And with our angels...: Following my dream...

This is a post I wrote back last September. Afraid to share at the time, it serves now as a reminder to me of just how far we've come... and just how much farther we have to go.

September 10, 2015….

Another date etched into my memory and filed away as one of those “life changing moments.” Today was the day we not only celebrated Dad’s accomplishment of being selected at one of the Phoenix Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, but I also found out, life continues to give us blessings even amongst the deepest sorrow.

Today I learned we are expecting again. Unlike when I was pregnant with Noah and didn’t suspect, expect to add to our family, this time my body gave me signs right away. Getting pregnant with Noah is probably one of the top five events that have happened in my life. Up there with getting married and becoming a mom to Gabriel, Michael and Isabelle. Losing Noah was the most difficult thing I have had to endure in this life and I will never be okay with what happened. I am learning to live without him in my arms. I am learning to live with him in my life in a different way. I’m learning to love the sun rises, anticipate the sunsets and to search the sky daily for a sign of my precious baby.

Understanding what happened with Noah will never make full sense to me. I have to learn instead how to search for the truths in what happened with having and losing him. Jarrett and I have been seeing a grief counselor who is helping us to work through the loss of him. I’m finding grief presents itself in so many different forms. Our counselor, who sits across from us weekly, gives me inspiration and answers in how to go forward. She herself has traveled down this path of losing a child… not once, not twice, not even three times. Sadly, she is an expert at something no person should have to be an expert at. She has lost 4 children, two twin girls at 24 weeks when her water broke, and her 18 month old son and 5 year old daughter from an accident. The pain, grief and burden she must carry is beyond comprehensible, and yet she has found a way to live a good life (her exact words) without her children physically in her life. Jarrett and I connected immediately with her, our life stories similar in many ways. She too is a mother to an angel (4 of them), and is a Hodgkin’s Lymphoma survivor. The first time we met with her, I sat there and explained to her that the only way I had found to be able to get up each morning and protect myself from getting hurt so badly again, was to never let myself have hope. I had resigned myself to walking through this life, not anticipating the future, not hoping for certain things, but just dealing with the life I had in front of me. I shared with her that getting pregnant with Noah, was the answer to the prayer I held the longest time in my whole life. That I wanted nothing more than to be a mother and when I finally let that hope go, for my dream of being a mother came true from Gabriel, Michael and Isabelle, then God answered my prayers. I continued, “After learning we were pregnant with Noah, I held my breath for many weeks, worried something would happen. But then we made it through the first trimester and I finally exhaled. I let everything fear go and jumped in, two feet, into the pool of hope, my full heart and let myself believe our fairytale was coming true.

When our best dream turned into the worst nightmare on June 25^th I learned hope is only that… a dream of something you want, not always what you get. So I protect myself… by not allowing myself to hope. I stopped talking and waited for her to respond. While I had only known her for less than 20 minutes, it was like I could see her life replaying in her eyes. She too had lived the same feelings I currently have. She too walked the same path I’m currently on, but somehow she found a way to live a life of hope and happiness again… and to be okay with the fact that living that life, means we risk losing it all.

Laurie explained to me that currently Jarrett and I sit in the waiting room of life. Our life before that instant when Noah left us, is our life before. Who we were then is no longer who we are now. Our minds work in a way that what we learn from past experiences. Our brain trains us how to make decisions going forward based on the past. The people we were prior to June 25^th, believed it was okay to have hope, that even despite the greatest of odds, Noah was going to make it, that we were going to have a happy ending. And then… he died.

In that moment we changed. Just as Noah’s presence in our life changed. She shared with us, that while we are not okay with his death, we don’t have to like it, (actually I HATE it), we have to learn how to live with it as the truth. She is showing me, showing us, how to do that. She said, right now we are in the waiting room of life. We have been traumatized by the experience of losing our miracle baby and we are unsure how to move forward in life, to find meaning, to find hope, to live a happy life again. She used the analogy, pretend our entire family was swimming in the ocean and all of a sudden a shark attacked. Each of you were attacked and everyone made it to the shore, except Noah. You are all now sitting on the beach trying to recover and figure out what happened. As we sit on the beach, she said, if I were to ask you the last place you’d want to go, where would that place be? The answer was easy… obviously the ocean I said. She walked over to me as I sat on the other couch, reached out her arm and said, “Angie, this is why you feel the way you do. You don’t want to go out and live again the way you did prior to June 25. No one would want to go through that shark attack again. Its okay to not want to go into the ocean” I cried. She was exactly right.

And then she went back to her chair, sat down and said. Does everyone who goes into the ocean get attacked by a shark, every time they go in? I said no. She then said, “Why do people love the beach and the ocean if there is a risk they could be attacked by a shark?” I said because it’s beautiful and fun. She paused and said, “Angie, the world around you is beautiful and fun, even now. I’m gonna help you both to see it and to be able to take those steps back into the ocean. I’ve done it myself and I can help you get there.

And sitting next to the sink looking down at the pregnancy test near me, I realize, what Laurie said is right. Am I ready to wade back into the ocean and risk getting attacked by another shark? Somedays yes, most days still no. And ask scary as it is for me to think about letting myself have hope and risking it all to live life, I do know this. I want to live a life full of happiness and fun. I want a beautiful life again. And part of that beautiful life will always involve my son Noah… in a very different way than I want, but still there he will be. He has shown me beauty in things I never noticed before. His beauty comes through the pictures of rainbows shared with me, through the acts of kindness so many of you participated in with us, through the hope of what our future now brings.

On the day of Noah’s funeral, one of my great friends waited to be the last one to come through the receiving line and she embraced me with her hug. As we released, tears in our eyes, she looked at me and said, “I was talking to my mom the other night about Noah and why this had to happen. She said, I keep asking God, why he would have given him to you only to take him away.” My weary eyes and forced smile replied, “Yahaira, I have asked myself that over and over.” She grabbed my hand, and then she said, “Angie, my mom shared with me something I never thought of… what if Noah was sent to you to heal your body for future babies you may have?” With my lips pressed together, I smiled holding back tears. I too had never thought about that.

In the days, weeks and now months that have passed since Noah heart stopped beating, I’ve found my mind drifting back to what Yahaira shared. What if?

On Thursday afternoon I had debated if I should take the test. Without going into too many personal details, I knew my sister's wedding was coming up in a week or so, and as silly as it sounds, I was curious... could I drink or not. And I didn't know if my cycle would regularly return this close to having just been pregnant, but for some reason a voice in my head kept telling me to find out.

It was that voice in my head that kept prodding me as I arrived home on Thursday afternoon. I knew I had 30 minutes before the kids would get off the bus. And I can’t explain it, but I almost felt like the voice was speaking out loud… take the test, its time to know. In my mind, I felt it was Noah telling me to find out the answer. I looked under the bathroom counter and the old tests reading positive still from Noah. I can’t seem to throw them out. To me, it’s evidence he was real. I scavenged through the many supplies and realized we didn’t have any tests left. Maybe I should wait, but then again I heard the voice telling me to take the test. I jumped in the car and drove to the Wallgreens on the corner near our house. I purchased a test, a wedding card for my sister’s wedding I was leaving for in 2 days, and some candy. Still at 35 years old and married, I felt nervous buying a pregnancy test. Ridiculous, I agree.

I got home and walking in the door I remembered I had just got peed before I jumped in the car. Good thinking Ang… not really. I found a small disposable container and sat down. I put the test in and covered the tip. It was dejavu going through this again. I thought, I’m still supposed to be pregnant, how can I be taking another pregnancy test? I looked down as the urine filled the test window… right away I saw the line appear that indicates negative, and thought why did I let myself do this. I stepped outside the toilet and started washing my hands. That’s when I looked at the box that said, “Results in 2 minutes.” Silly me, I hadn’t even waiting 15 seconds. I finished washing my hands and peered back inside the restroom. There it was… a positive. I started shaking, I started crying… I looked up to praise God and him for giving me another chance at this. I then, still starting up at the ceiling, said, “Thank you Noah… thank you for healing my body.”

It was a miracle to get pregnant after 10 years of infertility, of many unsuccessful efforts, and when we conceived you, I thought my dreams were coming true. While you left my arms at almost 26 weeks, I realize how, you still made my dream come true.

Seeing the news that we are expecting again took me back to the beach conversation we had with Laurie. I guess in a way we are wading back into the ocean with great fear, but also hope that we don't experience another shark attack. Our minds have taught us to be very learly of what is on the horizon. That is normal, I think. We both have agreed to take this pregnancy as a blessing each day by day. We will be extremely cautious as we go through the next days, and weeks. We won’t look forward to months ahead but to small victories each day brings. And we have a team of medical professionals that support us as well.

They don’t know why my water broke at 23 weeks and why I went into labor so early. There is no concrete evidence to say x happened which caused y. We just don’t know. And that makes things a little bit scarier, but also it means we have a team of doctors who will be extra vigilant in watching this baby and me.

While I’m writing this on September 12, 2015, most of you will not read this until the end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016. Where last time we thought we were safe sharing the news after the first trimester, this time we’ve decided to keep this news to ourselves, for as long as we possibly can.

I pray that this story ends with a healthy baby in our arms to take home.

I pray our fifth (can hardly believe I’m saying that) child will come home with us next May, but I prepare myself for each day ahead. I do not know how this story will end. We took a big risk and that means it could end as tragic as it did with Noah. But I have to trust there is a plan for us, for this baby and that God will direct us through.