Matthew 11:28-30

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." -Matthew 11:28-20

I had recently been researching the foundation March of Dimes and came across the tab to receive information if you've recently lost a baby. I received the information in the mail, and in one of the booklets it talks about depression and the signs and symptoms of it. Being a nurse, I am fully aware of the depression screening tools, however reading this list in front of me, made me realize that I have the majority of the signs/symptoms listed. It has taken me a week to fully grasp this and accept it. Whether it is post partum depression or generalized depression from losing my daughter I'm not sure. I also am not sure if it has been suppressed for the last few months or if it just came out of the blue as post partum depression can for up to 1 year after birth of a child.
Isaac and I went to meet with a perinatologist early last week, and it turned out to be a frustrating appointment. The doctor came in, after reviewing my medical records and obstetric history and one of the first things she said is "the good news is you have a child at home so you know you can have kids." She then told us, that she didn't believe it was an abruption (based on the pathology report of the placenta) and that due to the size of Olivia, she didn't believe it had anything to do with the placenta at all. So I am part of the 60% (unexplained loss) of the 1% of women who have stillbirths. Even though I am able to accept that no medical diagnosis will make me happy, and that this was God's plan it's still frustrating to hear. We then discussed with her what future pregnancies might be like and what extra care or monitoring I may receive. Her response to this was frustrating as well. Basically I guess I would like my very own doppler attached to my stomach at all times. She told us that they follow pregnancies, not manage them. Yes this makes sense to me, but again frustrating. There will not be "a plan" like I would like. Although I'm sure she's heard it from other women, she didn't want to discuss delivering early any future babies we may be blessed with. She threw around some statistics and evidence based practice information and of course said something to the effect of "you don't want to end up with a baby in the nicu on all kinds of machines"- well no kidding we don't want that, but if it meant we had a living, breathing baby to eventually bring home, we would take it! No I didn't say that back to her, but I really wanted to.
So all that said, I'm not sure if it was this appointment which was supposed to hopefully help us in the grieving process that brought out this sudden deep despair. Or maybe it was the very vivid description we read in our devotional book the beginning of the week to mark a week of reading about "Death". The start of the chapter gave the author's very vivid description of our very similar experience with losing a child. In it she described the coldness of her baby and giving her baby over to the mortician and putting her baby into the ground and walking away. All of those images came flooding back to my mind. Since reading that, I have finished the book Heaven is Real and am now on to a book called Heaven for 90 minutes. Reading about the experience of Heaven is giving me more hope, yet making me long for the day I will be there even more. For now I am trying to ride out this depressed period, and hoping in time it will improve on its own-well with God's help, but without medication.
Please continue to pray for us!