Christmas 2013

So, where were we? Christmas!

Santa Came!

BABY DIAPERS!

AND BAND AIDS!!

Rags helped clean up the wrapping paper afterwards.

A sweet gift from Pam and Steph, an ornament for Sara Hawley.

After we opened presents, we ripped the ornaments off the tree in record time, finished packing, and headed to the airport for our flight to SC. (Forgetting to close the garage when the cab picked us up, no less, thankfully a neighbor was home when I called and went and closed it for us).   It was a crazy day but a great morning together!

Saying Good-bye

We said good-bye to Sara Hawley today, scattering her ashes at Topsail Beach where we were vacationing the week before she was born.  We aren't exactly sure when she died, but sometime between my appointment on May 30th and early the week of the June 2nd (when we were at Topsail) she passed away, and we both feel like the beach is where we lost her and that is why we wanted to return here to say good-bye.

It was just the three of us. We rented a smaller house on N. Topsail closer to where the house is where we stayed this summer, but unfortunately the realty company discovered that the heat was not working the day of our arrival and switched us to a house further south down the beach.  Of course we are much happier being warm with the crazy cold that is covering the country.  We arrived, dropped off all our stuff, then hurried back to the car to drive down to have dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousins. It was a lot of driving but it was great to see them and they cooked us dinner and Aunt Priscilla left all her Christmas decorations up for us (well for Emmy) and she goes all out for Christmas, so that was lovely.

After we got Emmy to bed Charles and I spent a good bit of time just talking, crying and mentally preparing for the next day. We read back over the prayers we had selected to read and the "order of service." After my first miscarriage before Emmy, I purchased a book What was Lost: A Christian Journey Through Miscarriage. (Which if you know anyone who experiences a miscarriage early in a pregnancy I recommend it). It was written by a United Methodist pastor (who is a div school friend of several folks I know and the wife of a fellow Wofford grad), and she includes suggested prayers, orders of service, and sample sermons for services following a miscarriage or for pregnancy loss remembrance.  We took some of these and pieced together what we would say/do.

Just before we ate breakfast this morning, Charles saw a group of porpoises not too far out, so that was something nice to wake up to.  After breakfast Emmy was dying to go down to walk on the beach, so we bundled up for a walk. She had a great time looking for shells and she was so, so sad it was too cold to go in the water. Sorry kiddo!


We checked the tide tables and decided that when the tide was going out would be the best time to have our service. We came on back in, napped, ate lunch, and then when Emmy was awake we headed out. Charles really wanted to return to the part of the beach where we stayed this summer so we drove to the north end of the island and parked at the house where we stayed this summer.  We forgot that the name of the house where we stayed is Heaven's Edge.

We read three prayers, scattered her ashes, and put flowers into the water.  We kept it very simple.  I was hoping for some quiet, reflective  time to think and listen, but with Emmy running around, that wasn't very easy. :) Emmy understood, as much as a four year old can at least, why we were there and we thought it was important for her to be with us. 

This prayer was my favorite (hopefully the Rev. Elise Barrett doesn't mind if I post this here):

    Merciful God, all that you give us is yours. 
We give you  thanks for the time we have known and loved this little one. 
We grieve that our time together is over so soon. 
We have given her the name Sara Hawley. 
"Whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's," and so we give Sara Hawley back to  
    you, knowing that her life is safe in your keeping. 
Bless her in the life to come. 
Giver her unending knowledge of your steadfast love and outpoured grace. 
Allow us to stand before you one day, no longer seeing dimly through a clouded glass, but finally
     seeing face to face.
In the name of Jesus the Christ we pray.
Amen.

Cross-stitch from my friend Sarah and the urn where some of her ashes will remain with us.

The tide swept in as soon as Charles finished scattering the ashes and took her out to sea.  The roses we tossed in kept coming back to us, so we pulled the petals off and sent those out to our girl. It was lovely to see them floating out. And of course then the sea gulls thought we were feeding them and came swooping in.

So now we get ready to make the journey back home. Tomorrow we head to Meredith's for the night, then back to Greenville and we fly back to Colorado on Saturday.  I wish we had more time to stay, to reflect, to walk the beach, but we will hope for a return trip this summer.  Charles and I both feel relieved to have this behind us. We've said good-bye and cried plenty of tears in the last (almost) 7 months, but this was an important day for us. The holidays and then this first trip "home" have been difficult. We lost her last time we were here, so this was bound to be a difficult few weeks, even without the anticipation of today. Now we try to take a big step forward. Time to go home and move into the new year, renewing our efforts to take care of ourselves better in all aspects of our lives. 

Some of you have asked "how can we pray for you?" (And I now think this is a wonderful question to ask people who are grieving or struggling in anyway.) Pray for peace for us and for all of our family. We know that time will continue to heal, but a piece of us will always be missing. A member of our family will always be gone. Pray for a new life to come into our family. We still very much want another baby, and as 35 approaches for me this year, we hope it happens soon so that my becoming "Advanced Maternal Age" doesn't add the extra layer of complication concerns to my already complicated situation. Pray for Emmy. She wanted to be a big sister so badly and seeing her love on other babies brings me joy and breaks my heart for her all the same time. Pray for other dear friends of ours who suffered a similar loss last month.

We pray that 2014 will be a wonderful year for each of you.  And for those of you regularly checking this blog, I promise I will get back to posting more regularly (Jo, Uncle R, Nancy B. and Mrs. Mac are I believe our most loyal readers). Coming back here is hard for me, these are not the types of updates I should have been posting, and that's sometimes emotional for me. But we'll get back to more "regularly scheduled programming" in the new year.

**Operational security: Dear Internet, we have friends staying at our house until we return home so it is not sitting unoccupied, thankyouverymuch.

Where we are

Or where I am at least. Sorry folks, I've slacked more on giving you the good stuff you are looking for: fun pictures! Emmy stories! There are plenty of those to share and I promise I'll eventually get around to giving you that.  Coming back here to write is proving harder than I thought.  I'm also lazy and getting pictures edited and formatted can be a tedious process, especially when you're as behind as I am, so bear with me!

We have had a busy fall with visitors, which was tons of fun, and lots of yardwork and house projects.  We had a party for Charles' shop this past weekend so we had a big crowd of Soldiers and family members over.  People stayed well past the official end time so I'd say it was a success. It's the first big to-do we've thrown here, besides Emmy's birthday party. And now Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we'll have more family coming to visit for a few days to celebrate with us, which will be great. Charles loves to entertain almost as much as I do, and we enjoy getting things all ready together. Well, maybe not the cleaning part of getting ready, hehe.

But I'm feeling sort of stuck. A failed fertility cycle after weeks of doing all the "right" things to get myself healthier, physically and mentally. There are lots of new babies and pregnancy announcements in my Facebook feed. And I'm mad, I shouldn't be here, dealing with fertility drugs and such. I should be done. I don't want to want to be pregnant again. I want my baby here now. I want to know what she would have liked, how she would have slept, when she would have smiled. I feel like I'm seeing broken pieces that I was able to ignore for awhile and so it sometimes feels so freshly overwhelming.  All Saints was emotional. And now Christmas looms, and I'm excited to decorate this year and Emmy will have a ball, but baby's first Christmas ornaments and such will be on my mind. Santa should have two little girls to shop for this year.

I'm not wallowing in it, don't get me wrong. But it's not something you just get over.  I miscarried before Emmy and that was hard, oh man that was hard. I would never diminish anyone's pain from any sort of loss, but I'm telling you for me this is different.  Everyone processes differently, I know that, but this was not a miscarriage. I suppose medically speaking it is classified as such, but this was a baby I held, I felt move for weeks and weeks. I could already make guesses about her personality just based off how she acted and reacted. I think it is easier for me to accept with the early loss that something was wrong, the pregnancy and the baby would not have been healthy and able to continue.  I still think about that loss around the time it happened, and around the time the baby should have been due (and plenty of other times).  That piece of me will always be missing, but this time, a huge piece of me is gone, and other pieces are still broken.  And losses on top of infertility, well just go ahead and kick me while I'm down.

And, there are surely moments of grace. Emmy talks about SH from time to time, more frequently lately. Maybe she's just now able to identify those broken pieces in her, too. Instead of laughing when I cry now she kisses me, tells me it'll be ok.  I've been asked to share my story for the new edition of the Hypnobirthing book by the founder, Marie Mongan. I firmly believe that my Hypnobirthing training helped make SH's arrival into this world as peaceful and blessed as it was, and if my story can help someone else, then I'm all for advocating for what I believe in.  The wonderful nurse who took care of me those two days in the hospital just found the blog and commented that it impacted her greatly, and that means so much to us.  We were very lucky to have such great, compassionate care. Every mother should be so lucky to have her wishes respected during labor and delivery like mine were.

SH's tree will also be planted this month.  Charles' Soldiers collected money after her birth to plant a tree in her memory, in the location of our choosing.  It took us some time to be ready to deal with that, but finally we decided to inquire about having one planted at Wofford. It seems a logical place since it carries meaning for both of us and it is already a national arboretum.  The cost was going to be higher than we'd anticipated, and while we weren't sure how much they had collected, we knew it wouldn't touch was was needed, but we were committed and knew we'd just pay the difference.  Some of our friends found out about it and an email started circulating.  Within a a few days the full amount had been sent in to the college on our behalf. What a gracious, touching gesture this has been from people very dear to us, and from the Soldiers who support Charles.

So here we are. Probably not the update you came looking for, but an honest one. We are all ok, still struggling and aching along, but perhaps with less of a limp now.  Thanks for all your prayers and support. And wish wish each of you love and joy in Thanksgiving.

June 12th

Today is July 12th. One month ago today I gave birth to our beautiful baby daughter, Sara Hawley.  I was 32 weeks pregnant and we learned on Monday, June 10th that her heart had stopped beating.  Charles and I spent the next two days at the hospital waiting on her to arrive

Sara Hawley was born at 3:35 pm Eastern time. She weighed 3 lbs 6 oz and she had a perfect little Hawley nose and a perfect little Dixon mouth, just like her big sister. I look at the few pictures we took after she was delivered and it brings tears to my eyes to see how much she looks like Charles.

After a month of crying, screaming, agonizing, laughing (often through tears), explaining, and questioning what happened, we're no closer to knowing why this happened, and I know we never will.  Somehow we will come to terms with that.  Things were looking so good, and then suddenly, as you know from the last post, they weren't looking as good, but we never expected this. I question if we made the right decisions, and still trying to travel. Would it have happened if we'd stayed in CO? No one knows, but that maternal guilt still sits heavy in my heart and I'm trying to work through that.

We are grateful to all our friends and family for the support. It was a blessing to be "home" in the South when this happened, to be surrounded by people who love us and could care for Emmy while we were at the hospital waiting on Sara Hawley to be delivered.  Despite the difficult circumstances, we were lucky to be at Memorial and had wonderful care, especially from the nurses and doctors assigned to me during the day shifts on Tuesday and Wednesday, and who are the ones that attended her birth. I can't say enough how grateful I am for them during those brief few minutes I breathed her into this world.

That was my one little victory in the whole miserable process: her actual delivery.  I did have an epidural, but for some reason it allowed me to not feel contractions as strongly, yet I could feel everything else and I could move around in bed and move my legs. After my water broke on it's own, suddenly my Hypnobirthing training took over and I started birth breathing (breathing the baby down) because I was feeling stronger contractions and I knew she'd been positioned pretty high up. It must have worked because with in 30 minutes, I called for the nurse and sure enough there was her head. The doctors and another nurse rushed in and bless them all, they just let me keep doing what I was doing and I brought her peacefully into this world, just like I planned. No pushing, no screaming, no counting, they just stood there in mostly in silence, sometimes encouraging me, one doctor stroking one arm, Charles stroking the other, and within 10 or 15 minutes, she was here. 

We were able to hold her but sadly she had been gone for awhile so her skin was starting to break down some and her body was not in great condition, so we did not keep her with us long. We hugged her and kissed her and told her we loved her. We called her by name, (we were going to call her by both names, Sara Hawley) and we told her how much she was wanted and loved by everyone. We marveled over how much some of her features looked like Emmy. And we cried, oh Lord we cried.  Then we let the nurse come and take her to weigh her and take care of her.

Thankfully, they let me go home a couple of hours later, and so for the second time I left the hospital without my baby, but this time she wasn't ever going to get to come home with me.

We are still heartbroken and I know we will heal, but a part of us will always be missing. We were given a book by the funeral home that friends also sent to us called Naming the Child.  In one chapter the author references C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed, in which Lewis compares himself (upon losing his wife) to an amputee, explaining:
     Although the stump of the amputated limb heals over time and the ache begins to lessen, the amputee will never again be able to live as he once did. He will have to find his way toward a new kind of normal. "He will never 'get over it,'" writes Lewis.  
She goes on to say: 
     Bereaved parents are not unlike the amputee. They will always remember that they once had a child, that their baby was an extricable, necessary part of their lives. The death of their child requires a new way of living. They must learn to live again despite this loss in their lives. Like the amputee, they will limp and ache and struggle even as their wound begins to heal.

So here we are, limping, aching, and struggling along. She never took a breath outside of me, but she was with us for many weeks, this baby we had hoped and prayed for for many years. We all three, Charles, Emmy and I, had felt her move and see her grow in my belly, and we are sad we are not all together now as a family of four.

Thank you again for your prayers for us and for our sweet baby girl, Sara Hawley.