Life Outside The Lines

Archives for June 2018

Please Don’t Take My Sunshine Away {Pregnancy After Loss}

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I remember my mom used to sing that sweet song “You are my sunshine” to my siblings and me all the time. I loved hearing her voice, expressing how much she loved me through the lyrics. If I close my eyes, I can still hear her. That memory will be engrained in my heart and mind forever. Those lyrics took on whole new meaning for me when I realized I was pregnant six months after losing Gianna. “Please don’t take my sunshine away” was my constant prayer and plea.

When I thought I might be pregnant with Lucas, I took the pregnancy test early one morning with trembling hands. I never prayed harder than I did in those two minutes it took for those little lines to appear. My mind was flooded with a million thoughts as I waited. In the stillness of the morning, all I could hear was the sound of my heart pounding within me, powered by adrenaline, excitement, and a deep, deep fear. I deeply desired to know I could get pregnant again; I was desperate to know that my future contained a child, at least one. “Please, just give me one child alive in my arms,” was my desperate prayer. I didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl. I didn’t care what it looked like. I didn’t care if it was healthy or not. Alive in my arms was my only requirement. Particularities go out the window after you bury a child. Once it was revealed I was pregnant, of course I was ecstatic. It was the answer to a million hopes, dreams, and prayers. But then, without delay, the inundation of fears, worries, and terrifying thoughts took over my mind and heart. Tears of worry and panic started to stream down my face. I so desperately wanted the spark of joy I felt to overpower the fear. I wanted joy to pin down all my anxieties and declare victory! But in that moment, it was unfortunately losing the fight. [Read more…]

Grief and Identity

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Life is full of challenges. There has never been anyone who could say that they did not suffer or experience setbacks. We struggle to move forward but sometimes experience more retrograde motion. What makes some people able to cope and overcome the vicissitudes of their existence and others to crumble beneath them is still somewhat of a mystery for psychology. May was dedicated to increasing awareness of mental health issues, and though this post is not quite in time technically, it is still a good opportunity to reflect more on the challenges that we all experience in life, and grow in appreciation for those who suffer psychologically.

Grief is a reality that touches so many of us along our voyage. Loss is inevitable, and all losses touch us in a deep way that leaves us changed for the rest of our lives. My and Amy’s experience of losing Gianna Rose certainly matches that description. If you’ve followed Amy’s writings on this blog you certainly have a sense of the earth- shattering effects of losing an infant. We were just watching a TV show that depicts a prisoner who has been given hope of receiving a crucial medication she had been deprived of, only to have that hope dashed. It was a good example of psychological torture – building up an artificial hope just to smash it to pieces. The end result is worse than never having had the hope in the first place. That is a shadow of what it was like to experience Gianna getting bigger, bonding with her as she developed throughout the 10 months of pregnancy, only to have her stolen from us when she was a mere 4 days old.

We all have a picture of ourselves in our mind. It’s a complex one, involving our strengths, weaknesses, virtues and flaws, how we see humanity and God, good and evil, and whole host of other things that are woven into a single tapestry that is what we call our identity. You look in the mirror and you see one image staring back at you. Sure, we all have incongruities and disintegrated parts: that is the work of personal growth that always lies ahead of us. But we see ourselves as one and it makes sense to us most of the time. This sense of who we are informs much of our behavior and provides us with a sense of stability that supports what we do in our day-to-day lives. We aren’t usually aware of the role that our sense of self plays, and it can certainly be taken for granted. [Read more…]

Let’s Talk Self-Care {For the Grieving Parent}

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Errands, appointments, social commitments, work, projects, to-do lists. The list goes on. This is life. And for most people like me, life is busy. Top all of that off with the baggage of grief and I am completely drained. There is not one ounce of energy left at the end of the day. Not one ounce.

I like to think that grief is the opposite of a feeding tube. Instead of the tube giving the body life-giving nutrients, the tube is constantly sucking life out of me. On top of all my worries, fears, and things to do on a daily basis, I also have grief to manage. It’s the background music that is constantly playing in my mind, distracting me and not allowing me to be fully present. Grief is my constant companion which thankfully reminds me of my daughter and makes her more present in my life. But it also takes me away from myself and those around me. It’s all about balance and that’s where self-care comes in.

Self-care. We’ve heard the term. We might even know that it is something important. But who has time for that? Where can I fit that in the calendar? Usually our agenda is so full, self-care gets put to the wayside. [Read more…]

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