Walking With You ~ The Ripples Flow to Our Marriage

Walking With You was created by Kelly at The Beauty of Sufficient Grace to help support those who have lost a child. Together we share our stories, helpful information, scriptures, encouraging words, prayer requests, and more.. This week, we are sharing the impact our loss(es) had on our marriage.

Sorry I missed last week, I was out of town visiting family. Between being pretty busy and spotty Internet service, it was just too difficult to get out.

Mike and I had been married over 24 years when Faith passed away. We have been a through whole lot together. There have been a lot of ups and downs. Our marriage has seemed to have it's ups and downs also. We were Christians when we married, and we have been committed to see things through. Not to say there haven't been a few times in the heat of the moment that I was ready to run. That however is not my heart, just my response when things get really tough. Mike is Mr. Steady and more level headed.

After my first miscarriage I really didn't know how to grieve. I was pretty young, 22 years old. Mike didn't handle it well, and pretty much seemed to ignore it. Mike over the years has felt really bad about this and has apologized way too much. I completely forgive him. I became pregnant two months later and that helped in the healing department even though I was a bit nervous the first half of the pregnancy. This miscarriage was also my very first pregnancy.

My second miscarriage was after I had 3 successful pregnancies. This time it hit me hard. I was a bit older and after experiencing having babies, I think I was more aware of my loss. I also believe that I was grieving for my first loss. I felt like I wanted to withdraw from the world. There was a little tension between Mike and I . It was mostly me though, I just didn't want to deal with it. I must give Mike a great deal of credit here because he was concerned for me and tried very hard to reach out to me. Again I became pregnant quickly so that seemed to help with the healing process.

When we lost Faith we had already been dealing with a great deal of stress. Having 10 living children ranging in age from 22 down to 3 is challenging in itself. Mike and I had thrown ourselves into our children's lives and didn't leave much for ourselves. We were starting to slowly grow apart. We were committed to our family and each other, but we were not as close in our relationship as we had been. The added stress of finding out that Faith had a serious heart condition certainly didn't help. We did however share our Faith in God and we trusted him with Faith's life. We were clinging to God to see us through.

The good news is that since losing Faith, our relationship has grown so much. God has definitely been working in our lives. We both were so brokenhearted that we needed each other. We needed our Heavenly Father in way that we have never experienced before.

I do believe that men and women generally grieve differently. As the mother who carried this child inside of me there is a closeness that is like no other. The Father shares a special bond too, but I believe that they often try to be the strong one, and be the one to try to "fix" the situation.

In the early days I would break out into tears, and Mike would put his arms around me and hold me. Most of the time that is all I needed. He would always ask me if he could do anything. Usually I just wanted him to hold me, sometimes I would want to talk things through. He has been here for me from day one and I am so grateful for him.

It has been over 9 months now since Faith has been gone. Our relationship is growing everyday. We are committed to God and each other, but now we are committed to working on making our relationship grow closer. It is so important to work on. Make it a priority. Yes we still have our share of stress, but we are trusting God in all things.

If I could offer a word of advice to anyone dealing with losing a child or dealing with any hardship really, is to have God on your side. Ask him to help you and give you the strength to do what is required of you. Make your relationship with God your first priority and then your relationship with your spouse next. I really don't know how anyone makes it through the trials of life without God in their life. He has always been there for me even when I have chosen to ignore him. I have to give him all the glory for anything good that has come from my life!

Blessings,

 

About Us Part 2

After Timothy was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 4 1/2, life became a bit challenging to say the least. He spent the first week in the hospital to get stabilized and started on Chemotherapy. Having a newborn that I was trying to nurse proved to be quite a challenge. They would not allow me to bring her onto the floor where Tim was staying. At first, I had my sister Debbie, and then my dear sweet friend Becky that came to the hospital with me to help. They would take care of Rebekah while I was with Tim, and then we would switch when Rebekah needed to nurse. After the initial first week stay, we brought Tim home for a couple of days, but then returned for a couple of more weeks. The hospital eventually changed their policy to accommodate nursing mothers, but it was too late for us!

It is quite amazing how God puts two people together in a marriage. How we react to things and how we handle things can be so very different, yet it can be so good! The night Tim was diagnosed my husband Mike was pretty much a basket case. I on the other hand seem to be handling things pretty well. The doctors actually thought there was something wrong with me because I wasn't a basket case. Six years prior, my sister's son had been diagnosed with Leukemia, and I was familiar with some of the things going on. I just had to function so that we could get through this. Mike had mentioned that we should not have any more children . I am not exactly sure of his reasoning, but I told him that I did not think that this was the time to make that kind of decision. After a few days, Mike was doing much better, and I became the basket case. After all, I had just given birth, so my hormones were going crazy, and my son had just been diagnosed with Leukemia. God's presence was felt so much during this time. I not going to say it was easy, but God's Hand was quite obvious. Tim had Chemotherapy for 2 1/2 years. He had a central line that made life a little easier. It gave access so that he could have blood draws and transfusions without having to be stuck. We actually did some chemotherapy at home as well as other transfusions. Mike and I had learned quite a bit of knowledge that we probably assumed that we didn't have to learn.

Tim did so very well, and didn't get too very ill. He only had a couple of hospitalizations due to running a fever. Both times were on a Friday . They made us come in any time he would run a fever. Both times proved that he just had a virus like the other kids and no big deal. He got out on Monday and was good as new. We were very busy with four kids, school and Chemotherapy. In September of 2005, we found out we were expecting baby #5! This was a few months before Tim finished Chemo. Victoria was Born in 1996 and this was after Tim was all done with Chemo.

When Victoria was nine months old we had a very big surprise! I had become pregnant again with baby #6. We were not exactly expecting this because the rest of the children had pretty much been "planned out", but we were still very excited. Matthew was born in 1997.

When I was pregnant with Matthew I bought a book called A Full Quiver by Rick and Jan Hess. I had bought it because I was seeking encouragement about having a large family. After having more than two kids, people generally feel they need to make a comment about having so many children. It was wearing on me even though I enjoyed my big family and I needed some encouragement. Reading the book really spoke to my heart. It talks about letting God have control of your fertility, ( also known as being quiverfull or QF) . I really felt that is what God had called us to do, but I needed for Mike to be on the same page. This is not something I wanted to talk him into, I wanted it to be from God. I had asked him to read the book and then let me know what he thought about it. I was very anxious to know when he was done,and what he thought, but I gave him time and space. Eventually I did ask him if he was done with the book yet, and he said yes. I then asked well, what do you think about it? He said that it made sense and agreed that is what we should do. So that is when we gave our Fertility over to the Lord.

Samuel was born in 1999 followed by Anna in 2001, Luke in 2003, and Micah on in 2005. So it seemed we would have a baby every two years. Micah was born five days after my 41st Birthday. It seemed that my fertility was slowing down. I was starting to think that my baby days were coming to a close. In March 2008, I was pleasantly surprised by a positive pregnancy test. This meant I was due with a baby in November 2008! I will share more about this pregnancy very soon. This is how baby Faith came into our lives.

Until next time,

 

About Us Part 1

My name is Karen and I have been married to my dear husband Mike since 1984. We did not set out to have a lot of children, but little by little, God surely changed our hearts. We were going to have the average 2 children, but possibly stretch that to 4. The plan was that I was going to keep working after having children, but that idea was quickly changed .

Our first pregnancy ended in miscarriage at 13 weeks in October 1985. We became pregnant again 2 months later with our first child Jeremy, who was born in 1986. Well, that did it for me, I was in love with my new baby and I loved being a Mommy. There was no way I was going to leave this baby with someone else all day. So, that is when I became a stay at home Mommy. We went on to have a few more children and life was busy.

Timothy was born in 1988 and Joshua in 1991. Six months after Joshua was born I unexpectedly became pregnant again. Quite a surprise, but I still was very excited! The doctor could hardly believe that I could be pregnant again so quickly, especially since I was exclusively nursing. However, I miscarried that pregnancy at nine weeks. We decided to go ahead and try again soon after, and the following month I became pregnant again. Rebekah was born in 1993.

June of 1993 was mixed with great joy with the birth of our first daughter and sorrow with the death of my brother Doug 4 days later. To add to our grief, when Rebekah was 15 days old, our son Timothy was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 4 1/2. Needless to say our world was turned up side down.