"They Died."

There is a part in Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium where Mr. Magorium is talking to Molly about death. I used that excerpt at a friend’s funeral many years ago, which went something like this:

In Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ at the end of Act V, King Lear dies. Shakespeare, this brilliant author and composer of literature that changed the world as it stands today, who influenced so many parts of so many things, writes “He dies” on the page. That is all that he can come up with. There is no fanfare, or choice words, or incredible rhetoric that he writes. He simply writes, “He dies.” And you’re frustrated, because you expected something more than just “He dies” but you realize that you’re truly frustrated because the character that you have been bonding with and learning about in the pages before, is now gone. And all that is left is the memory that character. That is what is truly meant by “He dies.”

All that is left is memory. All that we are left with is the memory of a little one; a child that was greatly awaited. There was so much excitement and fanfare over our little jalapeno, gone in an instant.

Mandy and I decided that we were going to write our own story, our own thoughts on everything that has happened with us over the past few months and post it to our blog. I’m probably not going to get everything I’ve been thinking about in this, but I hope I hit on some of the really big things. I expect that many of you have already read Mandy’s post, and if not you should. It is great stuff and is eye opening to me on some of the things I didn’t deal with through this process. So here is my perspective. But I will warn you, it’s probably not for the faint of heart. I also realize in this process, that a few of you are going to get upset. Some of you didn’t know that we were pregnant, and that upsets you. Some of you didn’t know that we miscarried, and that upsets you. Some of you probably thought that we were closer, and something of this magnitude to find out about in a blog post upsets you. I’m sorry. I truly am. If I had the ability, strength, and gusto to call up each and every one of you I would, but this is hard. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with in a long time, so please, cut us some slack. Also note that Jesus, God, etc. will be mentioned thoroughly throughout this post. I do not apologize.

As Mandy puts it, we “pulled the goalie” back in November, meaning that we stopped using all kinds of birth control. We didn’t realize that we would get pregnant so quickly. After having a conversation with some friends regarding how Mandy was feeling, she was encouraged to take a pregnancy test. Turns out, it was positive. Definitively. Mandy was floored, and I was too. Only about a week before she had taken another test because her cycle had not arrived, and the test said negative. Mandy called me at work that morning, told me she was pregnant, and started crying over the phone. I probably sounded cold and disengaged. There was a customer with another one of our employees and I was trying to maintain my professionalism. After I said, “I love you” all professionalism sort of went out the window. I hung up the phone and the customer said, “Do you tell everyone that calls in here that you love them?” A few minutes go by, the customer leaves, and I’ve sort of been staring blankly into space. David, one of my dearest friends, asks me if everything is OK. I look at him and tell him that I am going to be a dad. The news took off like wildfire around the store.

My favorite part of those first few weeks of being pregnant was slipping the announcement into general conversation. If you’ve ever had a conversation with me, you know my sarcasm and dry wit. One of my favorites was when one of my female co-workers mentioned that she was nauseous and wanted to throw up. I asked her if she was pregnant. When she said no, I said, “Well we are.” The reaction was priceless. “Wait, really? Are you serious? Is this another one of your lame jokes?” Yep. That’s the dialogue I’ve created with people.

Fast forward a little bit, and life is going good. I’m getting promoted at work, we are starting a life group, and of course we’re having a baby. Amazing things are happening. Life is going great. Yet, I’m frustrated. I can’t really put my finger on it. At first it starts out as just an emotional thing that weighs on me when I’m not preoccupied. Eventually, it starts to physically show, to the point where Mandy and I are getting into arguments about meaningless things. “I’m frustrated, and I’m frustrated that I’m frustrated,” I said to Mandy, because that makes sense. But, after some time passes, I finally put my finger on it. I’m frustrated because my relationship with my Heavenly Father is broken, and I’m receiving amazing blessings, but I’m acknowledging nothing. I didn’t feel guilty, or ashamed, or anything like that. I was frustrated because I had been wasting time on meaningless things while my life was blossoming around me.

There was still a problem though. I didn’t feel like getting any closer to God. I didn’t want to spend time or energy deepening that relationship. We had just gotten out of fourth quarter and the holiday season. I was tired. I didn’t feel like doing any of it. My attitude and ambivalence frustrated me even more. A few more weeks go by. Many of our friends and family know that we’re pregnant at this point, and all I can think about is my frustration. I’m not thinking about the exciting new life coming into our world. I’m not thinking about my promotion. All I can think about is my irritation. So, I decided that I need to make a change. I stopped praying frivolous prayers, and I got into the heart of the issue. I needed to get back in relationship with my Heavenly Father. So I asked Him, “Father, I do not take this request light-heartedly. I completely understand the weight of this, but I think that it is necessary. Please help me to get back to you. I don’t know what it is, but put something in my life that will draw me to cling to you. Yes, I realize what I am asking.”

That was a heavy prayer to pray and I don’t recommend doing that unless you absolutely mean it. I meant it. How many of you have asked for patience and got your patience tested more than you were hoping for. God doesn’t always just give what we ask for, and if that is how you think God should work, I’m going to be frank and tell you your vision of Him is that of a third grader. He is so much more than that. He is deeper than that. Also, don’t think that because I asked God for a life change that He decided to kill my child. Again, if you think that your vision of God is that of a third grader. I say that in love. What happened is that I asked God to shake some things up. Things were then shaken. The truth is that whether I prayed that prayer or not, who really knows what would have happened with our child. The exact same turnout probably would have happened, but in this scenario, my focus changed. My vision changed. My understanding changed.

We come back from Colorado after spending a few days telling friends and family that we are expecting. That was awesome and I wouldn’t trade those days for anything in the world. Such joy and excitement is hard to find amongst a world filled with tragedy and anguish. We head to the doctor for our first ultrasound and we don’t really see a whole lot. They are able to find the fetal sac, but that is really about it. No heartbeat. The measurements show that Mandy is only about six weeks pregnant, but based on conception and other “determining factors” we were expecting between seven and ten weeks. That discrepancy alarmed the doctors. They scheduled Mandy for more blood work to measure her hormone levels, and a follow up ultrasound.

It was at that point that I remember my prayer from a few weeks earlier and I started lifting this up to Him. It was out of my control. There was literally nothing I could do about it. All I could do was pray and be there for Mandy. A few days go by and Mandy’s hormone levels, which are supposed to be increasing, have become sporadic, both increasing and decreasing. Mandy was a wreck. When she heard that her levels had dropped, she came to the store in tears. We went over to a more secluded part of the store and I just held her for a few minutes while she wept. I felt defeated, but my reaction was the same. “The ultrasound would show any improvement. All I can do is pray. Just let us see a heartbeat.”

The ultrasound rolls around and both of us are quiet. We knew what was on the line here, and this was really the determining appointment. They pull up the screen and there it is, a little flashing/blinking light. It’s the heartbeat. It was amazing. It was relieving. But it was also slow. Instead of the 160 or 180 that is desired, it was averaging more around 100, and the measurements had not increased like they should have in a week. The doctors weren’t really sure what to tell us. They didn’t want to give us false hope, but it was good news. There was about a 50/50 chance at this point.

For Mandy, that was great news. For me, I took it the complete opposite. We had gone from a 0% chance to a 50% chance in one week, but after seeing how slow the heartbeat was, by spirit was crushed. All I could think was that there was only a 50% chance. The heartbeat was only 100. But my prayer of seeing the heartbeat was answered.

After the ultrasound, we went to see Mandy’s primary nurse, who started coaching us and providing supplies for a potential miscarriage. She let us know what to expect, how it was going to feel, options for collecting a specimen for testing, etc. It got very real, very fast. Mandy went home. I went to work, and all I could do was pray.

The next day, Mandy started bleeding. At that point, I had started to give up. My spirit was exhausted. I had spent more than the last week “praying without ceasing” and I was tired. I didn’t have anything left. The Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit praying for you in groans when you have no words. I had reached that point. The only prayer that I could muster was, “God, please keep Mandy safe. Please keep her safe. I know it is going to be painful and awful, but please keep her safe.”

Sunday morning rolls around. Miscarriage. Many people are getting out of church and preparing for the Super Bowl. Mandy was in the bathroom and I was preparing the last of my stuff before I went out of town for work training. When it was over, I went into the bathroom with Mandy to see the specimen she collected for genetic testing. I was floored. If you know much about Mandy, she is very type-A, OCD, clean-freak sort of person. There was a lot of blood. The toilet, the sink, the “hat” they had given Mandy to miscarry into. I’m not shy around blood, but this was different. This was heavy. 

A few hours passed and I had to get going for my trip. Mandy parent’s had been in town since Friday evening. Mandy and I decided that with them here, it was OK for me to go for training in my new position. She would be here when I got back.

Driving to Fort Worth was more difficult than I had anticipated. The five and a half hours just dragged by and there were several instances where I almost broke down in tears on the highway. Super safe state of mind to drive in. When I reached the hotel, I grabbed some food and watched the last half of the Super Bowl to take my mind off of everything. I then proceeded to do a little bit of work and watch Netflix. Midnight rolls around and I start to get tired, but I couldn’t sleep. It was at that point where it all finally hit me. I wept for about a half an hour, curled up with a couple of pillows and eventually passed out. I’ve only wept a few times in my life, and they’ve always been in seclusion. I don’t like to cry in front of people, including Mandy. That’s something that we’re still working on.

My best friend Justin ended up coming down from Oklahoma to have dinner with me. That was awesome. If there is one person that has been there for me in all of my struggles (as well as my praises), that is Justin. To have some time to decompress, let out some thoughts and feelings, and begin to sort through all of this was more than necessary. I’m thankful that even in the midst of me shutting down, Justin has known me long enough to know when to push a little harder. I thank you so much for that.

I drive back to Lubbock on Thursday, much more collected this time. I drop a few things off at work and then have three days off before I have to be back in the office. Mandy’s parents were still here, so we had some time together. They ended up leaving on Sunday, and then reality began to set in. Just over a week has gone by since Mandy and I have gotten back to our normal routine. 16 days since the miscarriage. I am now starting to deal with the grief.

The whole time I was in Fort Worth, I kept dealing with a heaviness and pressure in my chest. In the past I had attributed that to anxiety, but I wasn’t really feeling anxious. Being the fool that I am, I chalked it up to drinking too much caffeine and too much sodium from fast food. “Stress and grief over the loss of a child? No that could not possibly be why I feel this way.” I convinced myself that my chest pain was because of dehydration. I didn’t realize it until yesterday when I was lying in bed trying to figure out what was going on. That’s when it clicked and that’s when some more tears flowed. I have a problem with compartmentalization, which is a fancy word for burying stuff deep down until I don’t feel it anymore so that I can go about business as normal. That’s really unhealthy by the way. I don’t recommend it.

Over the past week, I started telling a few people that I work with that we lost the baby. It’s not the easiest thing to bring up in conversation. Hey, how was your trip to Fort Worth? Oh, you know, lost my child. I decided that I would only bring it up to people that asked how Mandy was doing, because otherwise it was too painful to tell them. All I could muster was, “we lost the baby on the first.” I had to leave it at that. After a bit of conversation, sometimes I would tell them about the testing we were hoping to do, but that was about it. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to think about it. If I talked about it and thought about it then I had to deal with it. I didn’t want to do that.

Mandy asked me last night how I’ve been doing with all of this. A few people have asked her and in retrospect, I haven’t really talked to her much about it.

The truth is that it comes in waves, but in general I’m not doing very well with it at all.

I’m not angry. I’m not bitter. I’m not frustrated or upset with God about any of this. But I’m sad. I’m really sad. I feel like a rock was shoved into my chest and I have to find a way to get it out without it causing any more damage. The fact is that I’m broken.

What I’ve realized through the beginning of this process called grief is that I didn’t want to deal with any of this because of how frustrated I get with other people. I’m not sure why, but a lot of people feel obligated to try and offer some sort of advice when they hear news like this. I think that the purpose is to try to console you, but for me I often find it unhelpful and upsetting. This is not every case. Generally the people that have experience this I find more consoling than the people that have not. The way that I wanted people to respond was, “I am so sorry. What can I do for you?” Or something to that extent. Instead, I got a lot of responses that were unhelpful, even if they were grounded in truth.

“Well, you’re young. There is plenty of time left for you to try again.” I am young, but that doesn’t help me with the fact that I just lost a child. We have to wait at least three to six months before trying again, and even if we get pregnant right away that is another nine months. That is over a year more of waiting. This isn’t American Ninja Warrior we’re talking about here. Just come back next year. Train harder. It doesn’t work like that.

“My sister/daughter/aunt/mother miscarried three times and then had four boys.” This one I’m a little less of a stickler on. But, the reality is that all I hear in this is that since we’ve already miscarried once, it is probably going to happen a few more times. I don’t know if I want to go through pain like this again and again. We’re also not planning on having four kids of our own.

“It’s God’s will.” I think what you meant in saying this is something like “God has a plan” which is totally different, and stems back to my prayer I discussed earlier. There is no way in hell that my Heavenly Father “willed” the death of an innocent child. Did He allow it to happen? Yes. Could He have stopped it? Yes. Should He have stopped it? Why are we even having this conversation? Ironically I am probably the one person affected by a miscarriage to not ask why of God. It’s just not a question for me, but I don’t appreciate this question because now I am trying to rationalize who I know my Heavenly Father to be and how He thinks/makes decisions.

“You were only a few weeks along in the first trimester. Most places do not define that as life, so that should make it easier.” Yes, someone did say that to me. No, I did not slap them. I saw a heartbeat and little did I know, but I created a very strong emotional bond with the little child. There was life. Your definition is repulsive and obscene.

I never thought that I would feel so strongly about something that I never physically touched. People talk about the family bonds all the time. It is strong with me and Mandy. We lost a child, and that is a hard reality to deal with. But, it is reality.

We weren’t able to get the sex of the baby. There wasn’t enough DNA in the genetic material to determine sex. That is hard, because we had names picked out. Mandy and I talked about what we wanted to do, and it seemed only fair to list both a boy and a girl name:

Annabeth Rose

Rhett Colton

It breaks my heart to think that I never got to hold you. I never got to console you. I never got to watch you sleep. I never got to dance with you. I never got to hold your hand. I never got watch you fall in love. I never go to hold your babies.

In only a few months so much of a bond had been created that it’s frustrating. Like in my excerpt with Shakespeare, we spent all of this time bonding with and learning about a baby, now gone. All that is left is the memory of this little one. And it’s unbelievably tough when you’re overcome with all of this emotion and you can only get out, “they died.” Now I understand why Shakespeare wrote it like he did. Sometimes that is all that you can muster.