Day 23 of 100 Days of Grief

"Apology is a lovely perfume; it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift."

-Margaret Lee Runbeck

I skipped last nights blog post because I didn't want to do it.  It started out as a good day.  I got Henry to school, I spent time studying, I got Hannah ready for school and went to the temple.  This last year I made the goal to go to the temple each week and was able to go until I got sick.  It provided me with a lot of peace and comfort when I went.  I told Nick it's what made me a semi decent parent.  

After I miscarried you can imagine that I wanted some of that peace that I had before so three weeks after my miscarriage and two weeks after my surgery I went to the temple.  It was horrible.  Just so so bad.  I couldn't find my recommend and then ended up missing the session by just a minute or so and it just went down hill from there.  I couldn't concentrate.  I couldn't remember what to do and I came home pretty upset.  Looking back now I'm thinking doing a session probably wasn't a good choice.  I could barely walk up stairs and standing up was still difficult.  

I tell you this because yesterday I was a bit worried about going back to the temple.  I didn't want to have another bad experience.  Luckily it was just what I needed.  I still struggled concentrating but it helped me take a breath a bit.  It gave me perspective.  I'm really glad to know that I will be able to be with my babies again.  It's hard to think that for this lifetime I won't get to spend the time I want with them but knowing I will get to be with them after this life really comforts me.  I have to tell myself sometimes that this lifetime is just a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of eternity.  It has helped me this week to think I'll see her again.  

I've been thinking about how God really is merciful.  Nick and I met up in Alaska and when we met I wasn't very active in my religion.  I wasn't sure what I believed in but as we got more serious with dating it made me really think about what I wanted my life to look like.  I told Nick then that I wanted to start going back to church and if we got married I'd want to my children to grow up in that church.  Nick was super supportive and even took some missionary discussion while we were in Alaska.  He decided though that he wasn't really interested and that was fine with me.  

We ended up getting married and we moved down to Orem, Utah.  We had Henry and I took him to church with me and we came home to Nick.  Nick never gave me grief about going and supported me wholeheartedly but never was interested.  I always hoped that Nick would come around and he did another couple sets of missionary discussions but wasn't interested.  

We then moved to Saratoga Springs and we had amazing ward.  It was the first time that I really felt like I belonged in a ward and enjoyed doing my callings and really committed myself to learning about God and my relationship with him.  While there I prepared myself and went through the temple.  I remember talking with my bishop at the time about how it was hard to think that even though I was getting my life in line my children wouldn't be with me after I died because I hadn't been sealed to Nick in the temple.  It brought me a lot of sadness but my bishop told me that if I kept my covenants the Lord would take care of the rest.

At the time I had to hold onto that and in the back of my head I told myself that maybe in this lifetime it wouldn't be possible but maybe someone would do our work after we had died.  It was still very hard though when I thought that my children possibly wouldn't be with me for the eternities.

Then we moved out to Eagle Mountain.  We had Hannah and I struggled taking the two kids to church by myself when they were so young.  Most Sunday's I'd go home crying and upset so I stopped going.  I would rather just spend our Sunday's together home as a family enjoying each others company.

A couple years later I went back to church with the kids and someone asked if it would be okay if he came over to visit.  I said yes and he convinced Nick to talk to the missionaries again.  I say convince but really Nick will tell anyone yes because he's so kind.  I was pretty skeptical.  Nick had been through so many missionary discussions I really didn't think it would go anywhere.  But it did.  Nick ended up getting baptized two Octobers ago.  It was a bit of a whirlwind to me.  I was so very very happy because I knew that it was a step closer to getting my family sealed.  

While Nick was doing the discussions I had my second miscarriage.  It was difficult and I brushed it aside.  I didn't want to deal with it.  Nick and I kept going to church and Nick was amazing.  He did all the things and I was always so astonished and just so overwhelmingly happy.  Then we got pregnant right as we started doing our preparations to have Nick go through the temple.  While being sick and struggling it always brought me so much happiness to think that when we were sealed I would have a brand new baby there with us.  It really helped me have something to look forward to that brought me joy.  And then I lost her.

Nick was amazing and continued with his preparations and now we are going to be sealed on February 1st.  I've told people that I have bittersweet feelings toward it.  I've looked forward to this happening for almost 10 years.  But I was hoping to have my sweet little baby girl there with us.  And for that reason I think it will be a bit difficult.  

But I've been thinking that if Nick hadn't been baptized and I didn't know that we were so close to being sealed losing these babies would have been truly terrible.  I think God knew that I wouldn't have been able to handle these loses before knowing that we were on the right track to be sealed.  If I lost them when I didn't know if Nick and I would ever be sealed I'm sure I would have devastated and I'm quite sure I wouldn't have been able to recover.  I've told friends before that if I ever had a miscarriage or lost a child it would break me and I wouldn't be able to survive it.  It has broken me but I think I'm able to keep going because I know that I will have all my babies with me in the eternities.  It helps to know I'll see them again.  It gives me hope.  

I've always thought that God leads you where you need to be.  Even when you aren't aware of what He's doing.  I think He wants to heap on all the blessings and do all He can to help and I think He was preparing Nick and I both for going through these hard things.  There are definitely days that I want to yell at Him and feel sorry for myself for what we've had to endure.  But as I think over the last couple months I can't deny that that He was continually sending blessings and sending people to us that we needed.  He was sending His love through all the love people were giving me.   I believe He put people in our lives that we needed to help us go through this.  

Today's prompt is about understanding when others say, "I'm sorry".  I have never struggled with this.  I remember the day I found out that I had lost Hope I sent a message to my relief society president to ask her to stop having people come clean and doing dinners because I didn't need them anymore.  We had lost our baby.  That night I received messages from so many people telling me how sorry they were for the loss of my baby.  Every text made me cry because I was sad but also because I knew that they loved me and were with me in my heartache.  

Most everyone says they are sorry and it never bugged me.  It just made me feel loved to know that they would reach and let me know that they cared.  It's true when people say it, it makes me sad because it reminds me that I lost her but I feel blessed I have people that would say they were sorry.  

Today's prompt:  Think about what you will say to the next person who tells you he/she is sorry.  Maybe you could respond by sharing more of your experience, which will help you mourn and also educate them about miscarriage loss.

Texts are really nice now because you can love something or like something.  Whenever sends a text telling me they are sorry I put a heart to it because sometimes it's hard to put into words that you're so very sad that they are saying sorry but love that they are thinking of you and you appreciate their love.  When someone usually says sorry to me I always thank them and give them a hug.  I just feel so much love from everyone and as I go through this experience it's made me really know how loved and blessed we are to have so many wonderful people in our lives.