Ya’ll ready to try and win some ice cream? Just sign the Mr Linky (one time only, please) and link to the post that you consider an example of your best! You can write a new one, link to an old one, republish an old one…but it has to be yours, and the link has to be to the specific post, not just your blog.
On Friday, June 20 I will draw one random winner from the Mr Linky participants to win a $15 Cold Stone Creamery gift card. And if you don’t have a Cold Stone near you, I’m sorry for the joy that you are missing out on. But I will send you a gift card to the eatery of your choice, as long as I can order it online.
It’s not required, but it would be nice if you spread the word about the giveaway!
Ok, link up and share your best post!
I don’t know if this is my best written post, but it is my most read post, receiving multiple hits a day from various internet searches. I’m republishing it for the giveaway.
On Grief and Miscarriage
If you haven’t read my 100 things post, then you probably don’t know that I had a miscarriage in 2003. It’s been on my mind lately. I can go for months without thinking about it, and the heartache that first accompanied it is gone, but sometimes I can’t get it out of my head.
We were living in Japan at the time, and Chloe was a little over a year old. I had suspected I was pregnant before I was far enough along to even take the test, so by the time I got a positive result, I was ready to tell people! We called family and friends in the States, but waited to tell our friends in Japan until Christmas day, when we went to a Christmas lunch with people from our church. Then we made the announcement.
On Christmas night I was serving dinner for just our small family when I felt a wetness. I remembered that it wasn’t uncommon during my first pregnancy, and I forced myself not to run to the bathroom to look for signs of blood. I’d had a completely safe pregnancy with Chloe, so I didn’t really have a reason to suspect anything was wrong, and was really trying to trust God that everything would be safe this time around, too.
But it was harder to trust the second time.
But the feeling persisted, and got worse, and so finally I went to the bathroom. I sat down on the toilet and checked my underwear. They were black, so they didn’t really tell me anything.
Then I looked in the toilet water.
And my heart stopped.
And my throat seemed to swell so that I couldn’t breathe.
I went out and told Isaac that we needed to go to the doctor because I was bleeding. A lot. We called a friend to take Chloe, and by the time we got to the bottom floor of our apartment building my friend’s husband was there to take her. It was that moment that it hit Isaac how serious the situation was, and he not only made the connection that we might lose our baby, he also really connected to the baby for the first time. We hadn’t yet had an ultrasound and I wasn’t far enough along to feel the baby move, so the pregnancy hadn’t become real to him until he realized that it might be over.
We went to the base doctor who checked me and then sent us out to the Japanese OB/GYN who had delivered Chloe. They drew blood for an hcg test, and gave me injections to stop the bleeding and admitted me overnight.
And all night all I could think was, “Did I flush my baby down the toilet?”
I had to immediately wean Chloe, who absolutely refused to drink any form of milk or formula. The doctor gave me medicine, but I didn’t know what it was. “Chinese herbs. For bleeding.” I was told. I had the second blood draw for the hcg test, but I had to wait for the results. New Year’s is a huge holiday in Japan, and the country pretty much shuts down from Christmas until after New Year’s. The lab would not process my blood, and I had to go home and wait 10 days to find out if I had lost my baby.
If I had flushed it down the toilet.
It’s strange how your status changes when you experience something like a miscarriage. I suddenly felt like a cautionary tale. I could see the relief in some of the mom’s eyes, the pity they felt for me, yet they were so glad it wasn’t them.
Isaac was wonderful during the wait, and I fell in love with him even more. After I came back from the hospital, he told me, “I don’t really know what to do for you. What do you need from me during this time?” And he gave me everything I needed from him.
When the 10 days were finally up and we went back to the hospital, I was scared yet hopeful. I had scoured the internet and found stories of moms who had bled and hemorrhaged yet hadn’t miscarried. I went in to the Japanese doctor’s office and sat down. He looked at me and said, “No baby. Please wait outside.”
And just like that it was over and I knew.
I had flushed my baby down the toilet.
I felt incredibly comforted by God during that time. I felt like He just kept whispering in my ear the He was still good. I was heartbroken, yet He was good. I knew Psalm 139 and absolutely believed that God had created the baby to grow for only those few weeks, and it wasn’t an accident. God didn’t suddenly decide I was unworthy. He didn’t say, “Oops, Christy got pregnant. I’d better fix that.” No, He knew exactly how long that baby would be in my womb before He called her home. Why would He give her and take her away so quickly? I didn’t know, but I knew He was good and I knew she was in heaven and I knew I would see her one day. We named her Lily. And I sometimes laugh at the picture of me arriving in heaven one day to meet a son named Lily.
Some friends helped. They brought by food and snacks, and didn’t push but were just there. Most people made things worse for me. One mom said to me, “I’ve never actually talked to someone who had a miscarriage. What was it like?” As if I should be able to calmly explain what it’s like to flush your baby down the toilet just days after you’ve done it. People tried to be encouraging, and said, “At least you weren’t further along.” As if I was any less pregnant at 6 or 8 weeks than I would have been at 15 or 16. One night during our wait that Isaac and I had actually managed to enjoy and feel happy, a friend stopped by. We opened the door to discover his long, sad face, and in his best Ray Romano voice he said, “Hiiiiii. I just…wanted…to see how you’re…doing….” And then with his sigh, he leeched from us the small amount of joy we’d managed to find.
I went on to have two more healthy babies. And I still believe that while I don’t know why, God intended my baby to be inside me for only a few weeks and she now lives with Him in heaven. And I know that one day, because Jesus is my Lord and Savior, I will be in heaven to meet my daughter.
Or maybe an outraged son named Lily.
I’ve been trying to catch up on responding to your comments and visiting your blogs lately, but it’s slow going. I will be around to say hi to everyone, but I thought this might be fun-
Next Monday I will put up a Mr Linky, and ya’ll can link up to either your favorite post you have written OR a recent post you wrote that you’d love for people to read and comment on.
And, so that you’ll have something to keep you cool while you read people’s posts, on Friday I’ll give one random blogger from the Mr Linky a $15 Cold Stone Creamery gift card. And if there’s no Cold Stone in your area we will pity you. And then I will send you a gift card to the eatery of your choice.
Hmm…maybe I need to name this and make a button.
Because you all know how much I love to make buttons, right?
Ok, so here it is
And the small version
*I’ve checked and quadruple checked (actually more than quadruple checked, but I can’t think what the proper word for that is right now) the code and I know I have it right, yet I still can’t get it to work so that you can just cut and paste the graphics! But you can click them and it will take you to flickr where you can click on the “All Sizes” button and then download the size you like and use it.
Now I’m excited! And I used up all my blogging time making those buttons and searching for the html to make those scroll bars (which are no longer there because the stinkin’ html isn’t working right). Start looking for your best post to link to!
Today I have the fun of doing my first interview! Kendra Leigh Castle is a mom and Navy wife just like me (and some of you) but she has also just published her very first book! Read on to learn a little about her, and if you comment on this post before Saturday morning, TWO of you will win a copy of her first book, Call of the Highland Moon!
1. Ok, let’s say we’re actually meeting at Starbucks instead of doing this over email. I’m having a peppermint mocha. What are you drinking? I always order the same thing: a grande vanilla latte. Vanilla + foam+ lots of caffeine = perfection.
2. How many years have you been a Navy wife? Ten years this month, actually!
3. How many places have you lived? Well, I stared in New York, then moved to Pensacola, Corpus Christi, Meridian (MS), Virginia Beach , Fallon (NV), and in a month, Lemoore (CA). But I’m in North Carolina right now with family:-) Moving boxes are starting to make me phobic.
4. Do you have children? I’ve got three, ages 8, 6, and 2. A girl and two boys. The older two spend most of their time trying to annihilate one another, and the youngest one is currently exploring future career options as a stripper.
5. How did you get started writing? I’ve been writing since I was really little, actually. It started with bad holiday poetry, but by high school a friend and I were filling notebooks with this meandering, bizarre, hysterical (we thought) thing that we just called “The Story.” It was so much fun, I didn’t realize it was actually three years of a creative writing exercise. I won a schoolwide contest my junior year to have an article I’d written published in a local paper, and then in college, a goofy little story I’d written made it into the campus literary magazine. So it was always a strong part of who I was…it just never occurred to me that I might be good enough to make a living at it. Or if it did, my strong fear of rejection kept me from getting very serious about it!
6. How did the military lifestyle affect your writing? Honestly, I don’t think I would ever have decided to take the plunge and really try to get published if I hadn’t been a military wife! Watching my husband, who’s a Navy fighter pilot, live out his dream has been a big inspiration for me to do what I love. That, and knowing so many amazing Navy wives who manage to carve out their own niches, just for themselves, despite being moved all over the country at regular intervals. The military lifestyle itself has, I know, made me much more resilient in general, and has given me confidence in my abilities. Because, you know, when the bad stuff happens and he’s gone (AGAIN), you’re “it”! I won’t say that I never despaired (like, say, over the first manuscript I ever wrote that now lives in the recesses of my closet with a stack of rejection letters), but the writing helped center me amidst the daily insanity. I had to keep trying. And my husband was never going to let me quit anyway…I would have had a boot up my butt immediately. I grouched sometimes, but the support made a huge difference.
7. What’s your favorite snack while writing? This is tough, mostly because I love snacks. If it’s available and crunchy, I’ll probably eat it. And get crumbs in my keyboard. That said, original flavor Baked Lays are right up at the top of the list!
8. Tell us about your first book. What do you love most about it? My first book, Call of the Highland Moon, is about a werewolf named Gideon MacInnes, the reluctant future alpha of his Highland pack, and the shy bookshop owner he falls for when he’s attacked and she takes him in out of a snowstorm in Northern New York. Of course, she thinks he’s a wounded dog at the time…but by the time she figures out otherwise, the creatures hunting Gideon for his connection to an ancient and powerful relic have targeted her as well. Although Gideon and Carly Silver quickly forge a deep bond, Gideon knows all too well that mating with a werewolf can be deadly for humans. But with enemies closing in, and the legendary Stone of Destiny only just beginning to reveal its secrets, the two of them are soon in far too deep to turn their backs on one another. Can their love survive against impossible odds? Only the full moon will tell.
I love a lot of things about this book (after all, it’s the one that won me an agent and sold), but my favorite aspect of it is still the way my hero and heroine, Gideon and Carly, interact with one another. From the very beginning, they just clicked, and their banter was a lot of fun to write. Both speak sarcasm, which is like a second language to me:-) Spooling up their sexual tension before I finally let it rip was, I admit, also entertaining. I love those characters. I’ve had a few emails from people telling me that they hope I’ve included Carly and Gideon in my second book, Dark Highland Fire, which somes out in October, because they really connected with them and want to check in and see how they’re doing. And I did, actually, because I wanted to check in with them too! But that makes me happy, that the heart I put into the characters has come across to others so well.
9. What have you learned about following your dreams while balancing family? In a nutshell: that it’s possible. Being a mom and Navy wife, there were a lot of years where I didn’t think I had any room to add something just for myself to the mix…just holding everything else together was a struggle! But I hit a point where I realized that I really needed to take care of myself as much as I was taking care of everyone else, that besides being a wife and mother I was still the kid who had filled pages with stories and dreamed big, and that that should be important too. It’s not an easy balancing act, for sure. I don’t sleep as much as I should, and I’m more caffeinated than I ought to be. I’ve always been kind of a stress case anyway, though, chewing over the most nebulous concerns with gusto, so it could be a good thing that I have more concrete things to worry about with my work! So there has definitely been sacrifice involved, but I’m happier for actively chasing my dream. And having my husband and kids be as proud of me as I am of them is an amazing feeling.
Congratulations to Kendra! Remember, to be entered to win one of two copies of her book, just leave a comment on this post before Saturday morning. Or you can hop over to Amazon.com right now and buy a copy or five for everyone you know, and support a fellow military mama. And spread the word about the giveaway and Kendra’s first book!
on April 22nd, 2008 at 8:22 am
I love a plain old vanilla steamer. Simple and comforting.
owatz(AT)telus(DOT)net
Please send me your contact info by Monday!
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