PoP Workshop: Session 3

For the full explanation of the workshop, please visit Rachel's blog entry: Pursuit of Purpose: Session 3

This has been a tough exercise for me.  We are to use the events of brokenness we defined for ourselves in session 1 to establish what meaning we attach to each of these events.

Like Rachel mentions in her blog entry, I also believe that it's human nature to make sense of everything that happens to us, especially when that something, is not a good thing.  And for the most part, we do attach a negative meaning to these events.  "I must have done something wrong" is a thought I'm sure most of us have had at some point in our lives.

Finding the negative meanings in relation to my events of brokenness is difficult.  Not for all of them, but for several of them because I feel like I've been able to put those pessimistic views about them behind me.  I've grown.  So, I dug deep to see if I still somehow had negative connotations linked to these events.  For those I didn't, I used a notion that I had in the past.

Depression

Now, I am not a doctor, and I was never diagnosed with depression, but I do strongly believe that I developed it in the months after moving the to States.  I was uprooted.  I didn't have a job, couldn't have a job for 6 months, and I knew next to no one.  When I first found out I wouldn't be able to work for 6 months, I was actually excited! Extended vacation!! No, not at all.  I had zero motivation to get anything done.  I let fear control me - not knowing my surroundings, not being comfortable with the new speed limits and the miles versus kilometers.  I let it run my life.  When I finally was able to get a job and got a job, things finally fell into place.  I was a "little" more outgoing, I wasn't as frightful about everything.  So now, the meanings I attach to my depression, the beliefs I have in them, I try to steer clear of, so that I do not go down that path again.

• Unmotivated
• Fear
• Disorganized
• Indiffirence

And steering clear of these, not always easy.  Let me tell ya...

Miscarriage

I remember all too well the emptiness I felt when I first saw blood during my pregnancy in 2012.  I knew.  Then the tests, the silence of the ultrasound tech.  The look in the nurses' eyes, and the squeezing of my hand.  And then the doctor saying "I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat".  Crushed.  Devastated.  This baby that I'd wanted for so long, that we'd wanted for so long but that we had needed to put off due to my health.  I felt responsible.  I felt like this wasn't meant to be for me.

A few months later, I was in the hospital due to sharp, unending pangs of pain in my chest and in my back.  I was diagnosed with a bowel obstruction.  I would have been 13-14 weeks pregnant with the baby we'd just lost.  It had been a blessing in disguise that our little one stopped growing at 6 weeks, even though we didn't find out until 3 weeks later.  My health was not good.  My condition would have made for a most difficult pregnancy.  Even if the baby didn't somehow suffer the consequences of my illness, I can't see that it would have been a healthy baby.  Would I have loved this baby even if it wasn't? Hell yes!  However, I wouldn't ever want to see a child, never mind my child, be in pain because of something I did, even if I don't really have total control over my health.  What would the pain meds have done to my child?  Could I have gotten better without meds?  I was so weakened because I couldn't eat.  I was nauseous all the time and I'm not talking morning sickness here.  I can't imagine it would have given quality of life to my child.  My GI always says, healthy mom equals healthy baby.  I would only assume that the opposite rings true.  

I suspect that I was pregnant again when I went in for this bowel obstruction, in May 2012.  It was never confirmed, but the timing of the bleeding.. I just know.  I didn't take it as hard, given the circumstances of my health, but it was something I thought about a lot.  I grieved, but it was very short lived.

The notions I attach to my miscarriage(s)?  I've had a hard time with this one.

• Acceptance
• Empathy

Health Issues

Growing up, an upset stomach was a common occurrence for me.  Test after test, nothing.  There's nothing wrong with me.  Yet, all those times in the bathroom where I felt so sick, so ill that I'd plead with God, "why me", "what did I do to deserve this".  Over dramatic?  Maybe, but severe pain can do crazy things to your mind.

It wasn't until I was 18 that I found out that yes, something what wrong with me.  I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, an incurable disease, and prescribed 15 pills to take every day.  Quite the blow to my 18 year old self.  It was something I struggled with, mentally and physically for years and years.

ER visits became almost yearly occurrences.  I would shy away from social engagements for fear of eating something my body wouldn't tolerate.  Crohn's can be an embarrassing disease, if you let it.  I struggled with the ups and downs of flare-ups for over a decade.  I was tired all the time, without even realizing it.  I constantly had to learn to shift my diet to what my body had decided to digest for a specific period of time.  I had to completely cut out certain foods from my diet.  It was a lot of adjusting, and re-adjusting.

With time, I began to understand my body a lot better.  It's difficult to trust it completely, because from flare to flare, what my body tolerates is different.  I haven't flared since my surgery in October 2012, but that possibility is always present and it tends to make me nervous when in unfamiliar territory.  Remicade, the drug protocol I'm on to "maintain" Crohn's, or keep flares at bay if you rather, has helped me regain trust in my body.  It's helped bring back some stability.

Unfortunately, my health issues haven't been limited to Crohn's.

During the late stages of my pregnancy with Preston, I developed pre-eclampsia, and soon after, the HELLP syndrome.  Pre-eclampsia is a condition some women develop during pregnancy, usually later stage of pregnancy, with the primary symptom of elevated blood pressure. The HELLP syndrome is a liver disorder, life-threatening disorder that is.  This disorder causes your red blood cells to breakdown, your liver enzymes to increase and your platelet counts to go down.  Put all that together and it's pretty scary.  Not only was my baby in danger, but my own life was in danger.  Worse part is, none of the symptoms were obvious, and they weren't painful... How does one know??  The cure?  Giving birth is supposed to make the symptoms of both pre-ecalmpsia and HELLP syndrome go away withing 2-3 days.  My blood pressure stayed elevated for months, and I had to be on meds for over 6 months.  My baby was born way underweight, like if I hadn't been eating for months.  He had no "chub".  Aside from that, he was perfectly fine.  Just a little small, and a little too early.  He caught up fast.  To this day though, I feel like I didn't give him the best chance.  I feel like my body failed me, when it was most important that it didn't.

Still, to this day, I wish I had gone to see my doctor sooner.  My swelling was abnormal.  My weight gain in a week, alarming.  Somehow though, my blood pressure was fine when I went to the doctor on November 18, 2013.  It was normal.  Other signs concerned them though so they drew blood for testing and told me to be prepared to go to the hospital that night.  And we did.  I was given medicines to make my blood pressure drop fast.  Quite honestly, I don't remember much about that night, or the whole next day.  I remember being told I was going for a c-section and vaguely remember holding Preston for the first time.  I wish I remembered more considering I just have 16 weeks of memories.  Premature birth is a risk factor for SIDS.  That there alone has been a difficult factor for me to swallow.  I didn't trust my gut to go see the doctor earlier.  Maybe I could have gone on bed rest and he would have gone full term and he'd still be here today.

I could drive myself crazy right now, like I have before.  I won't.  I cannot change the past.  I cannot change the way my body works, or rather doesn't work.  That being said, what notions do I tie with my health issues?

• Strength 
• Fear
• Perseverance

Losing Preston

I still struggle with the fact that my baby boy is no longer on this Earth.  I struggle with it every day, yet find a way to go about my day.  I survive.  Some days, it's easier to survive, while others, it's hard just to breathe.  I've tried to find new motivations, new passions.  Some have worked, some have not.  Since walking out of the fog that was the early stages of grief, I've needed to share my son with the world, or at least try to.  I've needed to share my feelings, my grief, my way, with others, in the hopes of touching one person going through a difficult time.  Hoping that perhaps, one step that I've taken, is what they feel they need to do.  Hoping that maybe it shows others that while it feels impossible to survive the loss of a child, it is possible, through terribly difficult.

What notions do I attach to losing my son?  So many, but probably most of all:

• Losing my faith in God
• Hopelessness
• Not meant to have children
• Survival

Those are my beliefs.  We tend to turn these beliefs into stories, our stories.  After a lot of meditation, here are mine.

Depression: When unmotivated, my being becomes unorganized, fearful, and susceptible to the dark side.  The more that is true, the less I care.

Miscarriage(s):  Your journeys shape you into who you are, and better prepare you for the ones to come.

Health Issues:  I can overcome anything life throws at me, as long as I have the right attitude.  

but...

Losing Preston: Why didn't God listen to my prayers? What did I do to deserve this? Can I really overcome anything, or am I just going through the motions?

Stay tuned for session 4.