to be more regular about practicing myself! My kids compete to see who will get to play the Hymn every morning for our daily devotionals. They play so often, that I am getting rusty!

Wednesday night, the kids started up a new semester of CLOGGING! Hurray! This is a fun outlet for all the girls. This year, Angel is finally old enough to join up!!! She is super excited. But she is also begging for Ballet lessons. $$$$$ Clogging = fun & free; courtesy of my amazingly talented friend, Jaime. Ballet: very pricey...plus how do you put 1 daughter in lessons when you have 4 daughters who'd all like a go? I would have to get a second job to pay for fun things like that...and that is NOT going to happen right now! Maybe this summer she can do some dance camps?

On Thursday we finished the first part of our Unit on the CIVIL WAR. For the last 2 months we've read several civil war books...interestingly, they have all been from the perspective of the South. I think we will now read some books from the North and do a study on the life of Abraham Lincoln and memorize the Gettysburg address. Last week when I was sick, the whole family watched Dances with Wolves together and had some discussion on the Indians and the culture of the times. I have a bunch of documentaries and mini-series on my netflix cue to share with my kids next. I love learning history along with my kids. :)

We also took a nice long break to make a bunch of soft-bread pretzels. Every kid got their own bowl and their own batch. We got the recipe from the friend magazine. We made Pretzels that said CTR which stands for "Choose the Right". Some of the kids also made their names :) We made some butter & salt flavored...but most of the kids chose to do cinnamon and sugar. We all have a sweet tooth!

While they were baking and the older kids were home watching the oven, I took my younger kids to my "Mentor Mothers" group. This is a support group for homeschooling mothers who want to further their own education. We have been studying a different educational philosopher each month...and learning a ton!! This month we did Maria Montessori. I decided that the books I took out from the library I will have to buy. They are just too good not to own. They are written specifically to parents who want to help their young children get a good start in reading and writing. Everything Montessori taught fits in with the model of Thomas Jefferson Education. I would love love love to learn more "Montessori skills" to use in my own home. Next month we are reading about the theory of multiple intelligences in the books by the famous psychologist, Thomas Armstrong

Thursday evening my sister, Mom, and I also got to have a "ladies night out" at Dairy Queen, indulging in a blizzard, and relaxing from the stresses of the week.

On Friday, Christopher did his two hour online Biology course. This has been an awesome class for him. The teacher is talented, the kids in the class are fun, and it has made learning the biology of the cells, animals, and plants a big adventure! It is especially cool that he assigns documentaries off of netflix for the homework assignments. ;) The rest of the day was dedicated to getting Christopher ready for his big Wilderness Survival Camp out. This is the merit badge his troop has been working on for months. 2 weeks ago, Christopher and Sanford built a giant SNOW FORT out of all the snow that fell in Mary's yard. They were actually able to sleep in it for a little while, despite the POURING RAIN that was slowly melting everything. The drip drip drip of the snow roof got to be too much for them, however, so they spent the rest of the night dry inside. :) They are learning some awesome wilderness survival skills!

So for the campout, I had the rest of the Bassett kids over here for a big sleepover..which was fun and surprisingly not too noisy. We watched the new Annie movie from Disney and ate pizza and donuts for dessert...which gave me a raging migraine headache. Ever since I started eating healthy 2 years ago...my body DOES NOT LIKE IT when I indulge in nasty sugary/white flour foods. Oh, and we have been thrilled to go and visit my sister's new baby goats! They are super-duper adorable. My kids often wish that they lived on the Bassett farm!

On Saturday, my older kids had a choir practice for a concert for Stake Conference in two weeks. Then we picked up poor Christopher who dragged all day because he only got 3 hours of sleep in "shelter" he built himself for the big Scout campout. We spent the rest of the day CLEANING HOUSE for our big LORD OF THE RINGS PARTY!!! I have a Colloquium where we meet once a month at my house with our families for a potluck dinner and book discussion. This time we did Lord of the Rings. We made Stewed Coneys and herbs in honor of Samwise...and a BIG POT of mashed TATERS. heeheeheehee. Too bad we didn't think of Mushrooms in honor of the hobbitts. But I did make Rice Krispie Treats for the Elves waybread "Lembas". We didn't have any orc food, of course. But we did have a fruited green salad worthy of any elf! The kids watched the Hobbit movie while we discussed the trilogy and bashed the movie versions. Then we played a LOTR Trivia game...which was quite challenging.

The Happiest School improvements this week are:

***Christopher is doing awesome in his spelling and has a new friend to email from his biology class. He is reading LOTR for the first time. Hurray! He is really into Military History right now, too.


***Dorathy has started retyping one of her stories on her blog, editing it and polishing it up. The story is called "Friends". I will have to post a link to her blog here if any of you would like to follow her progress: http://ayoungwritersmagnumopusdorathy.blogspot.com/



***Courtney's reading is getting more smooth. She has had a VERY bumpy road to mastering reading because of her dyslexia. Christopher overcame his enough to read by 4...but Courtney is only now getting comfortable with reading outloud here at 8 yrs. She can now read at a 2nd grade level (which is her grade level)...but it is not easy, and it is not a past time she will voluntarily go to. I had her read me a chapter books about Sharks. She is crazy for Science, that she handled that okay, but could only do one chapter a day before she got burnt out. Courtney loves math and is enjoying memorizing her math facts.

***Angel is practicing and enjoying her writing. She has improved greatly and is just beginning to read! She is about to start 1st grade level work. She loves school time. We do lots of reading games and learning games together while the older kids do their classes online. Angel has started drawing "still life" pictures...Studying a scene, and then portraying it on paper with as much detail as she can. Very cool!



***Julianna has officially started "school" here at home on pre-K level. She has started code book and now that she knows all her abc's, she is learning their sounds. She is lots of fun to play with! She is learning how to follow directions...and loves any "hands on" projets we do...especially play-doh and painting! She has started drawing people with faces...very fun!