When You’re Blindsided

Ever felt completely blindsided?

 Now, I am not talking about that time you thought you might have scored tickets to the Ellen Degeneres Show or when you got that heinous credit card bill after a shameless girls trip in Vegas. I am referring to a different kind of feeling. You know, those rare heart racing moments completely deplete the air from your lungs and your mind of a clear thought.

I have known Christine from the blog Our Beautiful Hope for a few years now. I remember meeting her for the first time at a RESOLVE support group meeting I was hosting. She was filled with questions, determination and hope. I instantly thought to myself, this is my kind of people. As I got to know her, I became more and more impressed by her passion to want to help others in the journey and for her driven spirit. When she decided to start her blog I knew for certain it would be a success. In the spirit of lifting others up, today is a hard day for her so let’ life her up by reading her words.  I’ll let Christine take it from here…

 

You don’t know when it’s going to hit.

 

The avalanche. The free fall. The last step to the top of the mountain when things look beautiful and you can finally see over the hump (you made it – finally!), only to have the ground beneath your feet begin to move, tumbling out from under you, crumbling at your feet.

 

ROCK BOTTOM.  I’m pretty sure that’s where that terminology came from, because that’s exactly what it feels like…like a thousand rocks just crashed down around you and you’re buried far beneath the surface, not caring if anyone will ever find you.

 

If you’ve been there, you know it. It could be a failed IVF cycle…a failed surrogacy. It could be working for years to have a family unsuccessfully, or finding out your child or family member has a critical health diagnosis. It could be a miscarriage… or an adoption that is cancelled. The loss of a child.   

 

None of us expect these things to happen, and nothing can truly prepare us for when it hits.

 

It is not easy to mourn a heavy loss, weighted down by emotion, grief, and so much pain. Some of us want to give up – it even crosses our minds (and then we feel terrible for even thinking it) which makes us feel even worse. We don’t care what’s going on outside the four walls of whatever room we are in…it doesn’t matter. And nothing will ever matter again. How can people keep going about their business like nothing happened? EVERYTHING has changed, don’t they see that?

 

My husband and I tried for many years to conceive, and eventually, we discovered there was a medical reason we could not achieve a pregnancy the “normal way.” We started down the arduously long and tedious road to IVF, learning after our first cycle that we were pregnant. We were ecstatic. Healthy pregnancy + healthy baby. We hit the IVF jackpot.

 

We left the hospital on cloud nine (well, kind of, minus the lack of sleep and utter exhaustion on how in the world we were going to raise this tiny human). But I figured we had solved our problems. We knew what the medical issue was preventing us from having children, and we kicked its butt.

 

But…four and a half months later, on March 13, 2017, we received devastating news.

 

Our beautiful, healthy child that we had prayed for and tried for and fought for…had suffered a stroke. We had been noticing minor twitches, almost baby jerks, which had concerned us. Our pediatrician referred us to a local neurologist and there, in the early morning of a normal day, our lives changed forever.

 

They were seizures. He had a brain injury.

 

These are words no parent is ever prepared to hear. 

 

We were admitted for five days to the children’s hospital where our baby boy received a series of tests. I had never, ever seen him cry like that before. I held his face in my hands and kissed away his tears during every exam. I sat beside his bed, praying he would wake up from his sedated state after an MRI, looking at my tiny baby, wishing his eyes open and wanting to feel his warm breath on my skin again. I watched as nurses stuck him with needle after needle, drawing blood. I watched as my husband practiced injecting medication into an orange so that he could then begin to give our child shots of medication at home, and a nurse showed me how to hold my baby’s legs still for the injections. 

 

It was horrible. I kept it together at the hospital, trying to be strong, feeling like it was all going to be ok. But after all the doctors came through that week, I knew in my heart it wasn’t. This was really bad. Our child had a brain injury. He may never walk. He may never talk.

 

I lost it on my way home. It was St. Patrick’s Day.  People were getting out of work early to go drink green beer with their friends, while I sat there in my car and thought I may never hear my baby ever say “Mama” to me.

 

I felt my heart break, and I cried for so long. How could I go on? I had to nurse this baby back to health, but how? I was so weak. I didn’t feel I had the strength to continue. This baby needed me, and I had nothing left to give.

 

This happens when you’re blindsided. When something awful happens, and you feel totally alone.

 

The last year of our lives feels like a complete mess, but we’ve somewhat recovered. I can’t say we will ever be the same. What I can say is that I’ve been dreading the anniversary of his diagnosis. I don’t want to get swallowed back up by that dark hole, because I feel like it’s slowly making its way back into my life. The anniversary of his diagnosis brings back so many memories and flashbacks, but I want to use those memories for good.

 

Instead of being consumed by grief today, I wanted to share some things I’ve learned in the recovery stage, after you are blindsided.  No matter the stage of your infertility journey that you are in, I hope this helps a little.

1)      You will grieve, and it’s ok. Your grief will look different from your spouse’s grief, or your parents’ grief, or your sibling’s grief. Try not to spend too much time focusing on this – we all process it differently.

2)      You will ask yourself WHY.  Why? It crossed my mind all the time. Why would this happen? We wanted this baby SO MUCH, why us? Why did this have to happen to him? And you will go crazy asking yourself this question. Most of the time, you will never find a reason for why.

3)      Accept the help. Friends will start a meal train, or come by and clean your house, or stop by with a hand-painted cross from their child. Accept it. They are reaching out because they want to help.

4)      Many people will say the wrong thing. Loss and grief are uncomfortable and most people don’t know what to say. My sister-in-law once told me, try not to focus on what they’re saying because what they mean is “I love you” (even if those are not the actual words they are using). They just want to make it better for you, because they love you.

5)      Professional therapy may help. It may not, but consider trying it. I don’t know if I would have made it through those dark days without someone who was professionally trained in trauma and grief helping me on my road to healing. Reach out for help.

6)      You are not alone. There is someone else, somewhere in the world, going through this very same thing at this very same time. Find a support group, or a church, or even a Facebook group. Those groups answered so many of my questions and just understood me when I needed it most. Candace can put you in touch with a wealth of infertility or miscarriage resources, too.

7)      Pray. If it’s your thing. Turn to Jesus and ask for strength, for guidance, for grace. He is there with you in the valley, and he will walk you through it.

8)      Some days will be better than others. You may find that some days you can’t even get out of bed, while others you feel surprisingly ok. I can’t tell you the number of times I forced myself to go to work, only to end up shutting my office door and bawl my eyes out. I kept tissues in my office because it was becoming the norm. And then one day, I noticed I didn’t need the tissues anymore.

9)      Give yourself time. Your timetable will be different than someone else’s. Don’t rush it. Find things that brought you joy before this awful rollercoaster started and many times, it helps with healing. Paint, write, read, jam out to music…don’t bottle your feelings up. Find an outlet that works for you.

10)      It will get better. I thought my life was over, sitting in that hospital, watching the beeping monitors of my son day after day. I thought the entire course of my life would change. And, for about a year, it did. But time does heal…and while you will never forget, life does go on.

And so will you. 

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